EN ROUTE TO CHURCH.
Righteous was driving with a heavy heart, and it was because of her children.
Indeed, she knew what her children were trying to do this morning. She understood what they had been trying to do in recent times.
This morning, her children had been smiling and playfully teasing her.
To make her forget the pains, the struggles, the tears, heart breaks, disappointment… Name it.
But how could they? After everything that had happened in the past twenty-four years, why were they trying so hard to make her forget? As if it was that easy.
It was crazy. To her, it was very crazy.
How old were her children? Her daughter was twenty-one years old, and her son, twenty-four years old. But sometimes, he and his younger sister behaved like some bunch of spoiled kindergarten kids.
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The children seemed to be enjoying what they were doing and sometimes she wanted to tell them to enjoy it while it lasted.
Life had a shrewd way of wiping off the smiles from one’s innocent face and replacing it with many sorrows.
Unfortunately, when it came, it came unannounced.
And this was why she was furious at them. Sometimes she wanted to slap some sense into their heads and ask them to wake up to reality.
To tell the truth, sometimes she was also jealous of their carefree lifestyle. Sometimes she wished, even for a minute, to be like them. To know what it felt like not to cry over the negative decisions and regrets from the past, feeling depressed about present situations, and not worrying or feeling anxious about the uncertainty of the future.
But the other times, she wanted to tell them not to be deceived, that whatever happiness they thought they were experiencing now was just a scam. She wanted to tell them that it was a big sham and they should wake up to the reality before the unexpected happened to them the way it did to her.
Experience was, indeed, a teacher, and a brutal one for that matter.
If only she could turn back the hands of time and become nineteen again, prior to the time she met Henry, prior to when the world went bananas on her.
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Regrets, regrets, regrets. She had a buttload of them.
The only regret she did not have was her two lovely children. Many people were not able to bear children of their own.
Okay, and her gift of salvation. A lot of people did not have this free but priceless treasure.
And a successful career. Not everyone, including her counterparts could boast of this.
A conducive home and a welcoming environment. Billions all over the world were sleeping under the bridges, dangerous places and run-down, dingy apartments, exposed to cold and mosquitoes and all manner of hazards.
Food. Many were currently starving and suffering from lack of balanced diet and malnutrition.
What about the clothes on her body and her children's? Sound health. A fancy ride.
Alright, there were a lot of things to be happy and grateful for.
So why was she feeling overwhelmed with so much anguish instead of gratitude? Why did she worry so much, and feel anxious about everything?
Did Christ not warn his followers against this very thing she was doing? Did he not say to be anxious for nothing?
Did the Holy Spirit not admonish the early church through the mouth of the apostles? In Apostle Paul's epistles to the Philippian Christians, specifically chapter four verse six and seven, where it stated: 'Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.'
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In Matthew 6:25-27, Jesus Christ told his followers that they should... “Not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Isn't life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”
Jesus also says in Matthew 6:34, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
Did Christ not make provisions for every worry and anxiousness?
Wasn't that why he said in the book of John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."
So, why then, was she rejecting that peace?
She wasn't the only one who had suffered. Her children, too, had been in this all the way. Even her parents.
But now, it seemed like everyone had moved on and left her behind.
Why? Why? Because it's not easy.
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It's not easy to just forget and move on, and her children were supposed to know better. In short, they knew better.
And why shouldn't they? Her son, who had managed to grow up without his biological father and who was also the only man in the family, had not only become a son and a big brother, but had become like a father as well to his sister.
Oh, and what of her only daughter who got blind at the age of sixteen, on the day of her final WASSCE papers?
Anyone who saw her laughing and smiling today would not know that she'd gone through hell, especially for the past five years. She too, just like her only brother, had grown up without her father.
As a daughter, Righteous loved and adored her doting father. Till date, she still had a lot of sweet, fun memories of her father.
She remembered those moments when her mother would want to punish her when she did something wrong and her father would step in and plead for mercy on her behalf. Sometimes, he would even cajole her mother with the promise of giving her that money she asked him for the previous week.
No matter how strong her mother's bravado was, her father would always melt it with a little reasoning.
She could also remember that her father played with her a lot and she teased him several times.
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The only times she got punished severely was when her father wasn't around. And that was mostly because her brothers who were jealous that she was getting preferential treatment wouldn't fail to immediately report her and instigate her against their mother.
The father-daughter relationship had always been the most envious relationship in the family, and she had always wished that her daughter had the privilege of experiencing and enjoying it like she had.
Although, no matter the relationship between father and daughter, her mother will always be her confidant. You don't just walk up to your father now and tell him of your first boyfriend, first kiss, first love, or anything like that in Africa. Your father would chase the innocent young boy around the town with a loaded shotgun.
Nevertheless, this was the kind of relationship Righteous had been privileged to enjoy with her father, but her daughter never did.
Whenever these bitter and depressing thoughts crossed her mind, she mentally chided and berated herself, feeling guilty, believing that it was all her fault because of the bad decision she made.
But just as equally, the word of God would speak to her heart, letting her know and understand that her sins were forgiven. Letting her know that there was no condemnation to them who were in Christ Jesus.
So, this morning, on her way to church, she accepted the truth of God's word and love over her life and began giving thanks.
The devil, after suffering another round of utter defeat over this soul that he wanted so badly to waste, he packed all his baggage and left her for a season.
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