Have you ever been told, literally, by someone you love and care for that your relationship is not meeting their expectation? Well, I have and it hurts!
In any relationship, people have expectations as individuals, even though sometimes those expectations are never expressed, they are there hidden somewhere inside. Isn’t that the reason why some relationships fall apart, because the other person does not meet the expectation of the other? We are all egoistic, but at different levels. In the ideal world, when people get together in relationships or teams or workgroups, what should carry the day is the ‘compromised’ expectation of that relationship -‘compromised’ because it is some form of combination of the individuals’ expectations. There are always trade-offs, you lose some of your individualism in order to make the whole (group, relationship, etc.) better.
So what does it mean when your partner, team member, group member, etc. tells you that you are not meeting their (individual) expectations? It means among many interpretations, that there are fault lines in that relationship. But which relationship doesn’t have fault lines, you may ask. None, I daresay. However, we should be careful the way we relay a thought or a feeling… saying your partner does not meet your expectation is too prideful and self-conceited. Whatever happened to group expectation?
I’m not trying any form of self-gratification or atonement… nay! Writing is my outlet, earthly harbor of my secret thoughts. As I have written often, I take sole responsibility of every word I write. Back to my narrative – it is said in team building that the team takes joint responsibility for success and for failure. Why then do people single themselves out as the ones who have always made all the effort and have never faltered, and even when seemingly they derail, it is because of the action of another person, who then has to take all the blame? It’s like communication, it is a two way process, I absolutely do not see how a breakdown in communication is entirely caused by one person, except of course the other person is an object.
Scattered thoughts – I’m sure you don’t understand my rambling. I feel so hurt, I can’t even think straight. I’m trying to go about life as if everything is ok, but there is a limit to how much I can take and consider normal. For the sake of peace, I’m waving the white flag, the ‘nkeng’ (peace plant). It will not take anything from who I am, it may require some extra energy which I am sure I can muster, but I hope it’ll bring peace – real peace. Shalom!
Monday, July 15, 2013
Friday, April 19, 2013
Pregnant Again!
For some unknown reason, people around me seem to KNOW I am pregnant, and they are telling me so matter of fact-ly. And for some unknown reason, there has been a lot of talk of pregnancy around me. Truth be told, I am not denying any statement insinuating I am preggo to the people saying it, so I suppose I am nourishing the rumor. I’m also guilty of benefitting from a couple of favors because the other person thought I was preggo.
Don’t ask me why this rumor started. I have three hypotheses:
1. I have put on weight and look pregnant –I weighed myself a couple of days ago and well I have added about 1.3Ibs (0.6kg), but that shouldn’t be so visible, right?
2. I am behaving pregnant. I can’t say about this, it’s for others to judge.
3. There is something about the way I look now that screams ‘preggos’! Maybe it’s just because with everything happening around me in the work front, I have aged, or am looking dull and moody than usual.
That said, if I didn’t know myself better, I would have thought also that I was pregnant yesterday. I came to work and immediately became grouchy and grumpy – complaining about things I should have gotten over with some time ago. I may have internalized more than I think and it is coming back to ‘hunt’ me. A colleague told me that my mood was a clear consequence of a hormone better known by it’s acronym, HGC (human chorionic gonadotropin) which is associated almost exclusively with pregnancy. So maybe I am pregnant and just don’t know it – if only I could ignore the fact that I knew I was pregnant when it was just a week old the last time, and my monthly biological clock is so right on time!
To cheer myself, I remembered the poem by the great Maya Angelou – STILL I Rise, which is relevant because it is talking about woman and womanhood.
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Maya Angelou
Don’t ask me why this rumor started. I have three hypotheses:
1. I have put on weight and look pregnant –I weighed myself a couple of days ago and well I have added about 1.3Ibs (0.6kg), but that shouldn’t be so visible, right?
2. I am behaving pregnant. I can’t say about this, it’s for others to judge.
3. There is something about the way I look now that screams ‘preggos’! Maybe it’s just because with everything happening around me in the work front, I have aged, or am looking dull and moody than usual.
That said, if I didn’t know myself better, I would have thought also that I was pregnant yesterday. I came to work and immediately became grouchy and grumpy – complaining about things I should have gotten over with some time ago. I may have internalized more than I think and it is coming back to ‘hunt’ me. A colleague told me that my mood was a clear consequence of a hormone better known by it’s acronym, HGC (human chorionic gonadotropin) which is associated almost exclusively with pregnancy. So maybe I am pregnant and just don’t know it – if only I could ignore the fact that I knew I was pregnant when it was just a week old the last time, and my monthly biological clock is so right on time!
To cheer myself, I remembered the poem by the great Maya Angelou – STILL I Rise, which is relevant because it is talking about woman and womanhood.
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Maya Angelou
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
What is your own ‘COCKROACH’?
Disclaimer: the usage of the term ‘cockroach’ and any spelling depicted the term, is in no way even remotely related to the condescending way it has been used by leaders in dictatorial regimes (the likes of George Rutaganda of Rwanda).
When we were young, and it continues to happen today, elders had a way of scaring us… they’ll tell us there is a ‘juju’ in the room if they don’t want us to go into the room, or anywhere else they want to scare us from. I personally think it is a terrible thing and I have stopped people from saying that to my child. It has worked so far because my son, who is 30months old, does not know what is called ‘juju’. However, he has autonomously developed his own attitude about avoiding certain places at certain times by telling you there are cockroaches there.
This is how it came about – sometime last year, I had an invasion of roaches in my house. My son noticed that I hated them and will always spray insecticides around the area where they were. So when he sees them, he runs to me and says ‘Mama, kowé’ pointing in their direction. Eventually he improved his pronunciation to ‘kokroch’ and started using it to refer to any animal he saw, big or small – dog, ant, birds, gecko, etc. As he grew older and could recognize different animals and knew their names, he has now narrowed down that appellation to creeping insects that look like roaches. This is the background, back to the object of my article.
Unlike the ‘juju’ bit which was fear instilled by adults on kids, my son’s use of ‘kokroch’ as a deterrent was solely developed by him. He is very choosy in the use of that deterrent, using it manipulatively only to his advantage. When it’s dark, if you ask him to go to the room and wear his slippers, he says ‘kokroch’; but if you ask him to go and get a gummy candy from that same room, he runs and gets it totally forgetting ‘kokroch’.
What are the ‘jujus’ and the ‘cockroaches’ in our lives? Have circumstances and people instilled some form of fear in us, or have we developed our own fears that deter us from fully achieving the things we could otherwise? I’ll do this exercise, and recommend you do same… think of all the deterrents in your life, be they things, people, situations, places, ideas, beliefs, etc and analyze each of them and what they represent to you. Are they simply excuses you make to keep yourself in a particular situation, or to feel better about yourself, or are they real fears… were they developed by you, or instilled by others in you? How can you move past them and recognize them for what they really are – simply fears?
“Fear not, for I am with you” (Isa 41:10) so says the Lord of Host!
When we were young, and it continues to happen today, elders had a way of scaring us… they’ll tell us there is a ‘juju’ in the room if they don’t want us to go into the room, or anywhere else they want to scare us from. I personally think it is a terrible thing and I have stopped people from saying that to my child. It has worked so far because my son, who is 30months old, does not know what is called ‘juju’. However, he has autonomously developed his own attitude about avoiding certain places at certain times by telling you there are cockroaches there.
This is how it came about – sometime last year, I had an invasion of roaches in my house. My son noticed that I hated them and will always spray insecticides around the area where they were. So when he sees them, he runs to me and says ‘Mama, kowé’ pointing in their direction. Eventually he improved his pronunciation to ‘kokroch’ and started using it to refer to any animal he saw, big or small – dog, ant, birds, gecko, etc. As he grew older and could recognize different animals and knew their names, he has now narrowed down that appellation to creeping insects that look like roaches. This is the background, back to the object of my article.
Unlike the ‘juju’ bit which was fear instilled by adults on kids, my son’s use of ‘kokroch’ as a deterrent was solely developed by him. He is very choosy in the use of that deterrent, using it manipulatively only to his advantage. When it’s dark, if you ask him to go to the room and wear his slippers, he says ‘kokroch’; but if you ask him to go and get a gummy candy from that same room, he runs and gets it totally forgetting ‘kokroch’.
What are the ‘jujus’ and the ‘cockroaches’ in our lives? Have circumstances and people instilled some form of fear in us, or have we developed our own fears that deter us from fully achieving the things we could otherwise? I’ll do this exercise, and recommend you do same… think of all the deterrents in your life, be they things, people, situations, places, ideas, beliefs, etc and analyze each of them and what they represent to you. Are they simply excuses you make to keep yourself in a particular situation, or to feel better about yourself, or are they real fears… were they developed by you, or instilled by others in you? How can you move past them and recognize them for what they really are – simply fears?
“Fear not, for I am with you” (Isa 41:10) so says the Lord of Host!
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Do it… and then some
As is the case with some of my posts, it has taken me forever to come around to writing this one. I feel I must do it now because the year is coming to an end, and I know this is a period when people do a lot of introspection, trying to analyze their lives in the year just ending and strategize on how to move forward. I had the most trying period of my life, by far the worst, a few months ago. I was neck deep in an uncomfortable situation and the rest of the world seemed to have stood still when I so needed them. I have never tried so hard for something in my life like I did when I was in the situation. I tried all avenues I possibly could but there were always obstacles, obstacles from angles I never thought possible. In my mind, I was operating in a system where things were moving smoothly, but then aren’t we all humans? However, one thing I would admit to myself is that I made a little slip – I would have pushed harder.
How many times have we found ourselves in difficult circumstances, and we don’t get a solution because we don’t want another person (who could actually influence the situation) to feel uncomfortable or to find us overbearing? Ok, I get it, we don’t want to seem ‘inconsiderate’. But guess what, that person might have just needed that extra push for them to take action that will get you out of the crisis. When you go to an office and meet people sitting outside, do you just sit with them or you knock on the door of the office? This is a common scenario, and most people I know will just sit outside with the others, not knowing their mission. Maybe the person in the office is waiting just for you… maybe the others are not there for same reason as you… just knock that door and let the person you want to see ask you to wait outside – then you can join the queue. It is that extra effort that usually makes things happen. I failed to make one call in between calls because I trusted someone will do what they said they’ll do. That someone just needed me to make that extra call for them to remember to do what they promised to.
This is not to say we should go about bugging people. Do all you HAVE to do and then some! Your mission is not same as others, so strive for your objective. Be more assertive, stop trying to make everybody comfortable at your expense, and be polite in your interactions. My issue has not gone away, and it would have been better if I just made that one extra call! I am not one to give in to regrets, I am moving on, but I have issues with myself and my attitude that I have to handle.
To end, as you know, I always have a Rhema to remind myself of God’s grace in my life. Romans 8:28 : “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose”.
My Grace Preacher, Pastor Prince writes in his Daily Devotional of Dec 6, 2012 thus: “’all things’ is literally all things — the good, the bad and the ugly! Now, it does not mean that all things are from God. Some things, such as accidents, sicknesses, broken relationships and divorces are not from Him. They are from the devil or just part of the fallen world that we live in. But what this verse does tell us about our inheritance as God’s beloved children.
Do the people of the world have this inheritance? No. When bad things happen to them, they are what they are — bad things. But when bad things happen to the children of God, it does not end there. God can make those bad things work together for good. In other words, the devil may throw lemons at you, but God can take those lemons and make refreshing lemonade for you! It is important you remember that God is not behind anything bad or ugly. But when those things happen, know that He can make all things work together for good. And don’t let anyone tell you that all things will work together for good only if you love God and are called according to His purpose. These two things are not conditions but descriptions of believers.
My friend, because you have been born again, all things in your life will work together for good. This is your inheritance as a beloved child of God!"
Merry Xmas to you and I pray that 2013 brings more joy, peace and happiness to your life and may you be a perfect reflection of God's abundant grace to the world!
How many times have we found ourselves in difficult circumstances, and we don’t get a solution because we don’t want another person (who could actually influence the situation) to feel uncomfortable or to find us overbearing? Ok, I get it, we don’t want to seem ‘inconsiderate’. But guess what, that person might have just needed that extra push for them to take action that will get you out of the crisis. When you go to an office and meet people sitting outside, do you just sit with them or you knock on the door of the office? This is a common scenario, and most people I know will just sit outside with the others, not knowing their mission. Maybe the person in the office is waiting just for you… maybe the others are not there for same reason as you… just knock that door and let the person you want to see ask you to wait outside – then you can join the queue. It is that extra effort that usually makes things happen. I failed to make one call in between calls because I trusted someone will do what they said they’ll do. That someone just needed me to make that extra call for them to remember to do what they promised to.
This is not to say we should go about bugging people. Do all you HAVE to do and then some! Your mission is not same as others, so strive for your objective. Be more assertive, stop trying to make everybody comfortable at your expense, and be polite in your interactions. My issue has not gone away, and it would have been better if I just made that one extra call! I am not one to give in to regrets, I am moving on, but I have issues with myself and my attitude that I have to handle.
To end, as you know, I always have a Rhema to remind myself of God’s grace in my life. Romans 8:28 : “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose”.
My Grace Preacher, Pastor Prince writes in his Daily Devotional of Dec 6, 2012 thus: “’all things’ is literally all things — the good, the bad and the ugly! Now, it does not mean that all things are from God. Some things, such as accidents, sicknesses, broken relationships and divorces are not from Him. They are from the devil or just part of the fallen world that we live in. But what this verse does tell us about our inheritance as God’s beloved children.
Do the people of the world have this inheritance? No. When bad things happen to them, they are what they are — bad things. But when bad things happen to the children of God, it does not end there. God can make those bad things work together for good. In other words, the devil may throw lemons at you, but God can take those lemons and make refreshing lemonade for you! It is important you remember that God is not behind anything bad or ugly. But when those things happen, know that He can make all things work together for good. And don’t let anyone tell you that all things will work together for good only if you love God and are called according to His purpose. These two things are not conditions but descriptions of believers.
My friend, because you have been born again, all things in your life will work together for good. This is your inheritance as a beloved child of God!"
Merry Xmas to you and I pray that 2013 brings more joy, peace and happiness to your life and may you be a perfect reflection of God's abundant grace to the world!
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Who gets the credit?
For no reason, I got up around 3am and couldn’t go back to sleep. I lay in bed pondering a few things until 5.25am when I got up and prepared for work. I am in the office at 6.30am, an hour before official start time. What better thing to do than write a couple of articles.
When I was getting dressed for work, something came to my mind – inspiration for this article. I don’t believe in ‘luck’, I believe in opportunity meeting proactive effort to make things happen. But like me you may have noticed that some people are very proactive and even create opportunities through their hard work but then they never reap the fruits thereof; while others just ride on the back of the success horse left behind by others. How do the latter feel about this? Who do we credit the achievement to? It’s all so confusing to me.
The carnal nature is selfish, ingratiating even when not merited. It therefore takes someone who has transcended these attitudes to create opportunities, or exploit existing opportunities through deliberate proactive efforts, knowing that their legacy will end where another person takes over and reaps the fruit of their labor. But does their legacy really end? Who gets the ‘pat on the back’ for that success? Now if this has been too much theory, let me break it down with a hypothetical example; A farmer acquires a piece of land, tills it, cultivates and for reasons beyond his control, he has to abandon the farm. The crops mature and who is there to reap - a neighbor or the land owner or someone else. Do you see my dilemma? If it came to rewarding someone for that achievement, who will you reward?
I have said many times before, and it is one of my mantras – ‘life is not fair’. I still struggle though with issues around justice and fairness. But if you think like me in my less emotional and more pious time, you’ll know that we have the responsibility of setting goals, doing our best to reach those goals, always bearing in mind time is not ours to manipulate, but God’s. Whenever there is the call of ‘timeout’ for us, we should be able to say we did the best we could when we had the time. Whoever reaps the fruits will be immaterial because we’ll know our Heavenly Father knows better than us – mere mortals, and rewards accordingly!
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Mark of greatness
This thought has been bugging me for the past few days and I feel I just have to get it off my chest. I have been avoiding writing articles that include people who are not my family, but I am hoping the person I will mention here will not mind. I am killing myself because it means I will have to let her into my blog to read this article, but I hope she’ll enjoy reading my articles (actually it’ll be a privilege!). Truth be told, I am a tad bit apprehensive…
I reinforced my knowledge of leadership a lot at the end of last week. It wasn’t about learning something new, but it was about getting a deeper meaning of the terms: inherent leadership and acquired leadership. There has always been a raging debate about leaders being born or made, but I have never really thought about it the way I did this weekend. I have gone through a leadership program, I have managed a leadership training program for 3 years, I have talked to people who hold leadership positions, in short I have meddled with leadership myself – and it is amazing I needed to experience what I did last Friday to give a deeper thought to leadership.
Made leaders are those who by chance or achievement find themselves in positions to lead. They may (or not) have taken courses in leadership, acquired leadership notions, are good mannered, etc. They may (or not) excel in their jobs because they apply the notions they learnt and also put to value their experiences. They make good leaders (or not) depending on the angle people judge them from. On the other hand, inherent leaders are born that way. People often say ‘there are just two types of people, those who lead, and those who follow’, and I say even when seemingly following, inherent leaders are leading. Let me explain what I mean better in the next couple of paragraphs
On Friday, there was a discussion about who will carry out a specific task in the office (a task that did not require any particular skill, so anyone could do it actually). My Country Director had a couple of options (in my opinion):
• oblige someone to do their job
• assign the job to someone else
Both options would have meant she is applying the notions of leadership – delegation, ensuring people do their tasks, team work, etc. and everyone would have praised her for being a good leader. Now here is the shocker – she chose to do the task herself! What? Yes, she did!
Every type of leader could go for the first two options, but ONLY an inherent leader would do what she did and in the way she did it, without prejudice or display of anger and frustration. I am not sure how she was feeling at that moment, but the fact that she offered to do the job so naturally, not rubbing it in people’s faces, triggered my thoughts about leadership. Even some people who will take up tasks voluntarily often do so grudgingly, and the tasks aren’t usually as far removed from their regular ones as this was from a Country Director’s job. Such humility! It did not just make her a good leader, she showed GREAT leadership! Her concern at that point was to get the job done, rather than focusing on who did the job! If only all leaders could be this way. You can’t learn something like that, you just can’t – it comes naturally, it is who the person is! That is the ultimate difference between a born leader (great leadership) and a made leader (good leadership).
I reinforced my knowledge of leadership a lot at the end of last week. It wasn’t about learning something new, but it was about getting a deeper meaning of the terms: inherent leadership and acquired leadership. There has always been a raging debate about leaders being born or made, but I have never really thought about it the way I did this weekend. I have gone through a leadership program, I have managed a leadership training program for 3 years, I have talked to people who hold leadership positions, in short I have meddled with leadership myself – and it is amazing I needed to experience what I did last Friday to give a deeper thought to leadership.
Made leaders are those who by chance or achievement find themselves in positions to lead. They may (or not) have taken courses in leadership, acquired leadership notions, are good mannered, etc. They may (or not) excel in their jobs because they apply the notions they learnt and also put to value their experiences. They make good leaders (or not) depending on the angle people judge them from. On the other hand, inherent leaders are born that way. People often say ‘there are just two types of people, those who lead, and those who follow’, and I say even when seemingly following, inherent leaders are leading. Let me explain what I mean better in the next couple of paragraphs
On Friday, there was a discussion about who will carry out a specific task in the office (a task that did not require any particular skill, so anyone could do it actually). My Country Director had a couple of options (in my opinion):
• oblige someone to do their job
• assign the job to someone else
Both options would have meant she is applying the notions of leadership – delegation, ensuring people do their tasks, team work, etc. and everyone would have praised her for being a good leader. Now here is the shocker – she chose to do the task herself! What? Yes, she did!
Every type of leader could go for the first two options, but ONLY an inherent leader would do what she did and in the way she did it, without prejudice or display of anger and frustration. I am not sure how she was feeling at that moment, but the fact that she offered to do the job so naturally, not rubbing it in people’s faces, triggered my thoughts about leadership. Even some people who will take up tasks voluntarily often do so grudgingly, and the tasks aren’t usually as far removed from their regular ones as this was from a Country Director’s job. Such humility! It did not just make her a good leader, she showed GREAT leadership! Her concern at that point was to get the job done, rather than focusing on who did the job! If only all leaders could be this way. You can’t learn something like that, you just can’t – it comes naturally, it is who the person is! That is the ultimate difference between a born leader (great leadership) and a made leader (good leadership).
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Anger cannot rule my world!
It’s the last day of May and I am so on the fence with respect to dates with my blog articles. Guess my thoughts are on the fence as well. As I had mentioned earlier, I won’t write an item just for the sake of writing or of meeting my ‘at least once a month’ target, my higher calling is to write something that comes from deep within…
This morning while preparing for work, I remembered my teenage years, not the good aspects from that era (albeit there were so many!) but the few memories that bring sadness to my mind. Generally I was a very happy kid growing up, so full of life, but very determined and strong will, which came across in a myriad of ways – some good as in my academic work, friendships; some not so good as in doing what I wanted even if the rest of the world thought otherwise. Thinking about all those things inspired me to write an article that may be useful to others. I got to the office, opened my favorite devotional and the Word, logos, just became the rhema to me this day. Such a coincidence!
When I was growing up, I used to have serious feats of anger, some that lasted a month and beyond. What was amazing was that my anger was limited only to my parents and siblings, not friends nor classmates. I remember at one time not talking in the house for a month because I felt betrayed by one of my sisters and was punished as a consequence of that. I practically stopped eating in the house even after my punishment was lifted (because the punishment I received included refusal of food even though I had to clean the dishes when others had eaten – how cruel is that!). At another time, I was falsely accused of being seen somewhere I had never been to – I am still awed by that accusation up to date. So many false accusations were coming my way from time to time that fed the anger in me and I just had this constant burning deep within, wishing the people close to me understood who I really was and what values I had all the time. I am sure they did, but like most parents and siblings, they preferred to err on the side of caution. But at that age, all I saw was that I wasn’t understood and loved enough. I showed my dissatisfaction in many ways like refusing to eat, keeping to myself, not talking about my progress in school, and above all carrying a ‘long face’ around the house. Just to clarify a thing, it’s not like I wasn’t understood by every sibling and parent most of the time, on the contrary I felt real love most of the time, but then every incidence of misunderstanding really had great impacts on me.
Some of my siblings were always on my side. They reacted differently when they knew I was angry, some passive, some more actively like talking to the person who caused the situation. Above everyone else, there is one who totally understood me and what I was going through – my eldest brother. He was, and still is, my role model. The surprising thing is that he was out of the country during that period, but we still found means of ‘talking’ to each other – me telling him things that happen and him advising and encouraging me. He kept on telling me to control my anger, not to take negative comments too seriously and ignore situations that would lead to me being misunderstood. His letters and cards were almost the best things that happened to me when I was angry (I’ll try to get some of the ones I can still find and do an article – I promise). His words were so comforting, and it really felt good to know someone loved me unconditionally, and did not judge me too harshly. Despite all his advice, I still carried my anger to the university. I psychologically pulled myself away from what people thought of me, and could care less if the world around me was burning, so long as I didn’t start the fire and I’m not burnt with the rest of the world. I even completely disengaged myself from things happening in the family if I wasn’t directly involved. When my sisters were showing me tough love, my brother was just so loving. But then, is a brother’s unconditional love enough to get one out of a bad habit? My rhema for today gives a succinct answer…
Philippians 2:13: “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”
When I was in the third year in University, I decided to not let ANYTHING get me to the point of being angry for long. Here’s a word from my devotional I tried hard but I wasn’t getting as much success as the effort I was putting in. The changes were temporary because it was me doing it. And then the Word of the Lord hit me –
“In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry" (NIV, Eph 4:26).
I realized I had been focusing on the first part of the verse as consolation, rewarding myself for not insulting offenders. However, of all human emotion, anger has been known to be one of the most destructive. So how can I live with anger and not sin?
"Anger tends to evil" (Ps 37:8) and it "stirs up strife" (Prov 15:18; 29:22; 30:33).
OK then God, I am but human, given to anger at times, but how do I get out of it controlling my life? How do I stop being angry with someone when the person does not feel like they were wrong? How do I free myself from the bondage of anger? Tough questions but God being faithful gave me answers in the way he transformed me by Grace.
I read and re-read verses about anger in the Bible, the consequences of anger, and what God thinks about anger. I prayed and prayed and opened up to God about this canker worm and that I was helpless, I needed His intervention. He inspired me with mantras like: “ life is too short for me to be angry” “nobody deserves my anger”, etc. I kept his Word hidden in my heart, and before I knew it I was totally out of the loop. Alleluia! I was set free of the bondage of anger! Each time I realized a situation was getting steamy, I walked away or bit my tongue, or chuckled and then it’s history. I still get angry from time to time, but that is in extreme circumstances, but most importantly I don’t let the sun go down on my anger – most of the time.
If you are reading this blog and are in any type of emotional bondage, know that
only God can take you out of that situation. Inspirational and anger management books, movies dealing with that topic, friends and relatives can ease the situation temporarily, but only God can bring you out of it permanently. And do not let what others do affect you in a way that evokes that emotion; know that the only thing you can control is how you act or react towards circumstances, and not how others do. Today, I am a very happy woman, not giving in to people’s whims and caprices. People who knew me in my adult life will probably be shocked if they read this (thank goodness they won’t!) because they cannot believe I was ever given in to anger (except my hubby, of course) – they know I am assertive and honest in the way I feel, but ‘angry’ is not a word they’ll use to describe me. Sounds presumptuous? Go ask them! God bless you!
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