Turning hate to praise

You know how they say when it rains, it pours? A whole lot of bad things are happening to you and you are beginning to feel like a trouble-target, and despite all your best efforts, nothing is working according to your plans. It gets overwhelming and in those times, you feel a lot of frustration and anger towards God who is supposed to take care of you and have your back in all situations. I visited a friend of mine some days ago who shared some bad news with me, got me properly stunned. She found a job after 5 months of intense search but was fired four days after she resumed….Oh, she didn’t commit any offense ( in case you are thinking ‘oh, she must have stolen something or insulted the boss’). I was confused within me, like if I was her, I will want some serious explanations man!

Some days later, I was jejely reading my Bible and was on Exodus 1, very interesting read. And I got to the part where some king realized that the other tribe living among them are stronger, better looking, wealthier etc, than they are. Then he got a brilliant idea! “Break their spirits, make them suffer, make they bitter, take away their pride and joy and if all that doesn’t work, start killing their new borns so that they don’t increase.” {Does that sound familiar to you?} But the interesting thing was that,

“The more the Egyptians oppressed them, the more the Israelites multiplied and spread and the more alarmed the Egyptians became” Exodus 1: 12.

And then I realized, when it seems like you are a target for all the evil that can possibly happen to anyone in this world, someone somewhere is very scared of you! Be it your boss, frenemy, neighbor, spouse or even the devil. The operating fact here is, they are SCARED of you. Basic. There is something about you that intimidates them, they’ve seen something in you that they envy or fear. So they hit you as often as possible, break your spirit and your will, make you want to not try again and best of all, of they get lucky, make you hate God. But just like it happened for the descendants of Abraham, the more they try to take out of you, chose to become more. Wave that bad news to God in praise, let the devil know that he is got nothing on you, that he can’t break you down, that he can’t steal your thunder and best of all, that you are here to stay! When you praise instead of vex, that’s you readjusting yourself in your seat saying ‘I ain’t going nowhere and I’m winning this’

Photo credit: ipaca-wren.blogspot.com

Racism or not

Seeing that video of the cop that went ballistic over teenagers at some pool party is just saddening, that even in the 21st century, racism is still very in-your-face. I read the comments of black people expressing their pain and disgust with the whole thing and the comments of white people defending themselves that not all whites are racist. In my own opinion, I agree with them both. One of my Nigerian friends went to the supermarket the other day to get points on her card worth $80. She previously bought an item worth close to $300 and she was supposed to earn points but didn’t have her points card with her the day she made the purchase. She was told she could bring her card within a week to get the points on but by the time she went back, the white lady (store manager) that attended to her won’t load the points, saying she came a day too late as she was supposed to come in 6 days besides it will take too long for her to finish loading all the points (in this age where computer has made life easy for everyone). Her Hawaiian friend came up to find out what was causing the delay to find the white manager and black student in the middle of the discussion, with the manager saying the black girl lied about the day she came to make the purchase plus it’s going to take too long to load the points and she should come back another day (like what difference will another day make right..). The two girls left, very upset, to join their Caucasian friend who also wasn’t happy to hear what happened but mentioned that she was sure if she went in, all white skin and no accent, the manager would have loaded those points. Now, the other non-white ladies were not the ones that made that conclusion, it was the white lady, ergo she also knows it’s a racist thing. For these two girls, it will be hard for anyone to convince them that not all Caucasians are racist..they see it and they experience it.

This is not to bash any race or judge anyone cos my thought is, if the black girl wanted the points,she should have just taken her card there when she made her purchases. Simples. (Ignore the fact that she earned those points and the one day or one week shouldn’t make such a big difference). And I’m not defending the manager. Now, let me explain myself. I keep seeing all these videos of cops pushing pregnant women, teenage girls, harmless and un-armed people to the ground and twisting their wrists just because they did not ‘obey’ their instruction. This is an environment where you are not allowed to spank children, an environment where animal cruelty is a punishable offense, where you are not allowed to threaten a minor much less physically assault them, yet these men, in the name of uniform, mete out whatever jungle justice they deem fit on anyone they chose deserves it. This is my call to the people of color, they think you are ugly and not worth respect and consideration, THEN PROVE THEM WRONG! Stop disobeying the laws, walk smarter, pull up your pants, speak better English and stop slurring your speech, dress smart, smell great, get decent hair styles. Do not drive without your license, make sure your car has insurance, don’t just do your job well, do it better than you are paid to do, don’t be the one that shirks responsibilities and most importantly in my own opinion, let’s train our children to not mouth off to anyone older than them! We think it’s cute, even funny, when pre-teens talk back at their parents and grand-parents. It’s not! Where I come from, you mouth off to your mother, you get your mouth whacked by her so that the same mouth doesn’t get whacked by another adult who won’t tolerate the nonsense. Let’s prove, again and again, that black is beautiful, that black is awesome, that black is respectful, that black is loving, that black is rich. Let’s make it very difficult for anyone, cop or otherwise to find a fault with us such that when they victimize any black person, it will be obvious that it is a case of basic racism. As a person of color, don’t give anyone any reason to shake their heads and think (or say), ‘these black people sef’.

At the end of the day, I don’t think it is a case of being either black or white. I think some people are simply mean at heart and it doesn’t matter what color their skin is. Not all Caucasians are racist, that’s why white marry/date blacks all the time. Not all black people think white people are racist, some have just been so victimized by Caucasians that they do not care to make the distinction anymore. More importantly, don’t let the meanness of some people take away your glee, we will always meet people that will hurt us, take away from us, treat us bad. But don’t let that take away the beauty on your inside, being mean right back doesn’t fix the problem. The $80 that girl isn’t gonna get by forfeiting those points is not gonna change her life, doesn’t mean she is gonna go broke, doesn’t mean she’s gonna starve neither does it mean her sun will stop shinning. The teenager that got pushed to the ground by a power-drunk cop will be fine in a few days, she will probably gain 1 million twitter followers just for that incident. Retaliating only puts us all in the same category. Plus that’s how civil wars start.

PS: The next time I spank my child in public for acting up, let me see the person that will come get me for child abuse.

PSS: Don’t be deceived that whites don’t think black is beautiful, if they did they wouldn’t think tanning is such a great idea.

PSSS: Don’t let anyone make you feel less than you deserve, Jesus died for you too.

Serenity in Suffering

So there was once a chick named Tamar who married a dude named Er, the son of a patriarch. Shortly after their wedding, Er died. He just died, like no sickness or accident, just keeled over and went out. Tamar almost rolled over with the pain of losing her husband, but unfortunately, she did not have too long to mourn cos, you know, the traditional requirements that the widow has to marry the brother of the diseased. So off she went and became a wife again. Well, what do you know, this one too keeled over and died. And yep, you guessed it, no sickness, no accidents, nada. He also just went out. If it was you, what would you think? This chick must be eating up these dudes right. And so the patriarch thought too. And since he was not ready to lose any more sons, he simply told this unfortunate babe to go to her parents house and stay there till the third son was old enough to marry her…of course he had no intentions of giving her his remaining son before she eats his heart too.

She went back to her parents’ house, two times a widow, no child to show and neck-deep in the pain of her losses. The loss of love, loss of her place, she knows what she must look like in the community, the woman that kills husbands. No one wants her around their men, if she is not eating their hearts (..or brains..) she must have something inside her that is doing the eating. Either way, no one is willing to take any more risks. She became the reject, the outcast and really, I don’t think anyone bothered to ask her side of the story. Or to even ask how she is holding up dealing with her losses. Well, she silently bore the torture and disgrace, never complained and definitely didn’t fight anyone. Just suffered in silence. And she stayed that way for years. Until she was vindicated. Oh, by the way, God was killing these dudes cos they were naughty.

“And Judah recognized them immediately and said, ‘She is more righteous than I am, because I didn’t arrange for her to marry my son Shelah’. Gen 38:26

I was struck about the suffer-in-silence attitude of Tamar, she was the one who lost husbands, why was she the one getting the heat right? And this is the story of a lot of women. Doing all the right things, caring in all the right ways, making all the sacrifices, yet for what? Husband and wife agree to spend his own money building their house and her money for rent, school fees and other needs till the house is completed. Only to finish the house and the husband claiming the wife has no rights to the house, after all, it was built with his money. How many women today can suffer in silence through that?  But really, isn’t this the same scenario with Jesus? He came to the world that was created through Him, healed sick people, made poor people rich, fed a bunch of hungry people, loved the unloved people and for all His troubles and effort, He was beaten up and murdered. Yet, He still loved the same culprits and forgave completely. I read once about The Holy Shroud of Turin which is believed to be the cloth in which Jesus was buried in, has an impression of His face on it. The  beauty and serenity of the face captured in the cloth is an unbelievable expression of human pain and goodness that transcends time, explanation or understanding.

Of course, for us humans, that level of suffering in silence is not acceptable. What with this age of human rights and high speed knowledge. But I realized from the story of this babe Tamar, being silent in the face of suffering and cheating, being able to forgive despite torture, is what humanity is all about. This is not about right or wrong now, it is simply what humanity is in its stark reality, it’s beauty and ugliness, its glory and degradation. Tamar could have spoken up, said she didn’t kill these men, Jesus could have called the angels in their millions to defend Him…but then the reward of their leaving their fight to God would have been lost. Oh Tamar was rewarded alright, in unbelievable ways, one of which is that she produced the lineage of King David. And of course, she is one of the few women of that time that is known today.

Basically, you are not a fool when you forgive despite all the pain and injustice, that is just you being true to humanity. Which is what makes the wheels on this bus go round and round. Almost everyone has had a taste of torture in this world, you only need to hear the story of the person next door. Beneath all our glam clothes, make up and power suits, lies a lorryload of pain. And I sincerely hope that no matter what injustice has been done to you or what undeserved torture you’ve had to endure, that you find that humanity within yourself to forgive and let go. And therein lies your peace.