Before you speak calm your mind.

"Before you speak calm your mind. You cannot speak peace from a place of chaos, anger or depression."

The first thing I ever wrote dates back to my childhood years. I was 7 years. Yes, 7 years. All those story books were paying their overdue debts and I was cashing them in. It was a love letter-yes, a love letter to a girl I had a huge crush on. It was the last day of school in second grade and I was smitten by the sound of her voice. She was cute in every way and quite a catch too. So, on the last day of the third term of school, I wrote her a love note detailing my feelings for her. Can you believe it? A 7 year old has feelings. My friend, George, at the time, said to me, "Ebenezer, you should secretly put it in her school bag." I was afraid like amateur sailors on their first voyage on dangerous seas. I dreaded her parents finding out, because then, all hell will let loose and my mother will scold me terribly. Eventually, after much deliberation, I chickened out. I couldn't do it. I was not about to get a terribly beating for being sweet. Walking back home with a disappointed look on my face, I knew that was the end of it but I couldn't bring myself to shred the letter. The words were finely written in pencil and I cannot even begin to tell you about the vocabulary. I felt like a young, modern day Shakespeare and my exquisite handwriting was like lemon frosting on a lemon cake. Love was in the air, and this young lad was right there in the middle of that beautiful chaos. The following day, just before our daily devotion, my sister was asked to go bring her Bible and I must admit; to this day, I still don't know how she found the letter. I was seated next to my mom and suddenly she called out, "Mom, I found this note written by Ebenezer."
     At that instant I knew I was in trouble. I knew it like I knew my nursery rhymes. And my face gave me away. My mind had finally settled on one thing, "Don't say a word..." For the first few seconds that followed, she opened the note, and started reading it out loud. Every sign on my mothers face said, "You have no idea what's coming.." When she finished everyone laughed and then my mother turned to me and said, "Did you write that? tell me the truth." What to do... what to do. "Tell me the truth or else..." I saw how fiercely she looked at me. Someone was in trouble. "Tell me the truth! I won't ask again!" She continued, this time in a rather loud voice. Then I remembered, "Before you speak, calm your mind." I took a deep breath and said, "No! I didn't. It was George! He asked me to write it for him and when I finished, He just wrote my name there to make it look like I did." If there is one thing I knew about my mother, it was the fact that I could not, under any circumstance, outsmart her. And my sisters knew it so they kept yelling, "He's lying. He's lying!" He deserves a beating, mom! How can you write a love letter at this age." I was calm as if  peace was breathing down my neck. Seeing me so calm in the middle of that chaos, my mother figured I was innocent. Oh boy... oh boy, what a happy day it was. My heart was singing, "Oh happy day...Oh happy day."
     That was the song that did me in. Because as it run through my heart and to my mind, I laughed so loud. and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. My mother- a great teacher that she is- taught me that no feelings were too strong for the power of the cane. They bow down and pledge
their allegiance to the cane.
  

The unexpected is always upon us.

When summer unveiled itself in the year 2001, I found myself plunging to the great depths of love as I knew it to be. I wished for her all my life but this is not one of my many posts that talk about love. Let's start over, shall we?

I remember drowning in an ocean of astonishment when I stepped into my home and found everyone bearing  traces of sorrow on their faces. As I traversed the living room, and in to the room I shared with my siblings, the sorrowful chaos had mutated into an abrupt silence. I did not understand why my presence had caused such conspicuous change. "Come here," said my mother to me, a little boy of eight years old, who was, at the moment, mystified by all the unfamiliar faces looking in his direction. She handed me a piece of paper which had the letters, E-U-L-O-G-Y boldly printed in blue. I smiled, and was so overjoyed to see my favorite color. Of course, at the time, I did not understand the word 'eulogy' neither did I look for the meaning. I was simply buoyed by joy that I'd be reading a 'speech' that had been printed in my favorite color. I was bold, full of courage and my reading skills were flawless. My mother, a teacher at the time, had subjected me to a weekly dose of reading a new story book. I, on the other hand, was often tempted to skip to the end and yell with excitement "Finished!" But she assured me of one thing, "she was smarter than I was." After each yell, she'd take the book and ask me what transpired on each page as her hands flipped through the pages and my lips, as was custom, did the narration. There were bad days; each time I failed to give the right narration, canes that were hidden somewhere in the house found their place on my back. Those were the good years of blissful, memorable moments. But as she knelt before me, with her hands wrapped around me to as if to console me, I peered at her eyes; they were such beautiful eyes and they were filled with raw agony. My mother was in pain but she had to be strong.

     When the silent whisper bearing news of my father's passing reached the walls of my ears, they bounced back and made a run for it. My body went into shock mode and I felt the numbness crawl up and eventually bury me. Then came the uncanny visitor of denial. I could not believe it but the wailing of my sisters as my mother broke the news to me sufficed as confirmation. Everything had changed and we were nowhere near ready to continue life. 

     The unexpected is always upon us, yet we live like it'll never come. We busy about to avoid confronting ourselves about what's real and not. We are often tempted to procrastinate till we are pressured in to changing. I have always thought that change is in the nature of human beings. We are subject to change; sometimes by our own willingness, but most of the time, by necessity. There are days I look back at the journey so far and I never, in any way consider this as a boastful post or reminder that I'll make it, but a recognition and acknowledgement of how far He who loves me immeasurably has brought me. It's been a chaotic journey seasoned with sweet peace and relentless love that can only hail from God Himself. The journey is as important as reaching your destination because you can't get to the destination without the journey and God takes advantage of that to transform you with the journey. Pay attention, listen, enjoy the experience and when it gets tough, say repeatedly, "This too shall pass!" Because it sure shall pass. The reality of what awaits you surpasses the challenges that you encounter on your way to the destination. Sometimes to see them coming other times, you are taken by thunderclaps of chaos and the strange thing is you are always poised to think God has deserted you. He hasn't, didn't, and will not desert you. And you can believe that! Natural human instinct will always- always try to reason out the cause and the culprit  But sometimes the unexpected things happen so that you can see another side of God, so that you can see He's quite an amazing husband. I'm fiercely moved to say that, being with God is beautiful. It's beauty itself. I'm greatly mesmerized because I'm a broken person, I'm a leaky bucket full of holes and even in my so called perfection, I lack righteousness. The journey has taught me that grace is power, and it's favor at the same time. So he gave me favor, not just any favor but His favor, and that favor came with unending volts of supernatural power to endure all that may come my way. 

"I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. No more feeling insecure about who I am. He LOVES me immeasurably. I don't live under the law, I live under grace. I make mistakes but guess what: He forgives me-we're married."

I hate to break it to you

“Insecurity is not a badge of “specialness” that you have to wear to feel good about yourself.” It’s not a uniform you put on like a captain of an airplane or a ship, and you don’t get any special treatment from life just because you are insecure. The world is an urban jungle and the weak ones get eaten so get over yourself and have some damn confidence. What makes you think someone is better? What makes you think you are not good enough? What makes you think you are not loved? If you are looking for sympathy from the world because something happened to you then you are in the wrong place.


People- some innocent- are getting killed in different places in the name of “war on terror.” There are people: who go to sleep with no food, walk miles to find water, abused by a parent or relative or a spouse on a daily basis. There is a whole lot of cruel, diabolic stuff going on out there so you don’t get to be comforted because you are not quite like someone you saw. Get over yourself! You are never going to be that person. That is complete foolishness. Is there some sort of comfort knowing that you are like someone else?


Here’s the thing: No one, I mean no one is better! I don’t care who you are, you are not better. Yes, maybe your position makes you look like you are, but you are not! So stop making other people feel like they are not worth anything. We all need each other but we have one difficult time getting together and we act like we are better than others.


You are good enough to fall in love. You don’t need to look a certain way before you find love, maybe it’s patience you need not starve yourself to look pretty. Society keeps telling girls everywhere that they need to look a certain way to be beautiful. Well, I think that’s some corporate nonsense used around so that big firms can sell their so called beauty products or health drugs. A girl/lady/woman is beautiful, she was born beautiful. She’s beauty itself and women all over the world show the many faces of beauty: mind, heart and soul. I think the body and the face is just an added bonus. Stop trying to be like someone! If you were suppose to be like him/her, then you’d have been him or her. Don’t you realize that it’s your insecurity that pushes people away from you and not the fact that you are not like a certain someone. You are a great original so stop comparing yourself to other folk you think are better


There’s always a crazy someone trying to change you but I think there is somewhat pride in knowing that If I searched the 7 billion people in this urban jungle, I’d not find one person with my DNA. Isn't that something?


You got your DNA, I got my DNA so please you do you and I’ll do me.