Thoughts and Other Things

I heard walking does good for your mental wellbeing, so I left the car and walked around the block - I'm disagreeing.  For a girl, walking doesn't do much for your mind,  except fill it with concern 'cause of all the strange eyes observing your behind.  Instead of setting your heart at ease and clearing your head, you pick up more anxiety and frustration instead.  There's no time to hear yourself thinking when your thoughts must wrestle to rise above the cat-calling. There's no time to relax when the hoots of cars passing make your heart jump - oops almost falling.  Definately no time to take in the "fresh" air when you're trying to determine if no one is following you.  No time to release tension when you're trying to avoid the approaching group of men - "please do not pursue".  No longer walking, now almost jogging. Your thoughts filling with worst case scenarios, your brain almost clogging.  Anticipating the moment you'll walk thro...

W hile getting ready for our youth service last week, I was pondering on a very popular ‘youth Scripture’: “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young” (1 Timothy 4:12). Being active in ministry from a young age, I know and have lived by this verse. Being young and female in leadership, I am familiar with what is to be undermined and I know what it is to strive to ensure it doesn’t happen. But God’s Word being God’s Word, it never seizes to surprise with ‘newness’. Reading this text this time around, God impressed on my heart that while some of us are quick to make sure that no one looks down on us, we are blinded to how we look down on ourselves - we are despised in our own eyes. I had been learning abit about how the fall into sin impacted our sight and I got drawn back to it while exploring this understanding. Sin literally changed the way we see, not just the world, but ourselves. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they se...

One thing that will always fascinate me about God’s Word is how He can speak something new using the same old Scripture. Something that is the same is not known to change, but the wonder of God’s word is that it remains the same, yet He speaks something new and different through it each time we approach to hear Him. I have read the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand countless times before, but when I read it this past weekend, God opened my eyes to something new. My focus has always been on the miracle of the five loaves and two fish being multiplied to be enough for a crowd of over five thousand, but this time He led me to see the miracle of the leftovers. “When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, ‘Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” John 6:12 I always understood the reason behind Jesus’ instruction to collect the leftovers being the one stated - that there be no waste. This time around I understood that it was important for the l...

Today I submitted my Masters dissertation. Three years worth of work squeezed between almost three hundred pages. I can't tell you how pleased I was to finally click 'submit'. It was such a long-awaited moment. From the first year, working tirelessly on a research proposal to the second year where I was manning fieldwork - finding appropriate participants, conducting interviews and collecting data. Then came the time to pull everything apart, analysing the data and then pulling it all together again as I reported on my findings. In the background of all these years, was the constant reading of several books and journal articles so that my findings could be set against other voices on the subject. Compiling each of the five chapters of the disseration proved to be such a process. Not only because of all the two-years of work that preceded it, but because I actually had to write a few drafts of each before I got it right. It has surely been an eye-opening experience to work o...

I’m thirty. That’s gonna take time getting used to ‘cause I’ve been twenty-five for the longest time, lol. There’s a big fuss around thirty so I’m really not sure how I’m supposed to ‘feel’. But I know I am grateful, so very grateful. I may not have accomplished everything I had set for myself to accomplish by now, but I am grateful to have things that all the money in the world can not buy… I am grateful amazing people in my life. I still have both my parents by my side – we are watching each other grow and it’s frustratingly hilarious. In the past year I’ve watched them fall sick and witnessed God heal them. I’m so blessed to have them here still. I am so grateful to have a bestfriend who loves me so loudly, siblings who adore me, and a church family that values me.  I am grateful to be able to say I love what I do – the fulfilment it brings surpasses the challenges it comes with. I still don’t feel like God made the best choice choosing me, but no amount of self-doubt can counte...

I’ve always thought that when you’re doing something you’re meant to do, it would be easy and that you would bear fruits and results instantaneously. The fruitfulness and sense of ease would be signs that you were doing the right thing. But as I (involuntarily) grow older, I’m realizing that this theory doesn’t always hold true. Experiencing difficulty doesn’t point to wrongness, as much as seasonal barrenness doesn’t mean you’re in the wrong field. In fact, I’m learning how the right thing is always challenged. It is challenged so much that one sometimes begins to even doubt that it’s the right thing.  Many narratives in the Bible make this clear, but one I have been going through lately is the story found in Judges 20. In this story, the Israelites are trying to do the right thing by holding the wrongdoers within their community accountable. Instead of co-operating, the wrongdoers respond with violence. The Israelites then have to defend themselves. Even before doing so the Israe...

God is dealing with me about keeping my eyes on him for my provision. I’ll need to give you the back story to get me, so please bear with me. I’ve always wanted a bursary (cause wow postgraduate module prices guys). Problem is, bursaries in Theological studies are as scarce as ants in winter. This meant I was limited to apply for the bursary my institution offers to all students of any faculty. But when I started my first qualification with the university, I couldn’t apply for this bursary in the first year because I had done my undergraduate qualification with a different institution. Going into my second year, I was optimistic as I applied for the bursary and hopeful that I’d be able to take on more modules without worrying about the funds. I didn’t even get a response to my application. So that meant leaving the most expensive module to do in my third year, where I also applied for the bursary and was ghosted. I had lost all trust in the bursary department and wouldn’t be able to af...