Life or something like it

If today was the last day of your life, how would you live it?

It has been a long eventful year, not a year I can look back on with pride, but more like a year I scraped through, only just making it and acquiring quite a number of bangs and bruises. I remember the people I met, the friends I kept, the ones I left and the ones I have hurt and I wonder.

We say we have problems in our lives, we encounter difficulties. We call them issues, problems, inconveniences, we try sometimes to make them seem trivial and unimportant but truth be told most times they leave us weary, tired, some heartbroken others cold and empty. We call it life and we try to move on.

Have you ever wondered why women abort babies, one, two, three of them and others, stayed with one man all their life, lose their first pregnancy, their second or fail to even conceive a child. Some lay the blame in all sorts of places, others call it life and we try to move on.

I totally respect all single mothers out there who have the guts to keep their child, to nurture and raise the child in spite of how society looks at them, but when one child turns to two and then three, I wonder. We look down on them alike, the women having made one mistake and then the rest making the same mistakes over and over again. We call it life and we try to move on.

We all go to church and we hear calls for the sick, the poor, the business man and woman, the barren. Hardly ever do we hear calls for the broken heart, the broken spirit. Widows and orphans do not get as much time as for the tithes, the offerings, the lavish cars and buildings we choose to endow ourselves with; all in the name of our "Lord being good". For the less fortunate we call it life and we try to move on.

How I hate the word "less privileged", shielding the fact that the people are not just some unlucky people who had life dished out to them on a cold plate. Truth is people lose jobs, circumstances beyond our control do happen and most of all, it could happen to you. Yet we call it life and we try to move on.

Famine in Asia, hurricanes in the Caribbeans, snow storms in Europe, terrorists in Pakistan, Afghanistan, showdowns in the Koreas, strife in Jos and other parts of Nigeria; we see all this, we talk about it and then we move on, telling ourselves it is part of life.

The year is coming to an end, a new one is beginning, looking back on it ask yourself this question; "Have you lived life, or something like it?"
Fought with loved ones for things that don't really matter. Argued with parents at times when you could have been wrong,
The list is endless, the possibilities countless, but for every time we put ourselves first, our wants our desires and our needs, telling ourselves each and every time that "it is life and should be lived to the fullest, no matter the costs"
Remember this; the lives lost of people that truly did not deserve death, unborn children who never get to see the light of day, people who have lost their jobs and loved ones through no fault of theirs. Think about the people on the receiving end of natural disasters, armed robberies, bombings and persecutions. We call it life but then it could happen to you.

Humble beginnings, glorious endings, a journey untold, lives yet to unfold, it could go on for ages but then it is coming as a message. 2010, a year that ran so fast but held so plenty, mistakes made, lessons learned, lives lived, touched and broken; passively or actively, I don't know. i do know this for sure, in spite of buffers carefully laid, hearts carefully protected, money carefully saved, a job seemingly untouchable. It could happen to you.

You could call it life or something like it, I see heartbreaks and aches, I see pains unsaid, I see lost lives, lost minds desperately seeking answers, and while i saw people walking on in 2010, i see people making a difference in 2011.
It is not just life or something like it, it is the lives of people and something can be done about it. Touch a heart, spread some warmth, touch a life, make a difference

For the faint, the weary, losing hope, tired of life and its never ending challenges. i have this to say

I know this for sure; although you may start out as a little seed, you will land, you will root and you will grow, no matter where it is. You will hurt for a while, you will be lonely for a while, and then you will shoot out and be your own person. Strong as you are meant to be, bold as you have to be, facing the odds with your foundation sinking far beneath the ground you see.

Happy New Year

Let it flow...

And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

Imagine a river flowing with a really strong current, imagine a little boy on a log of wood drifting down the river, a boy that does not know any better. In all likely probabilities, combinations and permutations, the little boy would be scared, frightened, but then that little child would in all likelihood hold on tightly to that log and let the river guide him to wherever it takes him to. Add 10, 15 or even 20 years to that child, give him the same scenario and you have a young man struggling with all his might and heart to get to shore before the river kills him.

The words "Let it flow", came to me last night just before I closed my eyes to sleep. And I pondered and wondered for a while, what it truly meant and then it hit me. The whole of this year, I have striven and struggled to set my life the way I thought it should be and it has been a battle, a battle I was slowly but surely losing. And I compared my life to what it was when I was a kid and I compared it with what is happening to me now. Things I would not have sought out for, not bothered myself about a couple of years ago are the things i go out of my way to find now. I am not talking about money, food or clothing. Not talking about jobs and the like. I am talking about answers to questions, reasons behind particular situations in life. As a child, i took each day as it came, end of the day meant I looked forward to the next day, a day passed was simply that, a day passed. Now I hold on to things from days gone by, worry about things in the days yet to come, I don't trust as I used to, I don't cast my cares and worries to God like I used to.

Three scenarios come to mind today from three different times;

- Thinking about Noah in the ark, him, his family and all the saved animals. Not knowing where the ark would land they stayed in the ark and God guided it, they let everything flow...

- Step in Moses as a baby, in a reed basket coated in tar, neither him, nor his mother, nor his sister, knew where that basket was going, God did, and what did all 3 people do? They just let it flow. All the way to the basket being picked up by Pharaoh's daughter and Moses destiny starting up.

- David was anointed king as a boy but it took him a long long time before he became king. Opportunities came about where he could have snatched his destiny, but he held it in, he didn't brag about it or start a revolution, he let it flow and God worked everything out.

The way I see it, we start out like Moses in our little reed basket, trusting, not fighting, just letting God guide us. But being human which is our biggest problem (if you ask me) we think we are grown and we build a both, take d steer and start doing things as we deem fit, in other words we start doing God's work for Him rather than letting him do His work and us doing His will.

Our problems begin most times, when we stop being content with what we have or what we are, the world teaches us to strive for worldly things, and that is what we grow up believing, that is what is taught in so many places. We hardly get teachings about striving for godly things a closer relationship with our Father.
What am I trying to say? It is okay to freak out, okay to be scared, where we run into problems is when we try to break the flow, or guide the river (absurd as it may sound I have tried it before).
Truth be told, as we go with our Father's flow, we get closer to Him, really really closer. A closer walk with him daily.
A walk, where we just let it flow, let God truly guide our path.