Monthly Archives: February 2024

One of Us

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By Cynthia Aralu

Hello everyone! Pray the Rosary.

When you hear the scripture and people speak about Jesus and say, “He was one of us”, do you ever wonder what that really means?

The bible said He suffered and was tempted in every way, yet without sinning, and as such is able to sympathize with our weakness. This, He did all in the service of God, so that He may atone for our sins, through His sacrifice of Himself. So, we should have no fear, but be confident to draw close to the throne of grace, and in doing so, we will find mercy and the grace which will help us in our time of need.

I suppose when I have thought of Jesus, even after hearing that He was just like us in every way apart from sin, I have hated any depiction of Him that to my mind was less dignified. I have heard it said that on the cross He felt abandoned when He said, “Father, Father, why have You forsaken me?”. I think maybe to my mind, I interpreted that to mean that He believed He was abandoned, or perhaps I have heard it said as much. My memory is all jumbled up. Either way, I know Jesus is God, so I could not accept that He did not know that The Father was with Him. It was an imperfection that I just could not allow myself to believe. I suppose a part of me felt He found temptation easier, because He is God. I am not proud of that thought.

Today, I think I see things a little different and have another understanding of that moment when He said that. Partly because I have felt this before, but not even close to the degree to which He did, and also partly because, I heard someone say today, “He felt abandoned” and it finally clicked; “He felt”. So, this is only a feeling or emotion; the same emotion that people, including myself, have allowed to distort their grasp of the truth and then have fallen into sin. I say “only an emotion” not to belittle the strength of His emotions, but only to delve into the immensity of His emotions and to say, “what excellent will power, that he was able to hold on to the truth when He felt immense darkness, rejection and abandonment”. And that is only partly His emotional pain, not to talk of His physical suffering as He hung on the cross.

Perhaps it makes sense to me now because I know it is possible to feel an emotion which is at war with the truth of a situation which I am aware of 100%. It is the complexity of the Human situation and Jesus fully went through the human experience.

I believe while He felt abandoned, He knew His Father to be present and when He said that prayer from Psalm 22, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me”, in one way, He was uniting Himself to our suffering, our pain and our despair.

He was one of us.

I am sure this prayer also meant other things. Reading the Psalm will give you an idea, considering the suffering He went through, but I suppose, that other meaning, although equally important, is not the focus of what I am writing.

Following the prayer I mentioned above, He said another prayer just before He died, “Father, into Thy Hands, I commend My Spirit”, which spoke of trust in His Father to take care of Him and preserve Him. And God did preserve Him. He was raised from the dead by the Spirit of God and is now seated at the right hand of The Father, interceding for us. And the same Spirit of God which raised Him from the dead, dwells in all baptized Christians.

It would seem to me that He started off and lived His human life entrusting Himself to God and entrusting Himself to others. He entrusted Himself to the care of Mary and Joseph. He entrusted Himself to the 12 He chose, even knowing that Judas would betray Him. Man, He trusted. I do not know if I could trust people like that but maybe it is a call to entrust oneself to others. I do not know. I am only trying to see people through His Eyes, which are unjaded. I wonder if this would lead to more trust.

I am not a theologian, I might not be accurate in my understanding. In fact, I believe that there is so much that I do not know. I am only seeking understanding and contemplating God. If the answers never come, I am fine with it. There is a knowledge that leads to pride and destruction anyway. But, if you want to hear from people who have studied Theology, Ascension Presents has a couple of them.

Thank you for reading today’s post. Remember to like this post and share it with your friends if you enjoyed it. Follow me on my blog, Katmira’s blog or my podcast, Amara’s Musings, to receive notifications whenever I have a new post. You can also subscribe below to get an email notification whenever a new post is out. This is particularly helpful if you don’t have a WordPress account.

Let it be, until we meet again or “Ka ọ dị” as it is said in Igbo.

A lovely song to listen to!

Latest posts from Katmira’s blog

No Coincidence

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By Cynthia Aralu

Hi everyone. Pray the Rosary.

I started believing there were no coincidences even before understanding the reason I believed it, beyond something I heard on a TV show, coupled with my ability to connect dots where people didn’t. I did not grasp the depth of what I believed either, beyond the little that I did see.

Recently, however, I came across a passage of scripture about Angel Gabriel’s visit to Zachariah, and it dawned on me in a deeper way that there are no coincidences in life. Zachariah was going about his duty as a priest before God, and it fell to him “by lot” to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And there, he was met by the angel who gave him the message from God that he would have a son and name his son, John.

What had the appearance of being random, was all within God’s providence and will.

I called that to mind when certain disappointing and hurtful things happened to me and offered the events and my emotions up to God. I felt a weight lift off my chest, as I submitted to God on separate occasions, even praising and thanking God in the most recent event. It is as John Jin Han sang in “Days of Youth”, “I know there is still so much growing that I have to do but I know in the end, I want to burn for God”. I am not so gracious in processing it all as it happens to me but I will leave it to Him to give me the grace to have more grace, then I will actually be able to act like my other name.

My other name is Amarachukwu. It is an “Igbo” name and it means “the grace of God”. I was given that name at birth because of an overflow of thanksgiving and gratitude my mom felt towards God at my safe, easy and quick delivery. Upon giving birth to me, she had broken out in an “Igbo” song which featured my name. To give more context, while my mom had been pregnant with me, a soothsayer had told her that when she gave birth to me, there would be joy and crying. So, my mom’s joyous gratitude to God had flowed from her faith in God and her utter dependence on God to deliver her and hers from all evil, which is why she had decided to go into prayer rather than to accept the soothsayer’s suggestion of a fetish ritual to prevent the evil omen.

My mom told me my name means more than the grace of God but she couldn’t really describe it to me in English because as she explained, the English Language is limited in its expression of the meaning of my name. I think she described it as the goodness of God, the gift of God, the grace of God and the mercy of God all balled up in one name.

My naming was not a coincidence. Even the soothsayer’s prophecy was not a coincidence. Neither was my mom’s doubling down in prayer, a coincidence. Not even my birth or my life. All I know is that the devil has always been after us, even as a baby in my mother’s womb, and God has always been protecting us. If my mom had given in to that temptation, we would have been destroyed. Even the soothsayer recognized the spirit in my mom when the soothsayer turned to my dad and told him to ask my mom if she would agree, because as the soothsayer expressed, she could sense that my mom wouldn’t.

As I count my blessings in this life, as I look around at the evil and tragedy in the world, I suppose I think how sad it is to see so much sadness in this world. Yet, I know if you look closely, this world is fading away, and who’s to say the ones whom I learnt just passed away tragically are not the blessed ones.

I have always dreamt of a place full of order, a perfect place. It is my reason for leaving home. I know now that I was naive in my thinking. There is no perfect place. Yet, I do not regret my decision to leave. I came to realize recently that I have been longing for heaven all along. I have been longing for God. This longing hits me harder at certain periods and I get tired of being here. I can only pray for a happy death and hope in Christ my Saviour.

It is my hope that my life and death brings glory to God. Even my many sins and mistakes. How they weigh down heavy on me, as I am starting to recognize the gravity of them, after I have confessed them. How nonchalant I have lived without considering God. It is an all-permeating, fixed thought; of how much I have been loved even while being wholly undeserving, even now. I struggle to extend that grace to people; to be moved with compassion for people when they hurt me instead of taking offence. Just one of the things I am processing and praying about. I know one day even this struggle will be a thing of the past because I know that God is shaping me from one moment unto the next into the image of His Son, my Lord Jesus. I feel His guiding and instructive footprint in my mind and in my life, even as I am a mixture of resistance and willingness. I tell Him I am trying my best and ask for His help to be joyful in complying without that initial resistance. It is a funny scene but it is also rough.

Thank you for reading today’s post. Remember to like this post and share it with your friends if you enjoyed it. Follow me on my blog, Katmira’s blog or my podcast, Amara’s Musings, to receive notifications whenever I have a new post. You can also subscribe below to get an email notification whenever a new post is out. This is particularly helpful if you don’t have a WordPress account.

Pray the Rosary. Let it be, until we meet again or “Ka ọ dị” as it is said in Igbo.

A lovely song you can listen to!
Another lovely song you can listen to!

Latest posts from Katmira’s blog

The Forgiveness of Sins

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By Cynthia Aralu

Hello everyone! Pray the Rosary.

I suppose I will begin at what I do know.

Yesterday night and today, my mind has been full of the memory of a past dream I had about my dad, close to 3 years ago, in which at the end of it, I started to preach to the people present about the forgiveness of sins, after what I perceived to be my dad’s departure from the land of the living into the Kingdom of Heaven.

I have never done that preaching in real life and to be honest, I do not know how to. I was so full of boldness and conviction in that dream as I preached the forgiveness of sins. At the time I had that dream, I was coming back to a belief in God from a time when I believed in nothing. I had finished reading the book of Mark in order to understand Who Jesus is to me. I had tried to tame my distrust and work on a bible plan on YouVersion and I chose Mark because it is the shortest gospel. I did see things in a new light by the grace of God, to the extent that I could, but at the core, I was still weak in faith and morals, and I did what I wanted and found pleasing, not what God wanted.

The dream I mentioned earlier stuck with me, mostly because I had seen my deceased dad and he’d felt so real to me and somehow, I felt as though he had gone to heaven.

Today, in church, I heard St. Paul say that he does as he ought to do when he preaches the gospel, that it is of no boasting to him, and woe to him if he doesn’t, as it is a necessity that he does so, as he has been entrusted with a commission, and I thought that perhaps I ought to fulfil the dream I had in some way, right now, since I have never really outrightly spoken about the forgiveness of sins.

So, what is the forgiveness of sins, which I wholeheartedly believe and profess?

The truth is that God so loved the world; He loves you and He loves me so very much, that He sent His only Begotten Son, Jesus, so that anyone who believes in Jesus will have eternal life and have it to the fullest. It is the wish of God that we all become His sons and daughters and it is His desire and His good pleasure to give us the Kingdom, every single one of us, the righteous or the sinner, the weak or the strong, the poor or the rich, the despised or the loved, the broken or the healing. He wants you. He wants me. But, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory and the goodness of God. As such, Jesus made the way for us to be reconciled and bridged back to God, the Father, through the sacrifice of His Life, the sinless for the sinful; and Jesus, He has conquered sin, death and the troubles of the world. If we would but repent, put away our old, sinful ways that bring harm to our souls, and believe in Jesus and all that He has revealed, we will have eternity with Him, living as beloved sons and daughters of God. Be baptized, therefore, in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus has commanded and walk in new life in Jesus, remembering always that He is with you always even to the end of age and through it all, and knowing as well, that once we have endured this life, we have a crown of glory waiting for us with God forever.

This is as best as I can tell of the forgiveness of sins in this post. If you would like to learn more, you can go on the YouTube page of Ascension Presents.

Thank you for reading today’s post. Remember to like this post and share it with your friends if you enjoyed it. Follow me on my blog, Katmira’s blog or my podcast, Amara’s Musings, to receive notifications whenever I have a new post. You can also subscribe below to get an email notification whenever a new post is out. This is particularly helpful if you don’t have a WordPress account.

Pray the Rosary. Let it be, until we meet again or “Ka ọ dị” as it is said in Igbo.

A beautiful song you could listen to!

Latest posts from Katmira’s blog