Hi! My name is Cynthia Aralu. I started this blog to write about anything that comes to my head basically. Anything on my mind that I need to get out.
This blog runs along the same wavelength of my catalogued thoughts series which I started later on, on Instagram.
However, when I really think of the theme of this blog, what springs forth readily to me is, "From Here to Space". Here, being the established and space being, the largely unexplored.
I write because words flow from me, through me, in me, and my voice has never been the greatest at conveying them. I post because I want someone out there, in some corner of the world to read and connect deeply to my words. I want to provoke thought and bring peace to people through my writing. I also want that person reading to feel a little less alone in the overwhelming vastness that is this universe.
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From whence does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved, He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night.
Psalm 121:1-6
Hi everyone! Pray the Rosary.
For most of the time I have written, which is a good chunk of my life, whenever I set out to write, I have allowed my emotions to drive me. Sometimes, I had written after a chance inspiration by a body of work which I found to be inspiring and other times, I wrote from my place of interacting with the things and the people in my life. I don’t think I have really included God in my writing process, at least not until recently, when I began writing about God; then I started praying before writing. I did this because I got nervous about writing the wrong things about God or leading people astray.
I did some introspection after my poem, “Hey Mom” was refined by my younger brother. The experience left me feeling a bit shaken for some days. I realized on looking back on the poem I wrote about “Expected Endings”; I had been purely driven and guided by churning emotions. I believe most of what I have considered “some of my best works” have usually been produced this way. Even as I put the arrangement together for “Expected Endings” up on my blog, I did not pray since I was not directly mentioning God on the post. I seemed to have separated my work from God in doing this. As if to say, “Now, I get to post something of mine since I have posted everything else I wanted to post about God.” Actually, my thought process was exactly this.
Before or while writing the poem “Hey Mom”, I had said a prayer to God for His help to write well. I felt nothing as I wrote but I tried to refine the poem as best as I could on my journey home from the church. I posted the poem on my blog late at night but sent off a copy separately to my younger brother for his feedback. I suppose I wasn’t expecting anything major from him, but when I woke I up and picked up my phone, I saw his replies. We had a back and forth on my way to work, as I did not fully grasp what he was getting at. Understanding of his point of his view hit me, from seeing what his refinements were, just as my bus halted at the bus stop. I teared up in reaction to this assent of my mind to his creative genius, as I alighted from the bus; a reaction stemming entirely from a strong wave of inadequacy which washed over me and nothing more.
Logical or not, that feeling of inadequacy which had labelled me a horrible writer might have been, I cannot say. I can say however, that by the time I arrived at my office, I pondered on the fact that I had prayed to God for His help to write a good poem, but His help had come through my brother. I think I was rattled majorly because His help did not come in the form I had expected it. I literally want God to show up in dazzling ways through me, but He does not want me to be alone, so, He shows me the bar of my limitations, urging me to lean on the strength he has supplied to others, to surpass my limits.
So, I prayed to Him to send me a helper for a petition I have been making for a while now.
This experience made me realize three things: (1) God does not want me to be alone, (2) God will use the people or whatever it is He has sent into my life to help me whether or not they realize it or even want to help me and (3) I do not want to keep my writing separate from God.
I will figure this writing thing out with God because my help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.
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.
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! Quite recently, I came across the verse from St. Paul telling women to veil when praying and prophesying and I remembered the words I used… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! The meaning of holiness has been blurred by some Christians such that you may hear phrases such as holy Muslim, holy Jew or holy non-Christian.… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone. Remember to pray the Rosary! I suppose I should say Happy New Year, or rather, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. The future feels overwhelmingly long,… Read more
I was in church before the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and I talked to her like I usually do whenever I stop by. I got the thought to write down some of the things I said to her, as best as I can remember, and it reads like a poem. Here it is:
“Hey Mom“
Hey mom,
Isn’t it crazy,
How we are all brothers and sisters,
All gathered under one roof to worship God,
But we are more strangers over being family?
We are all God’s children,
having One Father,
Yet hardly anyone’s gaze envelopes you with warmth,
Hardly anyone’s smile catches you in theirs.
ButI am just the same, aren’t I?
It is so instinctual;
This awkwardness.
…Mom, did you catch that?
That soft swivel of my head to avoid any misunderstanding,
That my gaze was vastly cool,
That it gave the sense that this brief meeting of eyes,
was nothing more than a coincidence,
nothing more than a watchfulness,
the result of her sudden appearance in my eye’s direction.
I suppose I could have smiled at her,
But I didn’t want her to think me weird.
Hey mom,
How is it that we are more strangers than family?
I had to re-write this poem because of the feedback I got from my younger brother. I took it because ultimately, I want this to read better. But I must say, I teared up when I saw his suggestions. I felt like a horrible writer who could not think of “his refinements”, and I wondered if I could really call this poem mine. Well, it is a learning process, and I will be better next time. Besides, I do not mind sharing this poem with him. I always say he is the better writer.
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.
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! Quite recently, I came across the verse from St. Paul telling women to veil when praying and prophesying and I remembered the words I used… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! The meaning of holiness has been blurred by some Christians such that you may hear phrases such as holy Muslim, holy Jew or holy non-Christian.… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone. Remember to pray the Rosary! I suppose I should say Happy New Year, or rather, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. The future feels overwhelmingly long,… Read more
Moments ago, I opened my Spotify and I got a creepy looking pop up on my screen: “Song Psychic. What areas of your life do you need answers to: Love, career, etc.”. I don’t recall all of the options. I should have taken a screen shot but I cancelled it as fast as I could and said, “God forbid”, as I imagined someone else going along with this and then possibly being suggested music in the genre of their sadness. On the one hand, this new addition to Spotify could be completely harmless algorithm, on the other hand, too many sinister things go on in this world without people being aware and one must be vigilant. Who knows what goes on behind the build of that new attraction. I must admit, in the past, I would have clicked on this without thinking too much about it. It is not like I believed in the predictions. It only seemed fun to me in the past. The thing is you open yourself up to harmful spirits when you dabble in new age practices. Thank God if you leave unscathed physically but what of your soul’s health.
I was going to write about something else entirely different while I listened to music on Spotify, but I guess this is the thing to write about.
Many people do not realize the danger they expose themselves to when they dabble in New Age Practices. It is portrayed as something good in the media and there is often no physical repercussion so people cannot perceive the gravity behind their actions. Sometimes, it can even affect mental health and it is labelled as a psychological disorder. This is not to say all mental illness is spiritual. There are some that aren’t and there are some that are. I know this because I remember once feeling depressed and I did not want to move from where I sat, I could not, and I felt like I was suffocating in the heaviness in my soul. I made a small, quiet and unsure prayer to God, “Father help me”. The darkness dissipated and the heaviness left me as soon I uttered those words. This was a period I did not believe in God. I was desperate to be saved. Now, I know The Holy Spirit must have been helping me to pray. This experience made me believe God must be real. I even spoke to a colleague about it because I was dazed about the experience. She seemed upset that I was telling her about it. Around that time, I had been consuming so much Tarot Card readings on YouTube and I told her about it and that was okay. My awareness of the realness of God did not even snap me back to re-orient my life completely to God. It just made me consider just how real He is.
Another time, it was like a deep sadness, and I thought it good practice to remind myself of happy memories, to bring back my happiness. I could not remember even one happy memory. One thing that stood out to me though was Christ’s resurrection. It holds so much weight and power in meaning and being. I thought, “Christ is risen”, and I was restored. So, I said it continuously on my walk to work.
I have done a lot of foolish things in my life. I am just now starting to see sin as foolishness because it is not worth the cost when you do the math. There is the eternal consequence of course but I have never been the type to peer too deeply at the future. I just mean it is such an inconvenience to choose evil. My conscience condemns me. I know God sees me. And then I feel really bad about falling short. When I feel bad, I will apologise to God and then head to the confessional. I am thankful to God for the gift of confession but feeling horrible is not something I would want to walk into knowingly. I know the feeling is there for a good reason though. My anticipation of it serves as a deterrent when I consider what action to take. So, I end up thinking I might as well do good and have peace and joy in God.
I will not always want to do good. Sometimes, I will want evil, even knowing that it is not good for me, and the only reason that can bring me to choose the good will be because of God. I will do good through Christ Who strengthens me. If I were perfect, I would always want the good, but I know my imperfection and my limitation, in that, I can do no good apart from God.
Oh, I landed right into what I wanted to write about. “Doing Good because of God”. That is funny.
I was told recently that when I said, “I will do it because of God”, I say that to make myself feel good. Perhaps I do feel good when I say it, but it is also my reality when it is hard to choose good. I don’t believe it to be any less virtuous because I don’t believe I could do it if not because of God, even though I know it to be good, even though I feel good even after doing it. So, I cannot say I do good because of good’s sake or because I want it. I do it for love of God and I will do it well with God’s help. It does not mean it is a burden either. It brings me happiness when I do it, because it pleases God, and it is for my own good. What can I say, I am a complicated human being.
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.
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! Quite recently, I came across the verse from St. Paul telling women to veil when praying and prophesying and I remembered the words I used… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! The meaning of holiness has been blurred by some Christians such that you may hear phrases such as holy Muslim, holy Jew or holy non-Christian.… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone. Remember to pray the Rosary! I suppose I should say Happy New Year, or rather, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. The future feels overwhelmingly long,… Read more
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.
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! Quite recently, I came across the verse from St. Paul telling women to veil when praying and prophesying and I remembered the words I used… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! The meaning of holiness has been blurred by some Christians such that you may hear phrases such as holy Muslim, holy Jew or holy non-Christian.… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone. Remember to pray the Rosary! I suppose I should say Happy New Year, or rather, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. The future feels overwhelmingly long,… Read more
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, least painful among my siblings (I gleaned from her words) 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 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.
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! Quite recently, I came across the verse from St. Paul telling women to veil when praying and prophesying and I remembered the words I used… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! The meaning of holiness has been blurred by some Christians such that you may hear phrases such as holy Muslim, holy Jew or holy non-Christian.… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone. Remember to pray the Rosary! I suppose I should say Happy New Year, or rather, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. The future feels overwhelmingly long,… Read more
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.
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! Quite recently, I came across the verse from St. Paul telling women to veil when praying and prophesying and I remembered the words I used… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! The meaning of holiness has been blurred by some Christians such that you may hear phrases such as holy Muslim, holy Jew or holy non-Christian.… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone. Remember to pray the Rosary! I suppose I should say Happy New Year, or rather, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. The future feels overwhelmingly long,… Read more
Preserve me, O God, for in Thee I take refuge. I say to the Lord, “Thou art my Lord; I have no good apart from Thee.”
The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; Thou holdest my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage
I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
– Psalm 16:1-2, 5-8
Happy New Year Everyone! Pray the Rosary.
I hope everyone is keeping well this New Year. We are about halfway into the first month of year and I’ve got to say, I started off the New Year with good news. I took the PMP certification exam in the early hours of Jan 1st, right from the comfort of my home and I received word the next day that I passed. I am so thankful to God for his help in my success, which is His. It has been a long time coming. He put the goal in my mind years ago, although I did not know the path to take to get it or think that I would be eligible to take the exam, but He pushed me forward with a gentleness and His persevering Spirit. I applied around July last year for the exam and my application was approved. I was so overjoyed because prior to applying I had a fear that I hadn’t had the title of “Project Manager” for very long and perhaps that could affect my application but it did not matter.
I was deep into preparing for the exam when I discovered that I made a huge error in my application which had already been approved; there was an error in my work history which made it look like I had more years of experience in a particular job role than I actually had. I wrestled with myself about reporting this to PMI. And then I wrestled with God. I have a tendency of taking shortcuts as long as I get to my goal and no one gets hurt. It is still something I am fighting to overcome and in that moment, it was so hard. I told God that anyone I told about reporting this and withdrawing my application would think I am stupid, since I had already passed through the approval process and there was no way I would be audited after that approval. But, as I wrestled with God in my head, I heard a video playing from my phone say, “Have Faith”.
I felt a profound peace wash over me after I heard that, so, I messaged the customer service line of PMI and reported the error and told the rep to withdraw my application. I think this happened in October of last year. At that time, I was nearing the end of the study group session I was a part of, so when I withdrew my application and re-applied, I felt unsure of where I stood, even as I attended the study session that followed after. In the wait for the re-evaluation of my application, my studying slowed down somewhat and I took a bit of a break from the gruelling studying I was engaged in. I saw a movie at the cinema with a friend and really just slowed down. Thanks be to God, my second application was approved and I didn’t have to go through a stressful audit. The studying I did for this exam was incredibly stressful and I don’t remember an exam ever stressing me as much as this exam did.
To put things into context, and not to be boastful because my life really is a display of the goodness of God; I have not failed any course I have taken since the WASSCE at the end of secondary school. It was understandable I performed poorly since I had not studied and I did not trust in God. I got mostly Cs, which was not helpful to me if I wanted to get into Medicine, which I did want at the time, but since then, I have grown to be aware that I am somewhat capable if I work hard and ask God for His help, because I graduated with a Distinction, the highest grade achievable, in my MSc course in Pharmaceutical Sciences at Kingston University, despite my “poor memory” which I have struggled with a long time, and yet my MSc course did not stress me out quite like this exam did. It could be because this exam is not a part of the sciences, so it was a lot of learning of terms or concepts for the first time.
There were moments I wanted to stop studying but I deeply wanted God to help me and I wanted to approach Him knowing that I had given it my all. I knew He would help me like He always did. To be clear, I did not wait until it was time to take the exam before I started praying. I prayed before I applied; continuously as I prepared, for guidance while I studied, to absorb the information as I studied, to retain it, to be able to answer any question put forth in front of me at the exam, and to have an easier exam than the practice questions I went through. I prayed as well during the exam, as my belly started to hurt as I answered the first 60 questions which I thought were okay enough, and continued praying as the questions got annoyingly harder during the second 60 questions, and continued praying as the discomfort in my belly persisted during the last 60 questions which I thought were fair.
I did not fully sense God’s presence as I wrote the exam but I knew He had to be present because He is always with me, because He is faithful, not because of anything I do, but because of His Character. However, my senses were dull, so my prayer as I took this exam was desperate as time progressed. You see, sometimes, I am able to sense Him in the breeze that envelopes me, or in the movement in my mind that allows me to see things clearly which I once did not understand, once I ask for His help, or a warmth of my cheeks and a rush, or a warm, cozy feeling in my heart that makes me feel cocooned, or the repetition of a phrase everywhere He would like me to explore in the bible, or a peace that comes over me, and many more ways, because God cannot be contained and I am not able to know all of the ways in which He makes His presence known.
I did not get my result immediately after the exam, like I expected to, and I allowed that to put me in a bad mood for the remainder of the day. I even started to regret taking the exam on that day because of how tired and sleep-deprived I was, how unsure I was about how I did on the exam, and my foul mood on the first day of the year. At the end of the day, I realized the reason my mood was off. I did not start the day praying. When I was planning to take this exam, I did not factor in setting aside an hour of the day to pray in the morning like I normally do. I woke up, did a quick prayer as I got ready for the exam and got on with it.
I am working on staying joyful throughout this year, despite what my eyes see, since I am short sighted in the physical and in many ways in the spirit. I am praying for discernment this year, of God’s will, God’s voice and God’s wise counsel. I am also praying for the grace and the strength of will to always do His will, so that I may be wise in all that I do, and also that I and my family may always abide in His house forever.
I am working on building intimacy with God this year, being mindful of my actions and acting indeed like I believe God to be the Lord of my life, so that I can glorify God by the way I live my life.
I am also working on bringing to the forefront of my mind, to serve as a guide on how I perceive and move through this world, that everything in the world belongs to me, so that I do not try to rush to grab it all for myself and I can be patient in letting others have it. Let me try to explain what I mean and I hope this makes sense. I came to this realization early one morning, on my way to work last year, when I pondered on one of the temptations of Jesus, which on and off would come to my mind, and I would think it strange, confusing and not very smart of the devil to tempt Jesus with the whole world when it all belongs to Jesus, but then it dawned on me, “Does it not all belong to me too, since I am an Heir of God and co-heir with Jesus?” It allowed me to be able to give more to the people around me when I remembered, because there is no reason I should be fighting or grasping for things or getting mad or sad over things that are ultimately mine. To operate from a mindset of abundance that comes from being who I am, a daughter of God, rather than from a viewpoint of scarcity that comes from the brokenness and scarcity I have encountered all my life. Of course, I am still working on remembering and applying this.
I hope to be thankful all year to God for all of His mercies, His kindness, His love, His grace, His revelations, His presence, His nearness, His movements, His provisions, His goodness and for Him, which He has already poured out into me and around me, trusting that He will continue to do so the rest of this year and the rest of my life, because He is faithful.
God bless you all in the New Year!
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.
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! Quite recently, I came across the verse from St. Paul telling women to veil when praying and prophesying and I remembered the words I used… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! The meaning of holiness has been blurred by some Christians such that you may hear phrases such as holy Muslim, holy Jew or holy non-Christian.… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone. Remember to pray the Rosary! I suppose I should say Happy New Year, or rather, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. The future feels overwhelmingly long,… Read more
It has been a while and to not run the risk of sounding like a broken record, how about I do not apologize for being away.
I have done an end of the year evaluation since 2020, I believe. So, I felt it customary to continue it this year.
This year has gone by pretty quick, that when I try to look back on the events of the year, it feels almost like yesterday that the year began, and yet quite deliciously contrary, the density of my memories lie squarely on my mind, like a thickly condensed flashback which I have a good grasp of in its intricateness.
I prayed a lot this year, more than I have ever done in my entire life, without my mother prompting me to “Come, let us pray”. I actually pursued God this year. How incredibly! I remember when the days to my time in London was starting to run out, just before I was to travel to Canada, I had mentioned to a colleague of mine, that if I arrived in Canada, with my mom around, I would feel obligated to attend mass out of a deference to her and to keep the peace, in her heart and in the house. But, I did wish that I felt a desire to go to mass, not just out of obligation to her. And how it would make everything easier. Fast forward to actually coming here and having an encounter with God which just filled my heart with a fire, a longing and a desire for God, that I went to confession last year, for the first time in 4 years, and strove after God from that time on. God is great! He hears the desires of my heart! He hears the words I speak! He knows me through and through, more than I can ever know myself and loves me completely. I am comfortable telling Him to help me because I am helpless most times, and He really does reach out and set me aright, even when I do not use those specific words.
I am here right now, completely imperfect, yet my mind reminds me that my God once told me that He salivates in the way I love. That made me happy at first, then shook me, because I know me. So, He must see so much good in me, and there is hope for me. I really just want to please Him, that I feel disappointed when I cannot do some things I wish I could do. I am praying always that God is patient with me because of my weaknesses, as I navigate all of this and I can finally drop all of the weight which I hate, but I always take great comfort and hide in His love. It is the safest I will ever be ever. So, I will cast my arms around Him, although I cannot contain His presence, and He will fill me always with His goodness.
For anyone wanting to gain a better understanding of the faith, you can check out Ascension Presents on YouTube for short videos. I hope God ignites that passion in your heart for Him too.
To everyone reading this, thank you for finding my blog, thank you for staying. I pray that God blooms the seed planted already in your hearts and you rejoice always in the Lord, so that your joy may be complete!
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.
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! Quite recently, I came across the verse from St. Paul telling women to veil when praying and prophesying and I remembered the words I used… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! The meaning of holiness has been blurred by some Christians such that you may hear phrases such as holy Muslim, holy Jew or holy non-Christian.… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone. Remember to pray the Rosary! I suppose I should say Happy New Year, or rather, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. The future feels overwhelmingly long,… Read more
I think I have been away for over 6 months (correction: 4 months) and I really owe everyone an apology, including myself because this is really atrocious, haha..
On a serious note, I really tried to block out the thoughts of my blog and my podcast, and push off writing and creating posts because of the effort it takes to make the voice recordings. To be honest, I do not enjoy hearing back the sound of my voice. That is why these voice recordings are kind of weird to me. But, I actually enjoy the entire creating process, so, I don’t know what to say.
I hope everyone is doing okay. It’s been half a year, so, I bet a lot of things have happened in that time for you and for me too. If you care to, you can share in the comment section below.
Particularly for me, I have grown a deeper understanding and love for my faith in these 6 months. I am Catholic, just in case nobody knows. My prayer life has been more regular than it has ever been before and I am happy about that. I pray for final perseverance.
I will say for the most part I feel clueless nowadays. I don’t understand a lot of things and I fear God is speaking to me but I do not understand His message because of my short-sightedness. I say this because a recent bible passage from “The Bible in a Year” podcast, mirrored my actions and prayers. It is quite uncanny because this has happened to me twice now, first at the start of the year when this same feeling was strong and again recently, this week actually. I really do not know how clueless I can be as to what God is trying to tell me. I am a bit frustrated with myself. Pray for me that I have clarity. I just paused to pray for it too. Weird how I don’t recall praying for it before now. but perhaps I did.
Maybe I know the answer but I do not want to believe it. haha. And that is quite sad when I think about it.
The answer I can see is that God has sent His angel to take care of it.
So, if that is the case, then I am thankful to God for answered prayers.
Sidebar: I wrote this around midnight. I don’t know how I’m gonna put this all together. But, I created this post around midnight and I was like I’ll go to bed, wake up, say my prayer, come back, record this, and then finish the entire process of creating this. So, while I was on instagram, when I woke up in the morning, I saw an instagram post about “Let God take care of it. Open up the Word and listen to what God is trying to tell you”. So, I decided to listen to today’s bible verses on the Bible in a year. And something stuck out to me: “If you will not believe surely you shall not be established.” And that put a serious fear within me. Because I obviously do not want to be the one who is stopping God’s blessings from getting to me. Because we can do that to ourselves without realizing. So, I said a prayer, “I believe. Lord, heal my unbelief.” And I do believe that there is nothing God cannot do. I think it is that I cannot imagine the strength of His love for me. That’s where the unbelief comes from. I just need to trust in His love for me. To trust in His provision and to just trust in God. I will be back to give a testimony once it is all fully revealed to me by God.
Anyway, I drove recently; this Tuesday to be precise. Not a lot though. I have a learner’s licence here in Canada, so, I have to actually practice driving. Before this week though, the last time I was behind the wheel was 6 years ago. It felt different on Tuesday. I did not have the crippling nerves like 6 years ago. It was almost nice. It could be because my new friend, who was calm throughout, was in the passenger seat and not my brother. I love my brother but I remember him yelling 6 years ago and that was not fun. My friend, on the other hand, was using his phone at some point and when I asked him if he was afraid, he told me he wasn’t and that was his reason for using his phone. I might also have almost enjoyed driving now because I am older and calmer when it comes to handling “new things”, haha, but just a little bit calmer. But maybe that “little” makes such a huge difference on my temperament. I honestly just want to get the learning phase over with so I can move on from it. My impatience is unreal but I am trying to reel it all in. Lastly, it is definitely because I have been praying for a better experience this time around.
During the drive, I mentioned to my friend that my dad is not alive and he was so shocked and sad for me. My dad died when I was 5. It has been such a long time, which I tried to explain to him. Then He asked if my mom ever remarried or if I had any male role models growing up and my answer was “No.” He was amazed by that. I know he meant well, but his questions made me consider how much I might have lacked not having my dad. I had claimed God as my Father a long time ago when I was in bed in London and the memory of my mom’s prayer from when I was a child came to my mind. “You are The Father to the fatherless, The Husband to the widow.” I had said the same to my friend too.
However, when I was alone, I could not help but feel deficient and some things made sense to me. So, I thought it might explain why I never learnt to ride a bike. Maybe I might have been forced to learn how to drive a car, if he’d lived. I don’t know. Perhaps if my dad didn’t die, I would have gotten more confident in my childhood. But also, I would have been so spoiled, like one of those spoilt rich kids, or maybe not, since my mom was so strict. I don’t know. I wondered how else my personality might have been affected. Am I overly independent as a result of his death? Do I contemplate a lot about dying because of his death? Am I unable to form tangible relationships with the opposite sex as a result? Do I distrust the tangibility of human connections just a little bit? haha..
It is pointless to imagine what might have been and yet my mind wondered briefly. My dad is a hero in my memory. I loved him easily and missed him without wondering what the emotion was. Secondary school was hard for me at one point, so, I had informed my mom, out of blue, one morning, just before we got into the car, on our way to the church where I would catch my school bus, that I was okay with her remarrying, all because I wanted a dad.
I am an adult now though and have lived a considerable portion of my life without my father. I suppose thinking these things about deficiencies stirred up some feelings of inadequacies in general about myself, one such being my inability to drive competently. I probably have to address those feelings with myself. I am not my driver status. lol. and I am working towards getting it changed, and that is all that matters.
I have been a late bloomer when it comes to getting over certain milestones in my life. One such being my confirmation in the Catholic Church. I kind of conveniently pushed off attending classes run by my secondary school because I did not understand why I should do it, and my mom did not come down too hard on me for not going. Maybe because she didn’t realize I was not attending though. lol. Because of that, I ended up getting confirmed later, along with my younger sister, at her own school’s program.
I think I was a bit embarrassed then too that I had not completed it when I was younger. However, looking back now, I think I did it at the right time. I was more receptive to the message that God loves me. I think it is the only thing I remember from those classes. I had received the message with so much shock and pleasure; it is so strange, because I don’t know why it had felt personal to me to read about it in a book the instructors made to teach us with. It was like hearing it for the first time; the idea of a personal relationship with God and I felt loved.
So, perhaps, that is how I ought to look at everything else in my life that I do not have or I have not done. Perhaps, it really isn’t the right time for me.
Thank you for reading or listening to 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.
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! Quite recently, I came across the verse from St. Paul telling women to veil when praying and prophesying and I remembered the words I used recently in my last post: “If you believe the bible is the Word of God and you have the Mind… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! The meaning of holiness has been blurred by some Christians such that you may hear phrases such as holy Muslim, holy Jew or holy non-Christian. Could it be a lack of vocabulary or perhaps the snare of the tongue or a trap they have fallen… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone. Remember to pray the Rosary! I suppose I should say Happy New Year, or rather, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. The future feels overwhelmingly long, so I’m choosing to follow Jesus’ words and focus on today, because each day has enough worries of its own.… Read more
Today’s post was written on a night in January. I am convinced I am loved by God no matter what because of St. Paul’s confidence. I believe it is similar to what Fr. Mike Schmitz has explained about our belief not being in isolation when we say the Nicene Creed. We believe in and with a community of believers and are strengthened together in the midst of all believers. My translation of what he’d said anyway. Funny enough, I wrote this post prior to listening to Fr. Mike Schmitz.
It was nighttime that day and I thought of St. Paul as I ate my peppery pasta. I tried to imagine how he must have felt. He’d sinned against God when he persecuted God’s people. I wondered for a moment if he ever went back in his head and heart and felt torture remembering this but as soon as that thought formed, I realized he felt loved because a summarized version of a bible verse which he wrote popped into my head right after.
“Nothing can separate us from the love of God.”
I knew with certainty that he felt loved and I felt loved as well by proxy.
Reading the bible verse now, I must admit he says it so much better. His conviction carries through and lifts my heart. So, I shall put it here for you to read, so that your heart will find rest from its torment.
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:35-39 (NIV)
08 Jan 2023
“Catalogued thoughts”
Thank you for reading or listening to 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.
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! Quite recently, I came across the verse from St. Paul telling women to veil when praying and prophesying and I remembered the words I used recently in my last post: “If you believe the bible is the Word of God and you have the Mind… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone! Remember to pray the Rosary! The meaning of holiness has been blurred by some Christians such that you may hear phrases such as holy Muslim, holy Jew or holy non-Christian. Could it be a lack of vocabulary or perhaps the snare of the tongue or a trap they have fallen… Read more
By Cynthia Aralu Hello everyone. Remember to pray the Rosary! I suppose I should say Happy New Year, or rather, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. The future feels overwhelmingly long, so I’m choosing to follow Jesus’ words and focus on today, because each day has enough worries of its own.… Read more
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