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For you with parched tongues on the road to make good better than best, here is a canister of water for your journey.

I am strong.

I don’t say this to convince myself that I am, neither am I telling myself that I will be in the future.

I am strong - this is a given.

I am who I am because He loves me, because He raises me up and places me on His mighty shoulder every time I get lost and go astray, because He searches for me and blesses me with His beatific dimpled smile when I hide myself in the dark, because no matter how hard I tug, He never lets go of me, because He loves me.

I am awesome.

I am not sorry if this sounds arrogant; sometimes the truth need be told with pride.

I don’t need anyone to tell me I am beautiful, amazing, unique. A voice more true, more awe-inspiring, more intense and terrible than the voices of they who surround me vivifies me with this knowledge at every second of my life.

Sometimes I shut my senses to this reality, sometimes I allow myself to believe that I am less than I am, to actually be less than He has made me. But He doesn’t allow me to wallow in this self-indulgent stupidity for long. When I shut my ears, hold my breath and grit my teeth, He sends me the sunrise and starlit nights to remind me that He who made all this beauty made me; thus I am no mistake. When I close my eyes and detach myself from my skin, He sings me songs through those He has blessed that burn my heart and fill my eyes. No matter where I am, He is there, every moment telling me that because He made me, I am everything.
I am not perfect.

I may tell myself I am, but I am not; so when I do, a part of me stops trying to be perfect and gets lazy. But I cannot afford such complacence. I cannot take it for granted that He has made me strong, awesome, amazing, blessed. I have to keep working so that more than staying this way, I become even better, more beautiful than I was in the last second. He has everything so this is the only way I can thank Him for all He has made me.

I am not perfect, and because I know this, I can forgive myself every time I fall and feel His eyes dim. But I will keep on travelling this road to perfection because it is my trying that makes me perfect before His eyes. I will fall because I am human, but I will rise because my Maker is divine and He lives and burns within me.

I have everything I need to be everything I want to be. Thus I will hold unto His hand so that when I stray, whether I am kicking and screaming or patiently accepting, He will raise me upon His shoulder to more than I let myself be.

Amen.

Your Dimpled Smile…

    I feel it when the sun crawls in
    It flirts my lashes to life
    I read it in Your words
    Stirring my soul to growth
    I see it in the frame on the wall
    The heart the artists paint
    I hold it in my sister’s palm
    And in my father’s warm hug.
    I hear it in the patter
    The marauding rat’s tiny feet
    I dance it with your blessed
    In the fluidity we all crave
    I burn with it in voices
    Sonorous with your beauty


                                                           I mourn it in the tears
And scabs of the child beggar
I touch it in the pages
Of all books, new and old
I tease it in the eyes
Of the bold interested one
I rejoice it in the laugh
Of the burdened tickled man
I breathe it in the dust
The smoke, odour and perfume
I taste it in my buds
Alive in culinary splendour
I ponder it in mishaps
The inevitable human in beings
I always see, touch, taste, smell
I always feel Your dimpled smile
The beauty You are Lord, blesses me
From unworthy existence to incandescent life.

DIALOGUE OF THE FULL MOUTHS.

Said one full mouth to the other:

“It’s terrible how the poor suffer

How they break and they toil

No bread their hunger to buffer.”

Wailed the other to the one:

“Do you see how young girls get raped

And pregnant to their houses

They return with shame?”

Cried one to the other:

“And the boys now so lazy

Connecting with their ‘big-boyhood’

And getting down with women sexy!”

Observed the other to the one:

“The old men don’t get their pensions

After all their years of camelling

Their tables have no rations!”

Moaned the one to the other:

“Women now sell their bodies

Under the guise of dating

Their disgrace earns them jewelry.”

Complained the other to the one:

“The government has core no more

Chop chop and clean mouth

That’s the flag they’ll die for.”

Exclaimed one to the other:

“Religion is now a business

Turning in profit for profit

Thus they sell their graces!”

Grunted the other to the one:

“There is no more culture

Out of date and place

Now ‘civilization’ we nurture.”

Rejoiced the full mouths to each other:

“Let us toast to our fullness

Let the world fall about our ears

At least, we have life’s goodness!”

SAY YESSS!!!

“I’m not worried about a thing, ‘cos I know who’s in control. There’s no limit to what you can do, you’re almighty and all powerful. When Jesus say yes, nobody can say no!”

 

There are so many amazing songs in the world; songs that make us think, laugh, scream out in passion…

Then again, there are so many atrocities to music that make us want to puke and throw our phones against the wall. Those are for another day.

I listen to so many beautiful songs, watch so many wonderful movies, read so many awesome books and wonder: when did God become an abomination?

Just like swear words, His name is edited out of some DSTV channels; it is almost a crime to even hint at His existence in many schools in America. Many persons have become so anti-God that secularism has itself become a religion.

 

But I heard this song and I fell in love. Not because I imagine that the singers truly believe in what they are singing (Beyonce did look a mite uncomfortable and less energetic than usual and Kelly seemed to be trying to dredge up the faith that she used to have when she was a child in the church choir) but that they cared enough for Michelle to come together to sing a song that in this day is unusual in itself and for each of them (with the possible exception of Michelle).

There are two lessons on true love that I picked from the song:

1.     God should be celebrated on top of our lungs from the highest of mountains to the bottoms of oceans (love your God with all your heart and might); and

 

2.     True friendship stands all tests and triumphs always (love your neighbor as yourself).

 

I will not preach today. But I will quote Albert Camus, “I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out that there isn’t, than live my life as if there isn’t and die to find out that there is.”

Say yes today, to true love!!!

Itchy Fingers...

Fingers speak.

Impossible as it sounds, they do, probably even more than the tongue does. Imagine existing without fingers… that image should speak well enough for itself.

My fingers however, have been silent and dormant for so long, the joints ache to come back to life. They had such big dreams when they were firmer and more agile: how they would produce bestsellers before they moved out of teenage hood, how they would stun the world with the amazing things they could create.

But fingers, like the voice, get lazy and uninspired when they are held silent as precious time passes.

My fingers are not yet back to life. They are itching though, badly enough that I am now making the time out to scratch. They have so much to say, so much to do in so little time. But they will breathe again. And hopefully, just like they always wished to, they will inspire other sleeping fingers to wakefulness, one day at a time.