Its My Wedding Not yours!

I love me some instagram. I also follow quite a few wedding inspiration pages ( for business purposes and the leftovers of helping plan a friend's wedding), and I appreciate the pictures- i really do. However some things need to be said.

there was a picture of a very gorgeous bride: face beat by the gods (or how else do you guys say it again?), gele fanning out to the heavens and this gorgeous but elaborate neckpiece. The neckpiece was huge- like her entire chest was covered in the neckpiece. Then there were the comments. I might post screen captures of the comments, but some people thought the neckpiece was too much. Then there was another comment:
"its her wedding not yours keep ur negative opinions to urself! y'all women just can't appreciate EACH OTHER!!! #sad!!!"

so yeah, that was the comment that inspired this post. Well, and today's entry in my devotional about "speaking the truth in love". Its hard out there for someone that wants to speak the truth -in love or not. Its even harder for people who just want to express an opinion.

We all don't have the same taste, and you know that no matter how gorgeous something is, somebody out there might not like it- not because they are being a hater, but because that's not their taste. Some people believe that if you have a different opinion, then just keep it to yourself. This I just find outrightly silly. That's akin to only wanting praise singers on your page. If you can welcome the positive opinions, you should be able to welcome the differing opinions. Not everybody that disagrees with you is a hater.

i recently had to unfollow a very popular christian relationship blogger after she posted something about negative and argumentative comments. Every differing comment is not from a hater, someone who is jealous or someone who is not led by God. People just want praise singers and someone who disagrees with you just grinds your ego.


of course I know there are haters out there, but not everyone is a hater because they dont want to stick their heads up your behind. jeez!

Pray without ceasing?

If you ever grew up in a christian home, then you'll be familiar with the concept of prayer - from going to church, praying before meals, hearing your parents pray etc. You'll also know that the bible encourages us to "pray without ceasing". If you're like me, you'll wonder how this will ever be possible? so you chuck it up to those things written in the bible that we can actually never do.

You'd have been told that prayer is simply "talkin to God". You might even know a few "prayer warriors" that can spend hours praying. If you listen to them closely, you'd have pickedup on the fact that they repeat a lot of sentences and spend a great deal of time shouting instructions at God.

Recently, He started showing me things about Himself that although I knew before, I never really understood them like that. Things that seriously messed with my prayer life and rendered me unable to pray for a while.

1. God is sovereign: Absolutely nothing in this world happens without his approval
2. God loves me very much
3. God is intimately involved in every aspect of my life.
4. Every trial I go through was carefully handpicked by Him to achieve some purpose.
5. God works on his own schedule

So let's see how these truths rendered me prayerless:

He knows about every situation I'm in and since He's intimately involved in every aspect of my life, I dont need to call his attention to it, cos He's right there, infact, He is the cause of whatever "problem" I'm going through. If He wants to change/addresss such situation, He doesn;t need me goading him a milion times to get to it, infact, no matter how much I tell him, if its not the right time he wants to address it, I cant force him to do otherwise. Because He loves me so much, I know He has a good reason for putting me through anything he puts me through.

So at first, I reacted in anger, and told Him how angry I was. I even accused Him of not loving me enough, then I cried a bit, and finally just threw my hands up in surrender - and sulked at it. The amazing thing is God is wonderful and Patient. He doesn't get mad at my temper tantrums, instead He shows me over and over again that He loves me and keeps telling me to submt to him and trust Him. He does have a good sense of humor too!

The wonderful thing is that I find myself talking to him constantly throughout the day. A lot of thins I had hitherto chucked up to coincidence, or luck, I find myself acknowledging him duly. It makes for wonderful conversation, and all of a sudden, I find myself "praying without ceasing"!

Now I am able to pray again, but my prayer language is much different and I'm loving it! infact, this is like the best relationship ever!

Book Review: STILL by Eniola Prentice

When Eniola asked me to review her book, I was honored. Not only because I got to read the advance review copy before it hit the shelves (:p), but because Eniola is part of my medical school family, infact she was my first year mentee.

It is usually challenging for me to read stories with multiple characters, and so for the first few pages, I had to continually go back to the beginning of the chapter to know who I was reading about. This didn't last long because the characters are firmly settled and the writer does a very good job of sequencing the stories so that the characters flow seamlessly from chapter to chapter.

Eniola does a very good job capturing the highs and lows of medical school. In fact, the book had me reliving my orientation week but my entire first year all over again! In the middle of all the usual medical school drama, each character's personal struggles is beautifully interwoven in a unique way that gives life to the characters.
Every medical school class had that gunner who cried because he/she got a 99 on the test, the person who turned in exams with almost 30 minutes to spare, the life of the party, and sadly the person who still failed eve after studying tirelessly.

Still is a fusion of two of my dearest institutions - Medicine and Christianity. Within this setting Eniola explores Christianity, suicide, alcoholism, relationships, the dark world of secrets and mental illness in a way that has never been done before. Still will entertain you, enlighten you, but most of all it will encourage you. No matter what you are going through, and in a class of over 100 students, there WILL be many with challenges, it will encourage you to run to a higher source.

Even though this novel is set in a medical school, the story is still (no pun intended) applicable to everyone because we all go through trying times in our lives, relationships, careers, business etc. We have all been created for a specific purpose, and in spite of whatever experiences we have been through - through whatever experiences we have been through, If we would only keep calm and be still, God will work through us to fulfill His purpose in our lives.

"The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still" - Exodus 14:14

PS: Nikki Abe is my girl any day of the week!
PPS: Even though I thought I knew what to expect at the end of the book, I shed a grown girl tear at the end of the book *covers face*

The author has been generous enough to give away a signed copy of the book and a $40 amazon gift card!, so be sure to enter the giveaway below:


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Under Construction

Over the weekend, I happened to pass by my alma mata randomly. The GPS had suggested routing me through another shorter destination than it had previously calculated. As the voice routed me through streets that sounded familiar, I caught a glimpse of a train station. I realized I was back in the vicinity of my former college. Then I noticed something amazing. It looked more beautiful than I remembered it.

You see three years ago, the place was under construction. Mounds of earth that had been dug up stood in an ugly pile. The Makeshift wooden walkway and fence made for an even uglier site. I heard that an apartment complex was being built there.

Today the reason why I didn't recognize the area was that it was more beautiful than I ever remembered it . The apartment complex was complete with shops around it. In place of the ugly wooden makeshift boards were beautiful glass windows.

Then He told me, this is what I can do with your life. When people see the dug out earth, and the wooden boards, it might look ugly - it WILL look ugly, but I have to dig up all that earth to make a solid foundation. It's part of the rebuilding process, but very soon in it's place will stand a magnificent edifice such that nobody will remember the ugly structure that once stood there. Even if they do, it will be open amazement what I will do.

Construction sites are never pretty while they are under construction - if anything, they are even uglier than they start out. Sometimes the initial edifice might have to be tone down. Even if it's a bare land, the earth has to be dug up to create the foundation/basement. They are usually ugly sites, but if you wait, and let the dry wall come up the windows, and then the paint, it's always a beauty.

Tired of being strong

Usually I'm good at it -being strong that is. With a smile on my face, a chirpy attitude, and Pharell's "happy" playing in the background, you would think I have not a care in the world. However when I had to put on my sunglasses while sitting in traffic so that other drivers wouldn't see me cry, I knew I ws close to breaking.

I'm tired of acting strong, I'm tired of appearing strong. I'm tired of repeating the same prayers over and over wondering if He hears me, I've held back the tears for so long  that the dam is threatening to burst. I really want to have a good cry, problem is there's so many people around me that I don't have the privacy to cry -which might be a good thing cos I don't want to slip into depression -again.

I don't want to sound ungrateful, because there has been light in this tunnel. I've been able to do a lot of things I never thought I'd be able to do,, but I want more. I don't think I'm asking for too much. , and if I can't get more now, I really want to bitch and throw a tantrum about if.
Being strong is tiring. I'm not as strong as you all think I am. Not as strong as He thinks I am.

Unforgiveness

On most days I consider myself a very easy going loving person. I don't usually hold grudges. However for the past couple of days I've been wrestling with unforgiveness. I've not had to deal with this issue of forgiveness since someone very close to me (a family member) hurt me. It took me months to get over it, even though I did say some hateful spiteful words to the person. However I got over it and I can truly say I don't have any hint of I forgiveness in my heart.

It's pretty easy to forgive someone when they apologize for the wrong they've done, but what about someone who shows no remorse? Who hasn't even acknowledged that they hurt you. Who doesn't seem to care. How do you go about forgiving such a person. What about the magnitude of what they've done. What offense is too great not to forgive?

I've felt the leading of the Holy Spirit asking me to forgive and pray for someone who hurt me. First time I heard it, I lay on my bed arguing with the Holy Spirit. And instead of praying I kept on recounting all the painful and hurtful things the person did with tears in my eyes.

Everytime I say I've forgiven the person, I remember again and I feel hurt afresh, and I know that I truly haven't. I really want to let go, but it's harder than I imagined.

Mr Telephone man

...there's something wrong with my line-

well, actually there's nothing wrong with it. Am I the only one that sees calling loved ones as a chore? (loved ones do not include my current love interests, lol). I'm the type of child that calls home every 6 weeks.  Funny thing is that my parents seem to be used to it.
Back in school, I had friends that called home every week unfailingly.  A part of me envied them, but really I was not about that life. I find perfunctory calls boring. Calls where we ask about the weather, and all unrelated things just to say we talked to one another. Thankfully a lot of my close friends do not measure our level of friendship by the frequency of our calls. we can talk to each other in 3 months intervals and pick back up where we stopped as if nothing happened.

Sometimes i actually keep in touch better with my friends because I give them "gist" about my life. As opposed to some aunty and uncle that I really dont want to know my business and as such there is really nothing to talk about. Per my parents, I'm not so comfortable talking to them about romantic interests, because you can't really give them all the nitty gritty details about your relationships because we all know wheat happens when youtell your parents about your spouse's fights. you forgive the spouse and most times they dont.
Anyways, I'm trying to be a "better" person, and at least call home once a month. Maybe from there we can work our way to twice a month? lol

A little Housekeeping

At the beginning of this year...actually as last yearr was coming to an end, I made a decision to tidy up all loose ends in my life - a sort of housekeeping if you could call it that. I decided to finally be grown up and responsible in my finances.
I have been living everyday as it comes, but at a certain age, I believe one needs to put aside something. Not as if its your savings that will save you when things get tough, but its the idea of cultivating a savings habit. I know my Checking account, once money sits in it for too long, it will leaev. yes, as in develop legs and walk away. Funny thing is when its done, its done.
Anyways, I decided to open a savings account.  I didnt actually act on it till I walked into a fabrics store just to windowshop but came out with 5 yards of lace material. The guilt of it sent me to the bank the very next day to put something aside! I'm making a commitment to putting something inside every month.

Next, I pulled up my credit report. Thankfully it wasn't in the toilets yet...it was already in the soak away! I wont call myself a reckless spender, but a series of unfortunate incidences meant that I had a lot of negative activity on it. The only regret I have is that none of it was accrued from designer handbags, clothes or shoes. At least those things will be keeping me comfortable now shey? Anyways, I disputed everything on it, and my score has gone up some 26 points. slow and steady, they say.

mehn, this growing up business thing isn't easy! phew!

Stalking

For some reason I've been stalking Sugabelly's blog  for the past hour. I daresay its refreshing to see someone who still blogs like nothing changed ( well there's Original mgbeke, Mixchif, and Sting). I also found Lighty's blog the other day.
This year, I'm going to make a concerted effort to keep blogging away. I remember a time when blogging was  like Oxygen for me. I still blog on the "healthy living Naija style" blog, but since its getting lonely on there, I might as well transfer all my posts on here.