believing – Mimi's Thoughts

Waking thoughts

When I was a little girl, maybe about 8 or 9 years old, my dad had an office space. For the life of me, I can’t even remember exactly what they did there.

I remember making jokes with my sister; we’d say if anyone asked, we would tell them our dad was a JoPoBu… Journalist, Politician, Business man.

Yeah, all those activities went down there. There was a newspaper publication one time…The Public. There were business contracts here and there and then he never left the political scene.

Politics…that one finally won.

So back to this office space, we had Uncle Patrick in one of the offices. Uncle Patrick wasn’t related by blood but he was one of those… We wouldn’t call him anything else.

He was a good man and one of the few who genuinely loved our family. He would come by our home and we would have lunch and sometimes dinner…as a family.

One day after school, we were hanging at the office, waiting for someone to drive us home when Uncle Patrick suddenly shouts “oh my goodness, no wonder things have not been going so well”.

He went straight to a framed photo, turned it back from where it had been facing the wall, cleaned it up with a handkerchief and then placed it properly, displaying the photo of his master.

Uncle Patrick was a servant of Guru Maharaj Ji, a Nigerian spiritual leader.

He was convinced that his master must have been upset about his photo facing the wall and was definitely making life difficult for him. There was no convincing him otherwise.

I lay in bed just as I woke up this morning, wondering, asking… “Why do you love me so much dear Lord? Your grace is so beautiful…even when I am the worst…You give me your hand and say come.”

Uncle Patrick passed on some years ago… I’m not sure where he went but I wonder if he has changed his beliefs.

Scriptural Guide

Hebrews 4:16
Hebrews 13:15
Psalm 103:8
1 Peter 5:10
2 Chronicles 30:9b
Isaiah 30:18

Yesterday, while I was at work, I read a post on Writing From The Heart with Brian; 100 Things I Love. The post led me to a few other similar posts and within 30 minutes I was convinced I had to do something similar.

For a couple of weeks I have been getting a nudge to focus more on positive things. It’s all I’ve been thinking about.

By the end of the day, I got home and decided to binge on some TED talks before starting up with dinner and coincidentally… or was it?… The third TED talk by Dmitry Golubnichy titled 100 Happy Days came up and I decided… I need to focus on the positive things a little more… the things that make me happy.

Just like Golubnichy said, we tend to set targets about almost everything except the most important thing in our lives; Our Happiness.

I’m in pursuit of happiness… my sister Msugh asked; “After 40 what else does one need 😄?”

I decided.

#100happydays

#happinesschallenge

#100thingsilove

Elevation at 17

A couple of months ago I wrote in Beauty in Candour about candor. In my post I mentioned how my pastor drew me with his openness and his vulnerability.

As I celebrate with him, his wife Holly and the entire Elevation Church on their 17^th Anniversary as a community, I will like to share something I learned afresh from the anniversary worship experience.

It is okay to be vulnerable:

2 Corinthians 12: 9-10

As the church waited to hear a word from Pastor Steven, it was clear, from his red skin colour and his bent head that he was crying and emotional. It was not till he whispered to Holly; “I can’t talk” that it hit me; this man was okay with showing the world that he didn’t always have it all together. Trust Holly to take it up from there and speak beautiful words of wisdom and encouragement.

This renewed realization coincided with something similar I recently read from day 35 of Rick Warrens The Purpose Driven Life, he said “Vulnerability is the pathway to intimacy” and then he also said “Honestly share your weaknesses, ministry begins with vulnerability”.

I pray for God’s grace upon the entire Elevation Church worldwide, may we continue to be renewed in our minds and our hearts. As we continue to build the “New You”, may we not forget the value of community and the need for deeper intimacy with each other through honesty, openness and vulnerability.

Kisses to my egroup, I love you ladies so much.

Beauty in Candor

“You’ve got no shame, have you?”

I got asked that question and I honestly began to wonder what the real response was. It wasnt until i got a compliment about my candour that i realised that it wasnt that i was shameless but I happened to posses too much candour.

TMI is what they may call it now.

A couple of weeks ago, my pastor spoke about how a member of the church said his openness about his imperfections had caused her late husband to give his life to Christ.

The testimony which was meant to be a compliment left him conflicted. He wondered why, with all the good news he had preached about for years, it was a story about his imperfection that led a person to give their lives to Christ.

I totally understand with the guy who related with the pastors imperfections. In fact, as wrong as it may sound, it is what drew me to him in the first place.

In a world full of people who either don’t know what they want or who just want to do what people expect of them, it is hard to find a person who is honest enough to be true to themselves, what more, true to others.

Well, I’m glad that the pastor stated his distaste for fake things, i guess that’s what makes him put himself out there as a real human rather than an “anointed flawless man of God”.

There is beauty in being candid:

It makes you free.
It makes people respect you, even if they don’t tell you to your face.
You don’t have to worry about covering up stuff and mixing up your stories.
People trust you and try to build connections with you.
It increases your own self confidence. It allows people to want to trust you with their own truth.

Candour is beautiful. Try it. Experience it. Feel it. Enjoy it.

Idolatry

I heard Dante Bowe sing the words to a song and I got confused. The words sounded so familiar to me. Words I had heard and read in romance movies between lovers. Words I had used my self to express my need to please a fellow human like myslef. I must confess that I had never really spoken those words to my God.

Tell me what what moves you?
You are my treasure.
No matter how much the cost.
You are the only thing that matters.
I live to please you.

We say these words so easily to people and things; our phones, self, friends, spouses, parents and children.

The word idolatry has been defined from the stories in the old testaments, especially from Deuteronomy where it explicitly states that “You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything………”.

Over the years, our idols have changed from carved lifeless images to every day people and things. We commit idolatry when we make anything more important than our God. I found myself guilty of idolatry through the song. I repented and I am depending on a friend like no other, Jesus, to see me through.

Is there anything more important than God in your life?

Click on the link below to listen to the song-

Move your heart – Maverick city music & UPPERROOM Download

Just like that

He lit a cigarette and blew it into the air. He loved the way the smoke went with the wind as it carried it away. He thought about the job application he left at a private Audit Firm nearby and the brief interview that followed. He wished he would get a call back. He worried about his life and how difficult things had become.He never imagined when he was a little boy that things could ever be this hard. Ever.

Somehow his thoughts went back to the first day he smoked a cigarette and he realised he had been 13 years old. Just a child. Just about the same time he had dreamed of his future life and how he expected it to be. This definitely was not the picture he had in mind.

Just like today, he really loved the way he felt when he took a drag from the stick. He took another drag and let his thoughts wander around and around and it landed on the fear of never getting the job he had applied for because the age requirement was way below his age. He would be 30 in September, that was barely 3 months away.

That’s when it hit him, if he was turning 30 and he had been smoking since he was 13, he had been smoking for more than half his life.

He put out the cigarette and hasn’t smoked a day since then, he turned 49 last September.

They say everything that has a beginning has an end.

Assumption

I recently started a job and the office premises had not been fully furnished and so one day, when there was a very important meeting of the top officers, my department had to vacate our office temporarily for a couple of days. Our office was bigger and better equipped for the purpose of that meeting.

While we were displaced, we had to make do with a room that had only chairs and no surfaces. On the second day of being displaced, one of the staff who had worked there longer than most us had, came into our temporary space, beckoned to me and said; “madam, please come”.

I was instantly upset because he didn’t wait for me to accept, he began walking up the stairs to the floor where his office and our vacated office was. I walked behind him, murmuring silently. You see, we had tagged him already as a person who was very full of himself. He was the kind of person who had an air of importance and spoke with a kind of pride we did not understand. A few people had even complained that he didn’t respond to their greetings.

When we got to the floor, he said to me: “Madam, we have an extra table and I want you to have it. you can move it down to the space you have occupied. You can return it when you move back to your office”.

I said thank you and went to get someone to help me move it.

When I settled behind my new table, I started to wonder, what if we dealt with people without assuming. Easier said than done right? I honestly didn’t know why he called me, but I just assumed it was for no good. It turned out it was totally for my own good and of no benefit to him at all.

I made a few notes to:

Call myself back to order when I start to make assumptions.
Keep my mind open.
Ask questions when I am not sure.
Listen with my mind and ears
Avoid emotional reactions and try to stop them when I feel them surfacing.

I only hope I can remember to keep to them.

Waiting to exhale

A few months ago, after I had settled down for the evening, I started to watch a movie. It didn’t start too well. When I thought i couldn’t take it anymore, just when i decided to change to something else, it started to get very interesting. This was around 30 minutes into the movie. What if i didn’t wait?

This got me thinking about a lot of times when I may have given up too soon on things that could have been of great importance to me. After pondering on this, I asked my self a question: “how is a person expected to know that the first 30 minutes are meant to be endured?”

For the movie, I think it is inexcusable for the creators. The world is full of many impatient people and the number rises daily with fast and more catchy things popping up everywhere. Anyone would expect a movie to draw you in rather than bore you out in the first few minutes.

But with life, sometimes we just have to wait for it. 30 minutes, 3 days, 30 days, 3 months, 1 year, 3 years, 10 years, 20 years. No matter how long it takes, sometimes it usually is worth the wait. But sometimes it is not and it hurts.

Sometimes the thing comes and we realise it wasn’t worth it after all. Sometimes it doesn’t come at all.

Maybe we could just adapt the method I used to get through the first 30 minutes of that movie; I responded to my outstanding messages.

The moment I started feeling bored with the movie, I decided to check my messages. I had a lot of them waiting on my phone from family members, alumni groups and a few other groups. I split my attention between reconnecting with people and waiting for the good part of the movie. That way, I didn’t get too upset with how boring the movie was.

Maybe if we could take our minds off of the thing we are waiting for and spend some more time with friends, family, old school mates and even on things that give us joy, we may not feel the pain and pressure in the waiting so much.

Most times,when the good comes, it usually is so beautiful and totally worth the wait. For me, it always feels like I had been holding my breath and I finally got the chance to exhale.

blogtober

I created a WordPress blog page in 2009, I was excited because I had been yearning to find a place to write down and also share with others all the ideas I always had in my head.

I have no idea what happened. I want to say procrastination; I also want to say that I was afraid I wouldn’t know how to express my thoughts properly. You see, I have never been a fluent orator; and so I assumed my writing would not be so fluent as well. I didn’t get to write any word on my blog till February 2021, 12 years later.

It was the same year I heard of blogtober. I asked myself if I thought I could make an attempt. The answer was a flat out NO.

What is blogtober?

This is a worldwide event amongst bloggers. The aim is to click the publish button every day in the month of October. This does not require just clicking the publish button with empty content. Readers will definitely expect to get interesting information, tips, stories and lots more from you.

There’s no price or award for participating or completing a blogtober challenge. There is no competition. It is more or less a personal challenge.

Am I ready for blogtober in 2022? Oh YES. This year, I have lots of ideas and thoughts penned down to share and I hope they interest you as much as they interest me.

So this is my introductory blog for the month of October.

I would like you to hang in here.

Click the follow button to receive notifications daily.

#blogtober #ilovewriting #writerschallenge #october #blogging

Hurting with Hope

A couple of months ago, I started a Bible reading plan with 4 amazing women. It was a 6 day plan that was meant to run from June 4th through June 9th. Some how, I didn’t go along with them. I decided to catch up some days ago.

It turned out that I really needed the words from the plan in this point of my life. I am sharing a word from day two and I am hoping someone needs it as much as I needed it.

Day 2: The Invisible World

At any given moment, there’s always more going on than what we can see with the naked eye. If you’ve ever spent any time stargazing, you know this is true. On a cloudless, dark night, when you are far from civilization, it’s possible to see as many as five thousand stars. But on a cloudy night you might not see hardly any. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there—there are always stars in the sky—you just can’t always see them. So it is spiritually. You must not rely on the naked eye. Faith is the telescope that allows us to see the spiritual realities at play all around us.

The apostle Paul taught about this in one of his letters:

We do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).

Every moment of every day, you are in an invisible battle that rages on—as real as the ancient ones you read about in history class and as current as the clips shown on the evening news. This is the war: every moment of every day, we must make the all-important choice of whether we will rely on the naked eye.

Will you trust what we can see is there or believe what God says is there?
Hurting with Hope – Levi Lusko

I shared it with my sister and she had this to say:

“I always want to believe and choose to believe that everything is working for my good even though I don’t see it.

That there’s a plan, a carefully laid out process that I’m being led through by God to get to where he’s taking me.
… but the journey with God, from my own experience hasn’t been straightforward. It’s been hard, I know, for all of us here but I’ve come to see that it’s part of the process of building us into the person he wants us to be”.

Tag: believing