To be FOUND again

This was one of my first posts when I started blogging, but a recent conversation I had with a friend prompted me to repost this article. I believe there is someone out there who needs to read this article. I have added a few thoughts as well removed some that I consider irrelevant. Be inspired as you read.

She kept searching and searching for her coin after it had mistakenly fallen off her hand the previous day. She swept the hidden spots of her house clean to find the lost coin, but still, she couldn’t find it. Confused, she wondered how something that is lost can be of any value. Like the woman who searched earnestly for her lost coin, most of us search for that which is lost in our lives- those missing parts of our lives. And we become disappointed and heartbroken when we don’t find what it is we look for.

You alone know that which is lost in your life. You may have lost ____ (fill in blank space). But whatever it is that’s missing in your life, you should be very careful not to give up what you have by focusing on what is lost. You can’t continue to struggle with the “DEAD” (Past) and still expect to remain alive. Bury dead things and birth new hope.

What this woman knew was even though the coin was lost, it had not lost its VALUE it had just lost its USEFULNESS because nothing can be purchased with a lost coin.   The truth of the matter is you cannot help anyone when you are lost. You cannot fulfill your mission in life when you are lost. You cannot help your family or friends when you are lost, and somebody has to care enough about you to put a light in a very dark place. When you are caught in the crevices of life and can’t figure out how to get out, you need somebody that’s going to care enough about you to show you the way out.

It becomes next to impossible to still remain the same after you’ve been hit by the circumstances of life. But friend, you can’t remain broken, bruised, wounded, shattered, or lost.  You’ve got to find your way back; you’ve got to come out of that valley and become USEFUL once more. And the only way you can be found is to GIVE YOURSELF AWAY- give yourself away to your creator. You have got to find a way back to God so He can show you the way through life.

Open up and allow him heal the broken part of you. You are valuable and the only way you can be USEFUL is to be FOUND again, for to be found is to be useful.

Kindly mutter these words to yourself “I am VALUABLE, I may have lost myself but I am coming back again with the help of God.”

Gracias

Huntly 

Twitter: @huntlya

Our Parents CRY

Sometime last month, I had a heart to heart conversation with my dad. He shared with me his challenges as a father to his kids and a husband to his wife. "Just because I don't scream out loud" he said,” doesn't mean I don’t feel the pain that comes from being a father." 

He continued….

"Sometimes I wish I can run away, but to where do I run to? I wish I have the strength to punch life back but I do not? And just because the load is off me doesn't mean the pain is gone. As parents, we live with scars we hide from our children because of the effect it may have on their lives.  I am a survivor today not because I am well educated, well connected or financially buoyant. No! I am a survivor because God has been merciful to me and he has planted in me a dream to pursue. What makes you a man my son, is your ability to confront challenges and make decisions even when all hell is breaking loose."

"As a father, part of what keeps me going is the emotional support I get from my family. Nothing can take the place of a family."

I sat there, listening with rapt attention, at the feet of a man I have come to love, respect and adore. And as he poured out his heart, I wept in my soul for those who never experienced parental love, some who had it and threw it away and some who had it snatched from them by circumstances of life. My heart went out to people who were born just as I was but from broken homes, those who spent their childhood fantasizing about a vacation trip with both parents and never had the opportunity to turn their fantasy to reality. Regardless of what home we come from, our parents are to be appreciated and celebrated for all they’ve been through for us.

If reading the above words causes a new found respect and appreciation for our parents and the struggles they face, I will be proud. If it causes one son to call his dad and say "Thanks for staying the course and fighting through the many pains of life It will be a success. If it causes one daughter to call her mother and say “You are all I want to be when I grow up” then this piece might have fulfilled its purpose. if it causes both son’s and daughter’s to recognize that they are not the only ones who needs emotional support, gets frustrated, faces struggles for which there seems to be little cure and stands relentlessly and gallantly in spite of personal loss and pain, then this time will be well spent..

And most of all, the greatest lessons of life have been learnt by experience, but thank God for the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others. If you are out there and you are a product of broken, battered, shattered homes, perhaps you hate your dad for hitting your mum or you despise your mum for neglecting her kids, why not cast your mind back to the fact that they did what they did because it was what they thought was right at the time. You see it differently now because somehow you happen to know better. 

Take a stand today, to make heroes out of your parents by determining to live a better life than they did. Ride on the wings of the mistakes they made, the lessons they were forced to learn the hard way. Take a stand for the change you want to see, so that one day your son would call you his hero and your daughter would one day say you are her pride!

Gracias

The Battlefield

Once, I stood on a hill and gazed afar off, the horizon starring back at me. Then I saw what seemed to be a bird, wings of gold with a beak of silver, purple feet and a royal crown, I was taken aback and was about to flee when I realized it was but a figment of my imagination. 

All I saw before me was the stretch of the horizon, as blank as a sheet, again, I saw what seemed as a beast, with claws of brass and head of bronze, eyes of coal and tongue of fire and the beast parading itself as the bird tries to escape, I tried to speak to the beast and it fizzled out just as the bird had done at first. So I took out my pen and pad, to document this which I had witnessed so I could ponder on it. 

As I wrote, I understood. Life is as plain as the horizon before me, every man's experience is the hill on which he stands to view life, then with our minds we begin to create images of things that would happen in reality and so I discovered that it was all in me, I could make it happen, it’s all in my mind, so I closed my pad and tucked it away with my pen and stood up once more, this time, the bird descended and the roaring beast attacked and suddenly, this harmless, victimized bird took over in all majesty and destroyed the beast right before my very own eyes just as I had willed the bird to do in my mind and I broke into a song of victory, ALAS, I won a battle of life right from my mind. 

And I learnt a great lesson; the battle of life begins and ends right in the mind... Let the change you want to see take place first in your mind and every other thing will follow!

Toyin

The art of writing for Ibiyemi has been an inborn intuition which does not only equal but far outweigh the importance of speech in her life. Toyin-Debbie Ibiyemi is a graduate of computer science from Covenant University. She is a cosmetologist. Her pen is to her hand the same as a microphone is to a preacher. When she writes, she reaches down and draws inspiration such that if anyone, in any generation picks it and read, s/he would have met HER better than S/he who has lived with her all his life. In her words: I am what I write.