I don’t want to have a criminal record

I would like to send my warm wishes to everyone by wishing them a merry Christmas and may 2007 usher in the blessings of the Lord in buckets for you all. Amen.

I was going to put up something inspirational for this time of year, and as I did my blog rounds and after reading belle's blog, I remembered what my youngest sister, who happens to be a lawyer now (but was in law school then – when this all happened) did a while back during this season.

I normally book my family flights to Nigeria, but this year (2003) I left it in the hands of my then boyfriend/fiancé to do. He had booked them in a group to get discounts and was given an upgrade by the travel agency but they failed to tell him that we all had to pay an extra £50 for each upgrade (or he sort of forgot). This was pretty good for flying top class. We were also travelling in groups and on different days. So after we all went to Nigeria, and had a wonderful time – on our way back my family (mum, youngest brother and two younger sisters) were stranded at the airport. When they went to check in their bags, they couldn’t check them in and was told they had to go see the ticketing supervisor. It was a chaotic time of the year, and so they took forever to see them, and by the time they saw them, they refused to let them recheck their bags and told them that the gates were closing. To cut the long story short, they had missed their flights, were put on the waiting list, and could not leave for up to a week. They kept ferrying them from one city to another trying to get them boarded but whenever they got to the different airports the seats would always miraculously disappear. So finally, Virgin Atlantic had spaces for two, my sisters went on it, and my mum gave them her luggages, - 4 in total – and one packed full with her goodies (dry fish, meat – all kinds of cookery stuff).

When my lawyer sister arrived at Gatwick airport – she went straight to the “something to declare aisle” opened my mum’s goodies suitcase and said she had something to declare. She took them out one by one, said her mum gave them to her and was stranded at the airport. The one with her who was only a few years older than her, was gob smacked; she couldn’t say anything (a med student – who also didn’t want to loose her license before she got them).

My mum who after the whole episode was looking forward to consoling herself with her smuggled goods asked her beloved daughters, where her food stuff were, my girls said – “I declared it all because I didn’t want to have a criminal record”. My mum nearly lost it. Only they would think customs officers reported such incidence to the police and criminal records could be obtained from such actions. That’s my family for you.

Please don’t even get me started on my two older brothers and immediate younger sister. They are so principled it’s beyond a joke. Let’s just say my mum has been doing her smuggling herself. At least it will be her criminal record…

On that note I would like to wish you all a blessed time with all your families, I pray that the Lord will grant you all journey mercies as you all travel – both in your going out and coming in, and may His light be ever before you.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy new year.

I'm secretly jealous - that has to be the only explanation!!!

For all those who would like to know what’s happening with my pastor friend – We’ve (I've) decide to stay just friends. No matter how hard I prayed I never could see a light at the end of the tunnel. My mother also confirmed the lack of the yes answer. After getting used to the idea and prayer agreement with the saints (in my church here), my pastor friend was able to walk away knowing in heart it is well. He was the man I had asked for, down to every specification on my list (except for the heart surgeon – which I probably will not have LOL) – but I’m learning that not everything that looks feels and meets good is right for me. For some reason it wasn’t him or if it were this is not the time. What can I say – I have let my lover go. The Lover of my soul still remains though. We are still tight as ever.

The title of this post is there for a reason. For those of you who have been following my blog will understand my latest predicament. My young guy friends are all married (imagine) who said men as young as 25 don’t know the meaning of the word commitment. My guys do. So I have this last friend that is still single. He wants to retire at the age of 40 so has been working very hard with his business his work and his forum. He is very good at what he does. I was sort of happy cause we could be single together and so seeing as he’s more focused on his work, the love bug might not be hitting him anytime soon.

So back in the day I had this girlfriends – I call them my Liverpool crew (they were all from Liverpool – myself from Chester – I’ve had so many crew – its becoming ridiculous) – we loved our crew cause it was made up of 10 girls all Igbo (bar one) – and every where we went people took notice. We felt beautiful – we were beautiful (I wont tell a lie) – LOL – and after my undergraduate years I moved cites, back up north of England to do my doctorate. We always kept in contact with each other, whenever people would have a house or club party they always invited us – the crew – never one person – all of us – one of us ended up being a hip hop artist (I’m sure after this I will no longer be anonymous). So that was also one of the things that kept us tight.

So there was this girlfriend of mine from the crew (lets call her JC) – I knew her from my main friend PB – who is now an up and coming hip hop artist (and is now saved – praise the LORD). One fine Saturday morning in the month of august, as I was conversing with my last single guy friend (lets call him Bdady) – I had this feeling that I wanted to call and speak to JC to see how she was – so as I was trying to get off the phone, Bdady said he could call her for me that I don’t have to spend my money and we could have a two way conversation (so knowing the cheapskate that I was) – I agreed. We called JC we spoke for a while, I introduced her to my brother Bdady and that was it. He said she came across as rude. I mean who cares; I wasn’t trying to do a link. So Bdady wakes up one Monday morning in the month of December, finds this number on his list of international calls – thought what the goodness and called the number to find who this number belonged to. My JC answered, they started sending emails and she tells him she’s coming to New York the following Monday. So my Bdady calls me all excited (this is not like him) – so he tells me the following week my JC was in New York – erm ok she didn’t call to tell me. No problem. They were supposed to be linking up this weekend – both Friday and Saturday – but he calls me to tell me he’s on his way to meet her mid week. What the goodness – What is happening!!! – what happened to being single TOGETHER – So he meets her, I spoke to JC – aah the voice of my good friend – we still caught joke – I guess it was all the travelling and the busy schedule that’s why she hasn’t called. Whichever, she sounded well. So I called Bdady very late in the evening – boy where are you? Don’t you know you need to be driving home, you have a long drive ahead of you and you have to be at work very early in the morning? He’s still there, having fun – laughing with his teeth wide open. I went to bed. As I lay on my bed, I wondered why I shouldn’t be happy that my Bdady is having a good time with my JC. It dawned on me, that maybe because I really might just be the last single left – even in my Liverpool crowd and misery loves company. I just might not have any more brothers to speak with, cause I’m quickly running out of single friends, and don’t want to be that single friend that is friends with the married folks. So I’m secretly jealous – that has to be the only explanation, why else? - Because all that money he was going to spend on our outing together when I hit New York will have to be spent on another. Oh well. It looks like our single together days might just be over. Adieu bro, adieu Bdady – that elusive love he never had time for might just hit him without realisation. JC is a good person and so is Bdady. They do look good together if I must say so myself. I just wished I had more time with our single together days.

Re – digging Her Well

Don’t you find when you feel that you’ve been blessed, there seem to be problem looming. People trying to take your joy away on a mission known as “undercover joy burst”.

She has come so far. You should have seen her back when it all started.

In spite of all that was going on in her personal life, the Lord had blessed her indeed. But now it appears difficulties, that was about to accumulate to a nervous breakdown seems to be knocking on her door. People has started to cover up, what she had done, had quarrelled and opposed her in every opportunity possible, and now she was facing ruin. Each time she faced a difficulty she attributed it to her past mistakes and maybe she didn’t deserve to be happy. She didn’t realise that all she needed was to re-dig her “well” this last time. She needed to remember that the first time she asked God to forgive her of her past He did and He said He would remember them no more (Isa. 38 vs. 17; Isa 43 vs. 25). The Lord Jesus was shamed as he lay on that cross so her guilt and shame had been removed (Isa. 25 vs. 8), the plans her enemies had for her was not going to succeed (Isa. 19 vs. 3). He wanted her to draw closer to Him, push and pray harder than she had ever done, for her breakthrough was but moments away. He wanted to bless her just as He did Isaac when he encountered oppositions (Gen. 26 vs.12 -25). Just as Isaac dug another well, No one quarrelled with him anymore and the Lord gave him room to flourish in the land. Finally the guilt scales that had blinded her eyes were lifted. She dug and pushed one last time and no one quarrelled with her anymore. She was finally settled by God in every area of her life. She now has a family and a very good job with room to flourish. She had atlast found happiness, happiness she never felt worthy of. But alas she was happy. The other forms of happiness she sort had sorrow in it, but the one the Lord had given her had no sorrow (Prov. 10 vs. 22; Isa. 60 vs. 20; John 16 vs. 22)

What is holding you back? Don’t let the guilt of the past have an impact on your future. It did in this case, but the Lord said NO. She didn’t deserve God’s grace, but He still forgave her and blessed her. I also need to re-dig my wells – I think you all need an update on my pastor friend. I will post on it the next time. Stay blessed all.

How would you feel?

I knew a young woman once. She was jolly, easily excitable, always with a terribly huge smile on her face and worked tirelessly for the Lord. She was a woman with a strong Faith in the Lord, but she also had some difficult days. She tried her best to put maximum effort into whatever she did and the Lord blessed her effort regardless.

I knew a young woman once. She was a graduate student – of colour – and very naïve. She only read about isms in books and watched it on the television but she never believed it was something that was inherently working even in today’s world.

I knew a young woman once. She was forced to collaborate with a young vibrant – fellow graduate student – she was sweet, nice, stunningly beautiful, blonde and of German decent. The woman of colour was forced to share her ideas, results – her work – with this young vibrant lady under the pretence of collaboration – team work – Pushing the frontiers of science forward. The young woman of colour did all the work, generated all the results and because the vibrant lady could not match up to the woman of colour the Departmental heads always felt sorry for her. Whatever the woman of colour produced – she was forced to share with her vibrant team member. The Young woman of colour realised that her work was constantly attributed to this vibrant young woman and decided to create a niche for herself. She came up with an idea, ran it past the departmental heads and got the approval to proceed. She was told the next day that her idea would work better if a departmental head put it together – with the guarantee that she would be in charge of the work. When the time to give the woman of colour what was hers it was given to the vibrant young woman with a nice sweet smile.

I knew a young woman once. Not knowing what next to do she cried and became desperate. She was going to take any type of position – and began to believe she had no self worth. There was no way out, and no future. She was told she had no vision and academia was not a place for her. She believed the FACT and had forgotten the TRUTH. She still carried on her work in the Lord but daily you could see she was subdued. Even though she was of good cheer that deceptive deep sadness was very visible on her face. One day she said to herself “I must enquire of the Lord and know for myself where I went wrong”. As she looked out of her window and saw the rain drops watering the plants – she remembered the word of the Lord for her – “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth” Isa 55 vs. 10 – 11 – “For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay” Hab. 2 vs. 3 – She smiled a little. Her strength renewed and more persuaded now than ever that her GOD will never leave her. For He is making everything new; He is trustworthy and true; For He said to her I have brought you this far and is taking care of your affairs – “It is done”. “He who overcomes will inherit all – He will be their God and he will be His son” – Rev. 21 vs. 5 – 7.

I knew a young woman once. For if she hadn’t had the love of God on her side – She probably would have been dead now. The worries of life would have snuffed out her young life. So even though they had stripped her of all she had worked so hard for they did not realise that God had a different plan for her. In the end she was awarded an important position in the department with funds to do as she pleased. She had become an overcomer. The young vibrant woman is doing well too. Let us hope for better things for her.

Dedicated to all the young ladies / gentlemen ever short changed because of a reason or the other – The Lord has better plans for you. You didn’t get it does not mean you’re not good enough. It simply means it’s not for you.