7 THE JOURNEY…
Divine started listening to music and always scoring whatever music he listens to, as everything around his world started changing with music altering the frequency of his heartbeats. He started writing songs, poems and doing artistic paintings from which he made a lot of money. Nevertheless, there were death experiences that altered his orientation completely about life...
Divine stood before an audience and spoke in these words:
Would you like to hear my story?
One difficult thing to do is rejoicing even amid trials and pains. I am pained in my heart this day. However, I could not stop the rain, but my peace I have maintained to keep my joyfully retained. The marvelousness of life spans beyond your circumstances and until you understand this, you will remain sorrowing, when life is pointing you to something great to change your orientations.
Learn from me experiencing life’s goodness!
Tough and hard times will certainly come; you cannot stop them from coming.
They come to make a man-to-man up, but the making is only for those who are tough and hard, strong and courageous to see beyond whatever situation that adverse toward you.
Though Canaan is a land promised to flow with milk and honey. Nevertheless, it will amaze you that the father of Canaan was Ham. This means, until you fight your way through, you cannot break out of the curse placed on Canaan. However, before you can break through, there must have been breaking out. Sometimes this breaking out could be breaking off the wrong mindset that limits you for long. It is certainly certain that your attitude toward things will determine if a cursed land could turn out to become a blessed land, which implies you can turn your fruitfulness to bareness when you have wisdom, but cannot rightly apply to it yield a positive result.
Do you have an idea the blood of those spilt with their lives cut short before the time that is crying? We live in a system where the blood of people are crying endlessly and the majority of the blood is crying for vengeance because of the injustice and high-level wickedness perpetuated amongst us. Envy began with Lucifer who became Satan, who is the devil hiding under light to present himself to look like an angel of light. The devil is dead, however, living on our ignorance by presenting a false impression that is not true, such that when we accept it as true, it will now work as designed from the pit of hell even as you have thought.
When I was growing as a child, I observe a pattern uniquely manifesting in the life of each one of us in my family. We were twelve in number; it began with my late eldest sister, who got married and in the course of her wedding, some strange things happened in the reception ground in my family compound in the village Opkuto, Euneb State. This happened around 1999 and that incident could not leave my memory. In the course of my sister’s wedding reception, while entertainment was going on and everyone was busy dancing and celebrating, the very thatch house I saw my Dad’s corpse seated on the chair as if he is still alive, was burning, My Dad (now late), rushed to go get water to quench the fire that no one could explain where it came from. While he rushed to get the water, arriving at the point where he was to use the water to quench the burning thatch house, he fell flat, and the water poured on him and he was completely messed. It was so terrible that he rushed home to change the native attire he was wearing. This became a concern to me; despite I was still very young, I could not just understand why such a thing will happen at such a joyous moment and to me, it was not a good omen at all. Many unimaginable things just kept happening that I could not understand, but I knew deep down inside of me that it was not ordinary. After the wedding, my late eldest sister who was a very senior staff with UBA bank started experiencing challenges in her marriage and this so affected her and it became obvious to me that something must be responsible for all the happenings in my family. Right in that challenge, she lost her first son, and long after, she also lost her daughter. My sister now had only a son left, and the situation became very critical and started telling on her. The pattern never stopped and this became a burden to me and I kept asking myself this question “What has my family done to be going through all these misfortunes and trying times?”
This is my true-life story, which happens on 1 April 2017. It was a day I almost gave up life, nevertheless, death was not close to embracing me even when what I desire was death. Sometimes in life’s journey, sorrow would always tend to usher inexplicable joy when you can catch the inspiration of the lessons life is trying to teach you. From my personal experience, I have come to discover that sorrow has an opposite pair called to joy and one can only experience this when such is sensitive to feel the reality beyond the pains and this can be possible when you do not give attention to distractions. Some certain things that happen in our lives are only but distractions trying to take us off focus, to step out of the track of fulfilling purpose.
I know you are already familiar with the phrase “Sorrow may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning”, do you understand what that means? This implies the kind of joy that will spring forth-preceding sorrow is that kind that is inexplicable if and only if you make the right decision in the course of the sorrowing period. Even when you have around you and side by side mountains of pains, grieves, worries and miseries that has made you feel all hope for joy is being shattered and lost, beyond is joy unspeakable.
Sometimes, life brings sorrow by afflicting you, so that you will end up compromising your stand in believing that life is good and you deserve all the good things of life, therefore, you must be strong to overcome evil with good, even when you go through trying times. I have felt hopeless in my days of ignorance, however, I felt I am cursed, and I was even creating for myself reasons why I think life is not good. However, it became obvious and clear that the good force is never what I have thought; the good force is directly opposite what the evil force has reduced my thoughts to now thinking.
Life is never a disappointment and when you know this, you will never be a disappointment, even when we end up accepting to be disappointed because we deliberately chose not to remove the dis and the dis could be some certain ideologies we have long held on to. Dis puts you down; therefore, you must deliberately choose not to be down. I know you may have been to this point in life where you think nothing good will ever happen in your life again, you feel very disappointed. However, I want to tell you the truth, the reason why people say experience is the best teacher is that there are vital lessons to learn from whatever situation you find yourself in.
Sometimes, you will feel like letting go, but I want you to remember, the elegance of life is ever-present in times that more trying. I experience restoration when I thought I have lost it all and to be candid with you, I cannot even explain how, which implies, something helped me.
To begin my story “Tragedies” is a difficult task for me because it is like opening up a new wound. I cannot believe my mother will leave me in this cold world. I remember when she was running around to ensure my registration process when I got admission into secondary school. I am so full of emotions and hurts, but I have to tell you this. However, this story is tragic but brought about testimony in my life. I cannot completely exhaust my feelings but will try to summarize them. It may sound somehow contradicting, tragedy and testimony simultaneously. I have heard and I have come to understand the word “tragedy” but has never experienced it in the gravity that this one came upon my heart like explosive. It was so real and I wish it were never. The thought of it broke me down, but something lifts me, even when men were thinking I am cast down.
What must come must come, no matter how far you run…
It is no body’s friend but becomes blends with your life to stop breath and after all, your activities will end…
It is our fate, even when we do not love it, but the thought of it we hate, because of the emotions it creates, even when the reality of losing our loved ones, we cannot relate…
It is our fate, our destiny, our end, the inevitable, so unavoidable…
It does not have a face, but the reality we must embrace after which we end the race…
It does not matter how healthy you are, it does not matter how wealthy you are, it puts an end to your life on earth because it has been even before your birth…
The question is, how prepared are you?
Heaven and hell are real, even when you have adopted a mindset that thinks it is an illusion, you will still catch the vision when before the end comes...
The life after death, awaits you after birth, as you can believe in reincarnation, but cannot believe that there is a life after death…
Your purpose on earth, is it served?
The life after, are you ready to start?
It is decision time… Who are you?
Hot or cold, which are you?
No time! Look at what level your life has amount…
For our sins, we must account…
Because, no matter how far you run, truly what must come must come!
The story of my triple tragedy was an experience of loss that left my hope fading off like sunset while it is the day, but the true joy of life kept the light of hope shining even when what struck my heart was the darkness of the loss of my mum. It was an unexpected storm beyond my thought grasp, but this opened my eyes to reality. It came as a shock with a sword piercing right deep into my heart at the time I least expected.
Be expectant of all things, but in your expectation, do not be pessimistic.
What you do not expect or what your mind is not prepared to receive will come as a shock and since you have not prepared to receive it, you will have no shock absorber to be able to endure the effect and this could cause you a heart attack. Therefore do not be expectant of evil, but be expectant of all things, both good and bad, never changing your positive mindset. Evil could turn out to be for your good as it affects others, you could become the light.
Do not be amazed when you encounter things that are contrary to your expectation, but be strong when your expectations are cut short, there is still hope because life has a better plan for you.
Sometimes in life, we have to cultivate the right attitude when the unexpected situation befalls us to dive deep into reality and swim right in the ocean that flows with optimism even amidst contrary situations of life.
It happens that the devil struck into my family so hard with a burden so heavy to bear, though my heart could hardly bear the burden, the reality left me with the option to accept what had happened. It was like a daydream; all for me to find out that it was true.
How do you carry a burden you cannot bear?
…buried in fear alive with my open to see the sky shining with a ray of home from my grave. It was so tormenting, like a sword sinking deep into my heart, however, I had an understanding. Nevertheless, the understanding was that “If am set free and I am no longer bound, then I can choose to remain in the condition that the evil one is trying to drag me, I have to option to remain in or step out”, I mean, what matters, is your choice. It was the time I needed my mother the most in my life that the death struck and snatch her life. It happened after a brief illness; she passed out like air into the other side of life following a dynamic train of death. It was so sudden that I was shocked to my bones and could not believe it, thinking it was just a mere dream. How can reality be a mirage? Even when a mirage is a reality, the reality is cast in your heart, like a pool of water that you can never swim in, even when you chase after it until eternity, it will keep pace with your reality, with you never reaching it. It is only a true vision, never catching reality.
My mum left us too soon, without a sign of warning. The question “why…?” in my heart was what gave birth to my real quest in life recalling to mind what my mathematics teacher told me, “The answer is in you”. Whatever happens in our lives happens by permit; else, it would not have happened. However, it is only the one who is all-knowing that can answer the “whys?” in our hearts and “why?” is denoted by a single letter “Y” that represents you, nevertheless, you in this context is simply the function of your thought which defines: as you think in your heart, so you are.
As if it was not enough, right in my mourning state, the devil still struck. Now, my Aunty was mourning with us, but now I am also mourning my Aunty. The person who was supposed to take my mother’s place also died, that is what I mean. She was with us in the course while we were mourning my mother whose corpse deposited in the morgue. My aunty was very sound and strong, but somehow I could no more hear her sound, and I realize something has gone wrong.
