A time to let go

Disclaimer: This write up is me venting so I decided not to share the link to this post on social media. Pardon any typo and grammatical errors

Monday 23, March 2015.

I got the news about the death of a friend. He passed on the day before.

My first reaction was denial, I laughed and called it a joke and I raised my voice at my friends that called to tell me the news. "I refuse to believe it, I don't accept it" those were the words I woul utter and I would end the call abruptly. Till I got home that night and I wept, I couldn't eat. He died in a car accident, the same accident that God that saved me from on the 29th of December.

After the denial phase, came anger.

I was angry.

I was angry at God, angry that he would take him away at his prime, that he would just die 'like that', without having a chance to fight for his life.

Then I was angry at myself, angry that I did not keep in touch often, angry that I wasn't a good friend, angry  that if I had kept in  touch I would have had a premonition about his death and would have averted it with prayers.

I was angry at everyone. People just went about their lives as if nothing happened. I went on twitter and instagram people were still tweeting and posting random stuff and I got angry at them. Never mind that they never knew him, they weren't supposed to be this happy because this world had lost a gem.

I was angry at the Nigerian Government for leaving the roads in deplorable conditions. I thought it was unfair that he would pass on serving his nation. I wanted them to stop NYSC if they were not ready to pay for the flight tickets for all youth corpers or have the roads in good conditions.

With the anger came tears, hot uncontrollable tears. I was at work and I kept weeping, I just couldn't help myself. I went through his facebook and instagram profiles and my heart broke. Again. Evans? Gone. Just like that! The news of his death was everywhere, facebook, instagram, bbm, Linda Ikeji, blogs and what have you, so no matter how much I tried to stop thinking about it, I couldn't. I would see his pictures pop up online and the tears would well up.

I don't even know why I have this post I just need a place to vent without hearing any condolence message. This is the first time I will lose someone close to me, nobody told me losing someone would sting like this. 

I have made my peace with his death. A friend told me to read Ecl:3 and as cliche as that may sound, the 'a time tos' was balm to my wounded heart. Evans has gone and it is time for me to let him go. I have made peace with his death.

I can still remember your days in HP, you were willing to learn, committed to any task you were given, creative and helpful. We had our issues, days we didn't see eye to eye on certain things, thinking about it now, those things never really mattered. I will look at your pictures, watch all the videos I have of you and listen to your voice, because that's how I choose to remember you, as a living, breathing being. I will tuck those memories somewhere in my heart and cherish them.

I can bring myself to say this now... Rest in peace Evans Eboka. I have made peace with your death.

Ilo Unuigbe

All things bright and beautiful!

I remember hymn 444.

In primary school, we had this little blue book called "songs of praise" (SOP) and we would sing hymns from it every morning at the assembly ground.

I have forgotten all other hymns and their numbers but one I still remember is hymn 444 - "All things bright and beautiful". We would always rush through that hymn and sing it with so much glee, unlike the other hymns. Most of us could sing it off hand because the lyrics were easy to remember or maybe there was/is something just different about the lyrics of that hymn. Perhaps, something about the 'purple headed mountains', 'ripe fruits in the garden',  'meadows where we play' appealed to our senses as children.

The Rod and The Staff

"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me"

I recently discovered that the rod and staff in psalm 23 signifies the word of God. Gods word is the only source of true and lasting comfort for our souls in trying times. This has been evident in my life for a while now.

I love the book of Psalms as a whole.

I love Psalm 23. 

Like the Phoenix

Happy new year beautiful people!! May this year be the year that we all come into our own by the grace of God. I have many reasons to be thankful to God, and I want to share one of them in this post.

Even though I am a private person, I just had to put up this story because this is my way of saying thank you to Jesus. I have no better way of appreciating God for my life than telling everyone how good and merciful God is. God is a VERY PRESENT help in times of trouble. I can only wonder how people without Jesus cope when the storms blow...I can only imagine.

Keep going...you got this.

I'll start off by saying a big thank you to to everyone that stops by to read this space. I get a lot of 'hey, you haven't put up anything on your blog recently' and my first reaction is surprise. Surprise because I'm awed at the fact that people actually read this blog. Okay that came out wrong, I didn't mean it that way. What I meant to say is... scratch that, I actually meant it! So, thank you for your encouraging words, thank you for the publicity, thank you for challenging me to keep putting stuff up here and thank you for even remembering titles of previous posts even when I the 'writer' have forgotten!
Feel free to catch your sub...!
So down to the business of today

The Anomaly

Hello everyone,
It's been a minute and I have been itching to write this blog post for a while now. For all Lecrae fans, I'm sure you'd know by now that the title of this blog post was inspired by the title of his new album dropping next month hopefully.

Simply put, an anomaly is a deviation from the norm. I was in a bus we all know as Danfo in Lagos state and for the first time (at least it seemed like that) in my life, I met a bus conductor that was actually polite, saying words

My flaws, my fears

 "The best way to make a wound heal is to expose it eventually"

No matter how long a wound is covered with bandages or plasters, for total healing to take place, it has to be exposed at some point.

On this note, I start today's blog post.