AN ISSUE OF...................................

                                                                          

With the last ounce of my will, I pressed inexorably through the swelling mass, swam through the surf of resistance until I broke through the swirling currents and touched the silky smooth, woolly fuse. Suddenly, BAM……..EXPLOSION!!!.......

When I look into the mirror, I see the macabre grin of the skull in its most charming state; reaching it reaches out to me a pale ghoul with its repulsive beam. My face used to be flushed with cheeks that were ruddy rose petals, but now they are as ashen as rain doused embers of coal. I was a robust palm oil fruit which has become a shrivelled charred kernel. The music I hear these days is the swish of the grim reapers sickle, the clattering hooves of death’s black steed crashing down the cobblestones of my soul. I sleep perpetually in the embrace of cold’s chilly fingers, the only warmth I feel on my pallet being the pillow of my tears.  The echoes of silence fill my home, no children running about, no man to call my husband (He walked). I haven’t been touched in many years, only loneliness sought, courted and is now betrothed to me. I used to walk about in a cloud of Chanel NO 5 but now, the odoriferous smog that dogs my every step is part of what has made me a hermit in the temple of my solitude. Church doors are barred to me, the law says I am too tainted to worship.  I have needle bites all over my arms yet I am no junkie, but veno-punctures required for a battery of tests have drained me like vampires. Angels in all their forms have attended to me, young, old, black, white, bespectacled, friendly, ornery, name it but none has been able to heal. Their white coats, a mockery of their shortcoming as their fingers probe and their speculums explore.  I am continually subjected to the impassive glare and robotic examination of radio-diagnostic inspectors.  My affliction has made them richer and left me poorer. All my saving and investments are gone.  Recently my breath comes in short gasps and rattles in my throat with every step. With the most minimal exertion, weakness soaks every fibre of my being, pampers me in its sauna and floods me with sweat. The latest report is that my heart is failing. Fat and back, the ugly worms of suicidal tendencies worm through the rotted wood of my consciousness, truth is, the burden of living has become too much to bear. I am on a trajectory of fatality, a derailed train on a mountain pass heading for an inevitable end. My life is haemorrhaging away, I have a primary issue amongst all these, a dozen years issue of blood……….

Then I heard about Him and there was a twist in my tale. My tragic saga turned into one of hope. He sowed in my heart the seedling of a fairytale…

Our Narrator embodies all our travails and agonies. Life is a hive of issues and they come out stinging like a furious swarm of bees and their anaphylactic shock kills.  The memories of terrible nature can also be quite long lasting. We are in a lot of ways similar to this woman, in the sense that issues can be spiritual, physical, financial, emotional, psychological, marital, relational and every other …..al. Hers though primarily physical affected every other area of her live. Issues dog our steps with rapid intensity until we run out of breath.  They make one bleed and drain life. Legion in their multiplicity….bills with deadlines, (tuition fees, hospital bills, premiums, rent, mortgage, wedding, etc) lack of jobs, unfeeling creditors, unfaithful partners, divorce, single and lonely, married and lonely, married without issues, battering spouses, mean bosses, loss of loved ones, low self esteem, racial and other kinds of discrimination, chronic debilitating illnesses, addictive habits, PHCN blackouts, terrorists, air crashes, abominable traffic, dismal leadership,  separation from God…. issues are a burgeoning list of hopelessness……

I heard about the Galilean on the airwaves on my small transistor radio, the only gadget I now own. He is a miracle worker everyone seems to say and it sparked something within me.

·          I started thinking differently; I stopped seeing death and started seeing life.  My thoughts went from sickness to health. MY PERSPECTIVE CHANGED!

·         My thoughts translated into my words, I kept saying if I could touch Him, I would be healed. MY WORDS GAVE ME LIFE AND IMPACTED MY DESTINY!

·         My words translated into action. I STEPPED OUT, went for broke, put everything on the line. I wasn’t going to sit at home and give up! I was going to get healed or die trying!

·         With the milling throng, it would be a tall order to reach Him but if I can navigate my way around to just touch the helm of his garment, I would be cool. I SAW POSSIBILITIES WITHIN MY CHALLENGES!

·         The hem of a garment is almost nonexistent relative to the whole clothing, it was a connection point. Irrespective of how diminutive, CONNECTION POINTS ARE VITAL! I found mine, what is the one you need for your issue? Remember the mustard seed.

·         Fighting through that unruly crowd was extremely exhausting but I JUST COULD NEVER GIVE UP!!!!!

·         Most times, we wait for God to touch us, but I decided to touch Him! I THOUGHT OUT OF THE BOX!!! You can touch him too with your prayer, worship, praise, gift, time, faith…..what are you waiting for?

·         Unclean humanity that I was I handled spotless divinity which I wasn’t supposed to do. The law strongly says so, but to live, I BROKE THE NORM!

·         MY FAITH WAS STRONGER THAN THE IMPEDING OBSTACLES, both physical and otherwise.

·         Loads of folks surrounding the Man, shoving and pushing, BUT I SINGLED OUT MYSELF FOR DISTINCTION! That’s the only thing that would make my own touch unique, what would differentiate me.

·         I slowly reached out, painfully stretched until MY BEING WAS A LIVING BALL OF CONCENTRATION.  All that mattered at that moment was the hem of his garment; it meant more to me than the Golden Fleece to Jason and his Argonauts.

I finally touched it, a contact so faint it seemed it did not happen but……SUDDENLY! EXPLOSION…BAM…I was zapped by a power beyond my comprehension, Zoe; God’s divine life surged through me and dried my poisoned well.

I felt like Persephone emerging from Hades womb into a spring eternal. Every cell of my being sang merrily and laughter burbled in my spirit. I WAS HEALED but more than that I felt whole. Joy percolated within me and gave me a heady high rush. The future was not scary anymore; there was a fresh taste to life.

He called me to Himself. It is actually true that the eyes are the mirrors of the soul; they were pools of mercy, seas of kindness merging to form an Atlantic of love.  His azure eyes washed me over in a river of peace.

As I left him that day, all eyes were fixated on me especially that of one of his disciples. He is quite a hunk, gosh! My blush has returned. Life is beautiful once again. I skip with gaiety into a future of possibilities…..

 Yet I hear His voice forever resounding in my tomorrow, telling me the sweetest words I would ever hear………………

DAUGHTER, GO IN PEACE, YOUR FAITH HAS MADE YOU WHOLE………………..

WAZOBIA FM

                                                 

Magic hypnotizes! Seeing creativity being displayed by someone is like watching African pear (Ube) roasting on a coal fire on a rainy day while dusk comes, tiptoeing into an eastern Nigerian village. It’s a thing of beauty to see its shiny skin swell and soften under the romancing fingers of the flames. Its luscious surface then bursts and the fruit’s natural oil oozes from its cracked epidermis with a sizzling symphony, the soundtrack of gastronomic fantasies. Out of that beautiful ulcer emerges the purplish green flesh that makes one’s palate water agonizingly in delicious anticipation of combining it with fresh farm corn roasted in its tasseled skin. This is way better than any fare the cooks of Olympus could ever offer.

To be the witness of great workmanship leaves you more emotionally satiated than a Lagosian that has just gorged on “Agege” loaves combined with Ewa Agoyin (soft beans topped with the peppered sauce recipe of the Togolese and Beninoise) and washed down by vats of pure water.

I am not really one for listening to the radio, actually I could go for years without listening to one but my wife does and heavily subscribes to Wazobia FM. She loves the station so much that if it were a dude, I would have gone about perpetually green like the “Changeling”. Truth is anytime I get to listen to this station (thanks to her), I am usually enthralled. “Yaw” (his repartee usually has more panache than the riposte of the most accomplished Musketeer) and his crew, from Mayowa (her linguistic abilities spreads sweetness across my soul like marmalade on sweet bread), Diplomatic OPJ (his caustic wit is a balm that massages the rigours out of the cramps of a hectic day) to Uzo (someone said once that he would like to have her laughter as the ring tone for his phone) are absolutely WORLDCLASS!!! Their shows are pure magic. They are like magicians bringing out different coloured bunnies from the hat of their speech centres faster than the eyes can follow or ears in this case. They could make a Roman marble statue laugh more than a hyena on laughing gas. They are veritable masters of their game, spider artists weaving silken golden threads with their artistry from their office in Victoria Island to the hearts of Lagos’ citizenry. People call in, in bucketfuls absolutely bewitched. This gifted group leave a distinctive taste in your mouth like caviar on crackers! They are that good!

The above contributed to why I was absolutely stunned last week when I learnt that Wazobia FM, the most indigenous radio station in Lagos is owned by a Lebanese. That really got me thinking.

Of course from biblical times it has been shown that the Lebanese are great business people with an eye for opportunities (Laban, Jacob’s father-in-law is said to be their father, so it’s not a surprise they have such sharp business acumen). Also it is known that Africans are not one for seeing and exploiting opportunities. But life is about learning. The British brought football and are no force to be reckoned with in the soccer world anymore because other nations now play the game more beautifully.

It took foreigners to bring our natural resources to light, diamonds, oil, platinum, name it. Nigeria’s oil was discovered by them and yet we still have to ship this oil to them for processing. Almost all the best brands in this country are owned by other nationalities, from gadgets, supermarkets and healthcare is fast joining the list. Shoprite and DSTV are South African, Peak is Dutch and LG is South Korean. In my post “a sunflower in the wilderness” I wrote that despite the thousands of radiographers and radiologist in this nation, it had to take Indians to start up about the best and affordable diagnostic center in Lagos (MECURE) and right in the heart of the most dreaded part of the metropolis. Africa has tried indigenization over the years and failed abysmally. Some great brands ended up being buried.

At the inception of it all, God initial words to man was for him to have dominion. The word dominion also means take charge. Taking charge means being responsible for the resources that God has blessed the earth with, to make things work, to bring abundance out of our world, to process the things God has made to another level of refinement.

God went ahead to make Eden and placed man in it to control the environment, and to have access to all the fruits in the garden apart from the forbidden one. We are entitled to the fruits only when you are in charge. It is of course not surprising that Africa is still carrying bowls of supplication begging for alms from both God and first world countries even though it is buried up to its eyeballs in rich materials. When you are not in charge, you can’t have the fruits and even if you do get, it will be at the mercy of the person controlling the orchard. Most times the fruit you even get will be off not juicy and shiny. This is why the owners of DSTV smile to the bank while we make do under the burden of the heavy subscriptions they subject us to. This is because they took charge of the air space and have exerted their dominion there. The opening chapter of the Holy Tome actually tells us to exert our influence in the air on the ground and underwater. We need a reawakening!

That is why we need the very first words God spoke to man to ring in our consciousness like the gongs of Big Ben rousing a groggy London at dawn……..

BE FRUITFUL, MULTIPLY, REPLENISH THE WORLD, SUBDUE IT AND HAVE DOMINION (TAKE CHARGE)!