Hope For The Living...

“For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for better is a living dog than a dead lion" Ecclesiastes 9:4(KJV).

I don’t know what you are going through in your life or what you have been through in the past but I’m coming to you to say there is hope. Whatever your situation God is there and with him nothing is impossible. Financial trouble, your husband has left you or you have lost a loved one I’m here to say that even if you have hit rock bottom smile coz the only place left to go is up. Whatever the devil has thrown your way he has made a huge mistake: he left you ALIVE. The fact that you’re here now should bring you comfort because like He did for Job, GOD can and will restore you to your former glory but only if you let him. So this morning please let him.  I know of a woman who lost her husband a few years back and was left to look after their three young daughters on her own. As if that wasn’t enough her husband’s family chased her away and she struggled for a while. But by the grace of God she found a job and now she can put food on the table and send her girls to school without worrying. She has even bought a stand and managed to build a cottage. She is an inspiration even to me. And living proof that God will never forsake us. If you are sick God can heal and give you better health than you had before like He did for Naaman. “Then went he down and dipped himself seven times in Jordan according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child and he was clean”.2 Kings 5:14. All you need to do is pray and believe. And be sensitive to the instructions of the Spirit and follow them.

And now to those who think that they have sinned “too much”. I want to say that our God is a very forgiving God. Those notions in your head are of the devil and like I said earlier he let you live and that shall be his downfall. My favourite verse of all time Isaiah 1:18 says “Come now let us reason together saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red as crimson they shall be as wool”.  What better invite are you waiting for? He is ready to forgive you. The question is : are you ready to be forgiven? He doesn’t care what you’ve done he loves you all the same. Nomatter how many times you have sinned he wants to forgive you. It’s who he is.  “For his anger endureth but a moment in his favour is life...” Psalm 30:5. So my friend whoever you are and wherever you are and whatever you may have done there is still hope for you to become a better person and bask in the love of our Lord. Remember every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

In JESUS’ name

Amen.

Happy Birthday To Me

Yippee today is my birthday and I'm soo excited.

I cant explain how I'm feeling right now. I'm so happy  I wanna do cartwheels and I'm pretty sure that at some point during the day I AM going to do just that. I'm so grateful to God because He is just amazing, He has blessed me so much in every part of my life. I have a great husband, a beautiful daughter, a roof over my head, a job clothes on my back and I have never gone to bed hungry. I have a strong support system and He brings into my life the the right people at the perfect time. God is just amazing, He gave me life and the most precious gift I could have ever received- He sacrificed His Son for me. So that I could be saved.

I don't know how to express my gratitude, I have nothing to give except my heart. I pray that its good enough...

When Death Comes-a-Knocking

What are the odds that two people you know would pass on on the same day. In two totally unrelated incidents. Happened to me yesterday and I was reminded how I am living on borrowed time and how I take it for granted every day.

None of us ever thinks that death will befall the people we love. Its something that only happens next door. Our families are going to be around forever... right? That's what we think. As a result we go for days , weeks and sometimes decades without communicating with the people closest to our hearts. We allow distance and time to separate us and we allow life to come between us. We have our priorities all messed up and we neglect the things that ought to matter most. We forget to say "Hi, How are you today". We hardly ever say "I love you."  And "Thank you" has ceased to exist in our vocabularies. We fight over trivial things and we don't say "I'm sorry." We continue to grow apart and those of us who are away at work in other countries have begun to replace love and affection with money and other meaningless material things. We assume that they know we love them. How can they when the words have never passed our lips. We waste time being angry over petty things and we let molehills turn into the Himalayas and divide us unnecessarily. We always say to ourselves "I'll call tomorrow" but tomorrow never comes.   We put our dreams aside- after all we have the rest of our lives to do it right? Not! We have all these things that we have been meaning to do for years but have never gotten around to do it. All these wrongs we need to right.

We have forgotten that tomorrow isn't promised to anyone and when we hear that a loved one has departed we get into shock. Our minds instantly rush to all the could have beens and would have beens. That's when we find ourselves full of regret and often inconsolable. We think of the things we meant to say to them but never did, the I love yous, the apologies. We think of the times we wanted to visit but came up with one excuse or another and stayed at home. We forget that death gives no notice nor warning, it sneaks up on us and cruelly snatches our family and our friends. We don't know when or how it will strike but until it does we never give it a thought. If  you were to receive that dreaded call today would yo be able to grieve without regret.

Maybe its your time that's run out. Would those close to you salute you and celebrate you. Can you say you have truly lived. What kind of race are you running? What king of crown is waiting for you on the other side?

I don't know about you but when my turn to leave this earth comes I want to have done the best I can, loved the best I can and lived the best I can... So that when the saints go marching in I will be among them, waiting expectantly to see my Lord.

Evolution of me

Its official I'm getting old! Yesterday morning my husband was staring at me and I asked him why. "Oh, just marveling at how you look more like a woman since we got married" was  the response. He's been saying things like that a lot lately... and he isn't the only one. My friends and family have also noticed it. Just the other day someone looked at me and said " Munya has really brought out the woman in you". Well I really do hate to admit it but they are right. I am not the same person I was a few years ago. Sometimes when I pass by a mirror i have to look twice just to make sure its really me.

 I am an only girl in my family and growing up I was a tom-boy of sorts. Aside from my school uniform I had no dresses and I hardly ever wore skirts- unless they were super short... I was always hanging with the boys and at some point I actually thought I was one of them.  When I was in primary school I almost always had my hair cut very short-much to my mother's disappointment. She wanted to have a little girl that she could dress up in pretty dresses and in whose hair she could put colorful ribbons. I remember tagging along to the barber with dad after promising her that I was just going to watch and coming back with a clean shaven head. Poor woman, she would throw a fit but well that didn't help her cause much. She even bought me dolls until she realised that we used to remove their heads and use them as soccer balls. I got into a single-sex boarding school when I was thirteen and she was elated, I suppose she hoped if I was surrounded by other girls I would eventually turn into one and come home to wear all those dresses that were gathering dust in my wardrobe. But even there I somehow found males to make friends with.

By the time I turned sixteen I had no skirts or dresses in my wardrobe and when my dad died I had nothing to wear at the funeral. I had to make do with a wrap over a tracksuit bottom. After this I went out of my way to buy a skirt. I was long and tight and I sooo hated it.

I started going to a co-ed school for A'level and that's when any progress i had made in getting in touch with my feminine side went straight out the window. There were lots of boys to hang out with there LOL. I made lots of friends and was often the only girl in a group of guys talking cars sports and girls, yes girls. most of them hoped to get an insight on how the female brain works but they were barking up the wrong tree. Sometimes I would go out for tournaments with the boys' sports teams and I'd be the only female on the bus.   Loudly singing along to the songs - obscenities and all. I was always clad in jeans or tracksuit bottoms and tee, the baggier the clothes were the better. I tried my damnedest to hide all my female physical features.  and I would just cut my hair on a whim. I still do. By now you should have an idea of what i looked like. I also did my best to act as boyish as possible. In fact the very first time I spoke to my husband he saw me jump over a gate (but that's a story for another day) .

I really cant say when exactly things changed and that's why I'm calling it evolution. It could have been that I loved wearing a dress on my wedding day I decided to go buy more or maybe child birth awakened the woman in me- who knows. All I know is I'm being transformed into this being that I know not. Everything from my wardrobe to my lifestyle has changed. I am the proud owner of more than five skirts, three dresses and two pairs of high heeled shoes. My older brother has a field day every time he sees me in a dress and I am yet to adapt to that sight as well. I have also since started wearing make- up and I'm becoming quite the expert at doing up my own face. I've even done a bit of volunteer modeling and entered a beauty contest. I remember I had my eyebrows trimmed & shaped for the first time on my wedding day. My husband looked at me on our honeymoon and proclaimed that he liked the look and all but begged me to keep it so i did.

On the inside I have realised that I'm becoming more and more emotional and that tears are more readily available than they use to be. I'm also a bit more tolerant of others and less impatient with myself. I've stopped hating my body and I have fully accepted that I am a woman. A woman who still likes to cut her hair once in a while. (I've decided to go natural and get dreadlocks and will try my best to grow my hair for the next ten years ). I'm not super girly or anything like that but I'm far more feminine than I have ever been. I'm not trying to prove myself and I've stopped competing with the boys. I can safely say i enjoy being the fairer sex and having someone else be strong for me every once in a while. I'm discovering new things about myself   on a regular basis. I'm starting to hate pink a lot less but blue will always be my favorite colour. I have come to the point where I'm OK using words like beautiful to describe myself. I feel comfortable in the company of other women though my gossip skills still need a bit of work... yes I went there... LOL

The little boy in me will always be there but I'm really glad that the WOMAN that I'm becoming will always be around to keep him in check. I know this is just the beginning and I know I'm gonna keep surprising myself and those around me. Who knows maybe one day I'll be able to wear a skirt more than thrice a week and not feel awkward. I may even start making female friends. Lets watch this space together why don't we?

Temptation

When i was younger  I lived a cushioned life and being the only girl i was a little on the spoilt side. I had everyone in the family wrapped around my little finger (except my mom of course) and I could have gotten away with murder if I wanted. My father always made sure I had everything i needed though he was not too keen on buying things he liked to call "wants". Basically I knew that school fees would be paid on time, I always had clothes to wear and I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. We all did. We may not have had all the luxuries we wanted but he had all the important stuff covered. I felt secure and content.

After my dad passed away life took a turn in the "wrong" direction. I was - for the first time in my life, sent home from school for failure to pay fees and I was traumatized. Things kept going downhill and I prayed for an end to it. Our family had to make some pretty drastic lifestyle changes. I had to be taken out of boarding school and I had to go to a school close to home to save money but also because  my mom was sick and I needed to be home to take care of her. I had to make do with second hand uniforms and on some days we had no idea where the next meal was coming from. We often had to swallow our pride and take handouts from well wishers. 

It is at this time that i learnt valuable lessons about the human population. I learnt that most people will kick you when you're down. Some will try to take advantage of you and very few will help you out of the goodness of their hearts. I mostly encountered the vultures that tried to take advantage of my situation and I had to keep fighting them off even after things got better. The majority of them were men- much older than i was, pretending to be sympathetic of my situation.

Everywhere I went I was hounded by at least one such person. The teachers at school, neighbors, my friends' fathers and brothers. And later on when I was a bit older and going to work my workmates, especially my superiors. The moment they heard about my background they would start hanging around like hungry hyenas. Their shameless attempts at flirting were rather pathetic. All of them were married. I remember looking in the mirror and thinking to myself  "I'm not pretty" and wondering what they all wanted from me. I soon realised that they knew I was in a bad place and I was also vulnerable. They knew that it would be very easy for me to be led astray especially if I saw a chance at a "better" life. 

Boy were they in for a surprise... I may have been young but I was far from naive and I knew exactly were the path they wanted me to take would lead. There was nothing but disaster at the end of it. I just thank God for making me level headed and for giving me people who loved me and were genuinely supportive through this time. I have to admit though that sometimes the offers these strange men presented to me were rather tempting and it took a lot of strength to say no. I remember my very first job : the owner of the firm wanted to buy me a flat of my own if I agreed to become his wifey number three. Yes three. I can only imagine the horror of sharing my husband with two other women. I thought I was quite clever for being able to reject these advances but now I know better and I know that God had big plans for my life and wasn't going to let me get side tracked for anything not even for all the money in the world. 

I could have chosen the easy way out. There was nothing stopping me from exchanging sexual favors for money. I could have even ended up a full time working-girl who does  her business at street corners. But no

God loves me so much and He wouldn't have any of that. I needed the money and there was no source of income aside from my mother's miserable pension and there were medical bills and school fees to be paid. there were mouths to feed and a whole bunch of other necessities for which money was needed. It also didn't help that our country's economy was slowly "dying" . Up to now i have no idea how we made it through that tough phase. It was indeed by divine intervention. I'm really glad I listened to my conscience and slummed it out during that time. Otherwise I wouldn't be enjoying the fruits of my perseverance. I'm not rich but I'm OK and i know God has yet to finish with me.

It really pains me to see all those girls who do "things" for money. I look at them and think "That could have been me" . They wanted a quick fix and made choices that seemed to be the best at that time. They made life long decisions based on lies and honey traps and now its too late to turn back. I learned that there is a season and a reason for everything under the sun (Ecc 3:1) and that we should not let our current situations define us or determine who we become in future. 

Love like this...

This was my prayer for Valentines:

Dear Lord,
Teach me to love like You do. Love that is sacrificial,
Love that is forgiving. Love that endures all
Love that is unconditional, love that expects nothing in return.
Love that is willing to go the extra mile. Love that knows no bounds.
Love that gives and gives. Love that leads by example.
Teach me to love my neighbor as I love myself.
Teach me to love my enemies as You have commanded of me.
I want to love others like You have loved me.
Amen

Praise HIM through the storm...

Life can be one big mess at times... Nothing seems to be going as it should and the world seems to have turned on you. Those closest to you abandon you and the world seems to be a lonely place. i'm having one of those days today and i listened to the wind and it seems to be singing to me. call me crazy but this is the song that has filled my ears, my mouth and my heart:

"You don't have to worry
 And don't yo be afraid
Joy comes in the morning
Troubles they don't last always
For there's a friend in Jesus
Who will wipe those tears away
And if your heart is broken
Just lift those hands and say...

With Jesus I can make it
In Him I know I can stand
No-matter what
May come my way
My life is in your hands...

When all those tests and troubles
They seem to get you down
And all your friends and loved ones
They are nowhere to be found
Remember there's a friend in Jesus
Who will wipe those tears away
And if your heart is broken
Just lift those hands and say...

In as much as I am feeling down I know there is someone out there who loves me unconditionally. He doesn't care whether I'm right or wrong. He takes care of me all the time and he is always by my side. and today I've made a decision. Since He is loving me through my storm I'm also gonna PRAISE HIM THROUGH IT. 

Isaiah 41:10 Hebrews13:5

Home sweet home

Yesterday I had a really bad day at work and by the time I got home I was close to tears. I kept going over the day’s events in my head trying to figure out where I had gone wrong. I was very angry with myself, my boss, but most of all with God.

The moment I got into the house Fafie got up from her nap and the sight of her little sleep filled face just thawed my heart. So beautiful and innocent as she called for me to pick her up. At first I thought why can’t she just leave me be to sort out my thoughts and stop bothering me. But she wouldn’t stop calling so I took her in my arms and gave her a hug and she gave me her special little kiss (I don’t know anyone else who kisses with her mouth wide open). Suddenly I felt at peace I smiled with her and her giggles filled the room they also filled my heart, chasing out the darkness.

My evening turned out beautifully. I was laughing and singing and dancing with my baby and having loads of fun. By the time my husband came home I had completely forgotten about my bad day. I only remembered later when I had put Fafie to bed and we started talking about how our day had been (we can’t do much talking when she’s awake) but all the anger I had felt earlier was gone. It was as if I was recalling an incident that had happened ages ago.

As I fell asleep last night I realised that I shouldn’t be angry at God. I realised that I had lots of other things going for me and that a bad day at work would never over shadow them. I realised that I should be grateful that He knew the devil would occasionally mess with my head and that work would at some point give me stress. He knew all this so in His infinite wisdom He created a place for me to go after that bad day. A home filled with love, with laughter with joy. A home where I can go to forget all my cares. A home where I can let loose and be me in the craziest way I know how. There I can feel God’s love through my daughter’s heart. And I know that I’m doing something right in my life. Thank God for home