These days, my Instagram feed is mostly about Bible verses or the things of Christ. Even though I cannot dispute it is a good thing to have my feed full of the things of God, I fear I have lost a lot of my initial motivation; the desire to only see the things of God. Without intending to, I have tamed the algorithm of my feed by liking bible verses, prayers and the things of God, because I do indeed like them. They are good after all. As a result of this, even though I engage in scrolling, it cannot be mindless but it is somewhat driven by a distractedness. Yesterday night, just before bed, I engaged in this same distracted scrolling, and I would like each reel as I scrolled. I stumbled across verses about the significance of Christ’s suffering and death and a verse caused me to pause. It could be that the verse from Isaiah which I had intently listened to in church hours earlier, had helped to bring it all together in my mind as I scrolled, such that I reached enlightenment on reading the verse from St. Peter which said that “He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed”
I could not help but wonder, “Could it be that our sins were literally his wounds?”
For some reason, I had been trying so hard to understand it beyond what was stated when it was as plain as day. Am I the last in coming to know this?
There is no humour in the suffering and death of Jesus. There is so much gravity to sin that I have missed for most of my life. Was it purposeful because I could not bear it?
It is as plain as Isaiah said, that “As many were astonished at him his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the sons of men—so shall he startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which has not been told them they shall see, and that which they have not heard they shall understand”.
That is just how gnarly sin is, and rightly so, we all should be astonished by sin and its effect. Every wound Jesus took on, that which was visible and invisible to the human eyes, I inflicted and yet He chose it willingly so that I may have life through His suffering. It is the redemptive power of suffering when it is offered up to God, united to Jesus, of which I now have a share in, and only quite recently did I grasp this, without even fully realizing what I was doing, until I wrote about it.
I woke up this morning and I pondered even more about all of this which I have mentioned. I remembered the passage from scripture that said, “they will see without perceiving, hear but without understanding.”. I could not help but wonder, “What else have I missed?”. I was so full of gratitude to God, so I thanked Jesus for His offering of Himself and I thanked God the Father and the Holy Spirit for enlightening me.
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
Out of the depths I cry to Thee, O Lord! Lord, hear my voice! Let Thy ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.
O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with Him is plenteous redemption.
Psalm 130: 1, 5-7
Hi everyone! Pray the Rosary.
Have you ever been in a situation where a person who had given you some information which you shared to someone else, was now lying to that someone else about the content of the information they had given to you? Then, you were made to look like a liar and also incompetent, because the person who they were lying to has known them longer or better, and because of human nature, was more inclined to take their side. Have you ever been in the position to disprove this person with a screenshot and a well-formed argument?
This happened to me quite recently; actually the interval between Monday and Tuesday.
When the person who had been lied to looked at me and presented to me the information he had received from the lady, I mentioned that I was pretty sure that I had been told something different by the lady and he had given me a weird look, so, I had followed up with, “It is probably just a misunderstanding.” to which he nodded in agreement.
To be honest, I have been in a similar situation multiple times in the past before, when I lived in London. It is such a terrible position to be in. I recall the first time it happened. I was thrown under the bus by a coordinator for a mistake he made. I was at the virtual meeting, the first of that kind for me and He’d lied. I had frozen then and my heart raced uncontrollably. I did not know how to protect myself. I am glad that I did not do so at that meeting. It would have been a useless argument, and I would have been labelled “troublesome”. He was a coordinator, and I was only an assistant. When I left that meeting, my mind had run in all directions, and then settled on an idea to prove that there was no way I could have possibly known about the existence of the task, to even have been aware to perform it. I got indisputable proof that I had not been trained on the SOP and so, I could not have been aware of it, let alone, done it.
That was God’s saving grace. I emailed this proof to the second-in-charge of the unit and explained my side of things. My point was acknowledged and accommodated, but I always felt weird to work there after that, and around that coordinator. I didn’t have the option to leave. If I had been back in Nigeria, I would not have stayed. I became so guarded after that incident. A similar situation repeated itself but this time around, I spoke up for myself with email receipts, and the other person got angry. It felt so messy to me, and I was uncomfortable. To be fair, God vindicated me so swiftly from these situations and others, but it all felt turbulent to me, and it made me distrustful; this and other things in life.
So, when this similar situation repeated itself this Monday, I did not want to cause any friction, so I had automatically said, “It is probably just a misunderstanding.” It was her word against mine and I started to wonder if I had heard her wrong on the call that day. After work, as I walked to the bus stop, I felt tired and sad, and I told myself not to cry. For me, it went beyond the lie. She had been so rude to me on the call while I tried to stay professional and levelheaded. It felt as though this situation kept repeating itself in my life, but I also recognized, as I stood at the bus stop waiting for a bus, that the day before, I had knelt before the Blessed Sacrament, and told Jesus that I really want to know how He felt when He suffered during His passion. My mind knows that it must have been great suffering, but in truth, I feel I am lacking the empathy to fully grasp the depth of His suffering. I thought the best way to cure my lack would be to feel as He felt.
“Not a lot of people experience this.” I told myself, coming close to resenting it.
“It is a privilege to go through this.” I recognized, when I considered the rarity of my experiences, still feeling tired and sad.
A word from scripture stood at the forefront of my mind, “He was a man of sorrows, well-acquainted with grief.”
So, I wondered, “Did Jesus cry? Did He hurt every time he was accused or rejected or mistreated?”
My emotions were heavy so I offered them up to God.
When I got home, I pulled out my laptop. It occurred to me to check my laptop for a Teams conversation from a different day when the lady seemed to be suggesting the same thing I had surmised from her call that day. I found it, took a screenshot of it and saved it. Then, I started to formulate an argument in my mind that I was going to present the next day.
I woke up Tuesday morning and I prayed to God to vindicate me. On my way to work, I recognized that I wanted to do things my own way because I did not want to ask God what I should do, and I was trying to hide from this knowledge. But you really cannot hide from God. So, I asked God what I should do. I felt the heaviness lift off my chest. I decided to listen to an episode from Bible in a Year (BIY) because I wanted to hear from God. Psalm 130 was read in this episode. It spoke to me, and I knew what to do. I decided I was going to be still and wait on God. I laughed when I realized that I did not even want to fight for myself. Whatever fight I had been mustering was only a symptom of conditioning. Truth is, I want to be fought for by God Who loves me so much. I want to bask in the sweetness of His love, and I want to laugh and rejoice in the recognition that I am loved so.
My Spotify was on shuffle, so it suggested another episode from BIY a while later. This episode had Psalm 120, which thoroughly fit my situation; a prayer for deliverance from slanderers. I knew God’s hand was in it.
His vindication may not even come through this situation. It might be through something else that leads to her conversion. I am fine with it. I know that He is protecting and leading me. What can mere mortals do to me?
Later on, that day, I heard a bible passage differently for the first time. “Come to Me all you who are labor and heavy-laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me. For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will have rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”. In the past, I had focused on the part where Jesus said to cast my burdens on Him. Yesterday, I was able to focus more on the part where He said to learn from Him “to be gentle and lowly in heart”.
I can’t say I fully understand what it means to be “gentle and lowly in heart” but I do know that I crave peace more than anything and yet, I seem to want to fight first.
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 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
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