“God bless the godmother”. This is how my husband’s friend Adole aka Motion greets me. He accords me a certain level of respect and I actually like it.
The thing is, I have never actually been specifically assigned the role of godmother…till today.
Today, Judith asked me to be godmother to her twin girls who were born in January 2025, and I accepted, gladly. I went with Judith and her husband as they took Atinger Amana and Shiiseer Anaya to be christened, and I took up my new role as godmother.
Judith is like a younger sister to me and has been a part of my life for almost ten years.
I don’t take this new role lightly, and I hope to live my every word I professed today.
The day they were born vs the day they were baptized Shiiseer AnayaAtinger Amana
Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.
In 2019, at exactly 4pm Nigerian time on my birthday, 23rd August, our flight took off from Abuja for Dubai. We paused in Lagos briefly and then in Istanbul for a two hour layover, and by 1pm on the 24th, we had checked into a family suite at Novotel Dubai Al Barsha.
I was with my sisters Dough, Angela and Msugh. The trip was an all expense paid trip by our eldest sister Dough. She wanted us to have some bonding time away from home.
Even though I had been 18 weeks pregnant and I stayed indoors resting most of the time because I felt a bit tired, It was a fun trip for me.
We talked and laughed, saw some sights, had dinner on a boat ride, and did some shopping.
We got to find out that our cousin, Henry, was in Dubai at the time. So we called, and he came over. Henry is a “clown” and a pastor; so we laughed a lot, and then we prayed together. It was so beautiful.
By the time we walked into the Arrivals Hall at 4:30pm on September 1, all our children and two out of the four husbands stood waiting eagerly. We were missed.
That’s the furthest I’ve ever gone from home.
Received with joy. SonTer leading the crewFantastic 4Diugh, Henry, MimiShangosis
August was a beautiful month. It always used to be my favorite month until I had my son in the month of June, twelve years ago… so I guess it’s still being good to me for all the love.
August is the month of my birth. This year, I turned 43 on the 23rd… and I am thankful just like I mentioned in Been so Good
I started the month off with a road trip with my son and my older brother. My dad had been in the hospital, and I wanted to go check on him. He lives a few hours away. So I filled up my tank on the 1st of August and we went to see him. We stayed four days and returned because I had to be back at the office.
While I was in Abuja checking up on my dad, I spent a good amount of time with my three sisters and caught up with two darling friends, Ronnie and Nguwa.
My birthday was beautiful, and even though I had my first semester exams for my MBA cut through it, Terver, my husband, did all the right things to make it just my kind of day…time with myself in the coziest place he could get for me…away from home. I was spoiled this year. 🥰
On the 26th. Amaka gave me a beautiful gift. She went and had our long-awaited bakeshop baby. Now I have a reason to smile again on the 26th of August. It was Wazzys birthday.
I spent most of August with my son, doing one activity or the other.
A lot of beautiful things happened in August. Too many to mention.
I saw this prompt and jumped on it. It was the perfect question to some thoughts I’ve been having.
A couple of weeks ago,I tried to add some hashtags to a post about happiness. I started to type the word ‘happiness’, and then a flood of similar hashtags I had previously used popped up. I selected the ones I needed, and then I published my post… but then, I went back to read all the previous posts with the happiness related hashtags.
It was a revelation.
Reading my words from previous years told me so much.
First off, it opened my eyes to why I was so much happier when I did the ‘100 days of happiness’ challenge that I had stolen off of Brian’s blog http://www.writingfromtheheartwithbrian.com
Then, of course, it explained why I am a lot more stressed and why I keep feeling like I’m not doing enough for myself.
I blog because it serves as a sort of diary and I can come back here and read about myself…and remember the whens and the whys.
I blog because I get to meet and relate with people everyday on my blog and theirs. I have met some lovely people here.
Just the other day, I was sharing with Terver, my husband, about an Instagram post with a list of things a couple must agree on before saying ‘I do’.
That list was long. Really long.
As I went through the list, I realized Terver and I didn’t actually agree on most of the listed issues.
We have had arguments about a few of them. We have worked around a few, and we have each compromised on some.
From the ones we argued about, they helped us realize each other’s opinions on the matter. Some of the arguments and disagreements were definitely tiring and heartbreaking…for both of us… but I think it kind of brought us on the journey to where we are today.
As a lover of peace to a very bad fault, arguments and confrontations break me… but I realized along the way that it is quite difficult to be with or around anyone at all and agree with them on every matter.
Now, for some of the things on the list that we worked through, intentionally or unintentionally, I realized they were the blocks building and forming our story.
Now, for compromise, that’s where the sacrifice in love shows itself… but this can only be appreciated when it’s mutual. Compromise from one person alone doesn’t do it. It becomes a burden and ends up making the giver tired, angry, and resentful.
Marriage is beautiful, but we have to do it. Intentionally.
Are you doing it? Or do you expect it to happen automatically?
To quote comments that came from my discussion on that one Instagram post
There is no one formula for marriage – Terver Bossua
Comment on post by my sister Angela
There’s no hard and fast rule for Marriage – Mimi Stacey Terver-Bossua
You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?
I’ve never had a hard time coming up with anything like I did with the response to this prompt.
After two years, I found this in my drafts…and I decided, it’s not that difficult.
I decided to give my autobiography a go.
It started like this;
Strength didn’t come to me in a moment of triumph. It came quietly, in the days when I felt empty, moving through life on autopilot. I wasn’t broken, but I wasn’t whole either. I was just tired of pretending everything was fine. Somewhere in that stillness, I discovered that strength isn’t about standing tall; it’s about standing up, even when your soul feels heavy.
I Hid My Birthday on Facebook and It Was the Best Gift I Gave Myself
You know that thing Facebook does on your birthday right?…blasts your name like breaking news so everyone and their cat can write “HBD” on your wall? For years, I played along. Smiling through 300 messages…typing “Thank you 😊” until my thumbs cried for mercy. Can we be honest?…half of the people remembered because Zuckerberg whispered in their ear.
So, this year, I decided to try something different.Something a little bold. I hid my birthday on Facebook. No notifications, no confetti GIFs, no obligation to reply before people think I’m rude.
I actually turned it off last year, but somehow, I think the memory feed on people’s walls gave me away so it didn’t work so well.
This year, it worked…And you know what? It was glorious.
When I woke up, my phone was blissfully quiet. No early pings, no endless “Happy Birthday!” alerts. And here’s the part I didn’t expect…I didn’t feel guilty about not responding because… there was nothing to respond to! No pressure to craft the perfect thank-you post. No marathon of copy-paste replies.
And for the first time in years, my phone battery didn’t run down before noon…Turns out, gratitude can be exhausting. Really!!!
Instead of performing my birthday on social media, I lived it. I got up, did some cleaning. Then I studied…I had an exam at 3 PM. Adulthood doesn’t pause for cake, right? Hahaha.
I wrote the exam, and it went well. That alone felt like a gift. Later, I spent time with my son and my bakeshop family. We kept it simple: cake, drinks, laughs, and a few games. The kind of fun that doesn’t need a hashtag or a curated story to make it real.
When the fun was over and they had left, I curled up and wrote a review comparing the book and movie adaptation of The Hating Game (spoiler: the book wins). And before sleep, I shared a deep, meaningful conversation with my husband. No noise, no pressure…just peace.
Some people still reached out. Not because Facebook reminded them, but because they remembered on their own. And those few genuine messages? They meant more than hundreds of automated “HBDs.”
I realized something powerful: sometimes we mistake visibility for value. Just because your wall is full of comments doesn’t mean your day is full of meaning. This year, I got the opposite…less noise, more depth.
Would I Do It Again? Absolutely. I’ll probably keep my birthday hidden forever now. Because peace feels better than popularity. Because living your day beats performing it. And because the best gift you can give yourself sometimes… is quiet.
So, if you’ve ever felt pressured by social media birthdays, here’s my little secret: hide the date. Your real friends will still find you. And you’ll finally have time to finish that book review or, you know, take an exam without worrying if your battery will survive the avalanche of notifications.
Sometimes the best celebration is the one where you’re fully present…with yourself and the people who truly matter.
Have you ever tried hiding your birthday on social media? Or do you think you’d feel left out?
The morning coffee that kept me company while I wrote this
I have held on to Isaiah 30:21 for 19 months now. The reason being that I want to be so near to God that I hear his voice behind me, leading me, telling me; “this is the way, walk in it”.
…and even though I didn’t always listen for the voice of God in this period, He never left my side.
He has dealt so well with me. He has been so kind and so good.
On Sunday August 10th, I listened to Pastor Steven Furtick preach in his 9:30am service (worship experience) on the topic ‘Not as Long as My Song’. We dwelt on David’s Lamentations and pleas in Psalm 13…but it was the last verse that mattered. It made everything alright.
I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me…Psalm 13:6. (NKJV)
That’s my song. It’s how I feel on this 43rd birthday.
I put together a few playlists to mark my birthday and in the one titled ‘Praise’, I couldn’t help but include ‘Been So Good’ by Elevation Worship (feat Tiffany Hudson).
