It All Began The Night Before...
I woke up late (6:25 am) to what looked like a regular day, and rushed to the kitchen to do the dishes from last night (not like me to leave dirty dishes overnight, but I was done with cooking really late, and was so tired). I entered to see that someone had left the tap running, and the floor was covered with water. That was not something to look forward to waking up. Well, I had to mop up the water, do them dishes, then join in the morning devotion which I just sat through.
It was the beginning of a dreary day, and it all began the night before...
See, I live in the outskirts of a city called Abuja, and heading home from work during the rush hour is hellish, especially for someone like me because I don't know how to spend an hour waiting for a bus, or run after the bus and fight with people to get on it when it arrives, or spend an hour (at least) in the traffic jam in order to get home. It makes me really grouchy, five evenings a week. So I opted for staying at my friend's for like 2 hour or until the madness abates.
I live with my uncle, a sweet, elderly man, and a cousin who can't cook, which means I'm responsible for preparing meals (my uncle supplies the money, of course), which really isn't a problem because I have the meals for the week planned in advance (cuts costs for me and saves me several trips to the market) and we use a gas cooker, which is really fast, so that I'm done with dinner in just over an hour (yes, my uncle comes home late, and no, he doesn't eat out).
Problem was, when I got home and started cooking, the gas ran out on me. I was getting frustrated, and didn't know what to do. Ameh, my cousin,who can't cook and was hungry (he'd stopped eating out when I came to live with them), borrowed a kerosene stove from Bubba. K-stoves are pretty slow if you're used to gas cookers, and this particular one had issues, and succeeded in extending cooking time by over three hours. To cut the long story short, I was done cooking at about 12:00 am. Ameh still ate. Uncle S had eaten bread earlier and said I shouldn't worry.
With all of that, coupled with the fact that I was so tired I couldn't fall asleep immediately, waking up to a flooded kitchen wasn't exactly how I would want to start my day...
Same morning I went to work late, the traffic situation not helping. For starters, there was more power outage than there was light (yep, it’s Nigeria), so I couldn’t do much work. What that meant was I couldn’t bury myself in my work and so I was unable to forget all the issues that had been tugging at my consciousness for attention. Silent desperation, frustration, and despair had been my daily companions for a while now, and all attempts at positivity were proving ineffective. Truth is, there were issues in my life and questions I needed answered that I was in denial of. I was broke, money wasn’t coming in, and attempts to bring it in were proving abortive. Also I had been looking for an apartment for months, and they’re really expensive in this city, except for the outskirts that drive me crazy (no fairly stable light, no running water except you have a bore hole, cost of transportation, automobile traffic, poor connecting roads in the outskirts). Then there was the fact that I was so lonely – among other things.
I kept asking:
Why won’t things work out? Why are my efforts getting frustrated? Why is it taking so long for God’s word concerning me to come to pass? Why does it feel like there’s an iron ceiling over me, and I can’t reach God, and He can’t see me? Why this? Why that?
I felt like screaming until something momentous happened, and I told Toby (my friend at work) that. I told him I was tired on a level that I could not explain. Toby told me that the devotional he uses (Every Day with Jesus) was dealing with such issues this month, and he had it with him. So, during the ‘black out’ I went through the devotion for the day and the day before, and it spoke straight to me.
The title of the devotion for the previous day was ‘Mistrust – the root of sin’ with text from Psalms 77:1-20
In summary, it said that our negative emotions reveal more than the fact that we are feeling uncomfortable, but also reveal the root of our sin, that is, the suspicion that God cannot be trusted to have our interest at heart. It said that though emotions are generally aroused in a human context, they also reveal something of how we are dealing with God, indicating how we are handling the problems we encounter in the world and the concept we have of God
The current devotion expressed some of these negative feelings as:
Fear – is God capable of taking care of me?
Anger – why does God allow my goals to be blocked?
Envy – God seems to bless others more than me
Disappointment – is God fair?
Both days also talked about being honest with God, instead of being in denial because you’re scared of admitting your issues with Him and how you truly feel.
When I was done, I didn’t feel better, but I felt aware. I still wanted to scream, so I got up and went to the bathroom, shut the door, closed the toilet lid and sat on it and began to talk to God, pouring out my heart to Him. I was crying so hard I couldn’t speak, but I knew He could hear through the blubber, and eventually I was sitting on the floor (which is very clean, if you were wondering) and screaming silently (didn’t want anyone barging in). I told Him how powerless I felt, confessed my living in denial, my inability to focus on the Word or confess it in faith right now, and asked for mercy and help.
After the whole ordeal, it felt like a ton of weight was lifted off me. I felt my burden lift, and I felt peace. My mood changed. I was reminded again that He’s my Father (amazing that we forget that reality at all), and of His Word that says
“cast your cares upon Him, for He cares for you”
And
“come unto Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest...”
It was the beginning of a dreary day, and it all began the night before...
See, I live in the outskirts of a city called Abuja, and heading home from work during the rush hour is hellish, especially for someone like me because I don't know how to spend an hour waiting for a bus, or run after the bus and fight with people to get on it when it arrives, or spend an hour (at least) in the traffic jam in order to get home. It makes me really grouchy, five evenings a week. So I opted for staying at my friend's for like 2 hour or until the madness abates.
I live with my uncle, a sweet, elderly man, and a cousin who can't cook, which means I'm responsible for preparing meals (my uncle supplies the money, of course), which really isn't a problem because I have the meals for the week planned in advance (cuts costs for me and saves me several trips to the market) and we use a gas cooker, which is really fast, so that I'm done with dinner in just over an hour (yes, my uncle comes home late, and no, he doesn't eat out).
Problem was, when I got home and started cooking, the gas ran out on me. I was getting frustrated, and didn't know what to do. Ameh, my cousin,who can't cook and was hungry (he'd stopped eating out when I came to live with them), borrowed a kerosene stove from Bubba. K-stoves are pretty slow if you're used to gas cookers, and this particular one had issues, and succeeded in extending cooking time by over three hours. To cut the long story short, I was done cooking at about 12:00 am. Ameh still ate. Uncle S had eaten bread earlier and said I shouldn't worry.
With all of that, coupled with the fact that I was so tired I couldn't fall asleep immediately, waking up to a flooded kitchen wasn't exactly how I would want to start my day...
Same morning I went to work late, the traffic situation not helping. For starters, there was more power outage than there was light (yep, it’s Nigeria), so I couldn’t do much work. What that meant was I couldn’t bury myself in my work and so I was unable to forget all the issues that had been tugging at my consciousness for attention. Silent desperation, frustration, and despair had been my daily companions for a while now, and all attempts at positivity were proving ineffective. Truth is, there were issues in my life and questions I needed answered that I was in denial of. I was broke, money wasn’t coming in, and attempts to bring it in were proving abortive. Also I had been looking for an apartment for months, and they’re really expensive in this city, except for the outskirts that drive me crazy (no fairly stable light, no running water except you have a bore hole, cost of transportation, automobile traffic, poor connecting roads in the outskirts). Then there was the fact that I was so lonely – among other things.
I kept asking:
Why won’t things work out? Why are my efforts getting frustrated? Why is it taking so long for God’s word concerning me to come to pass? Why does it feel like there’s an iron ceiling over me, and I can’t reach God, and He can’t see me? Why this? Why that?
I felt like screaming until something momentous happened, and I told Toby (my friend at work) that. I told him I was tired on a level that I could not explain. Toby told me that the devotional he uses (Every Day with Jesus) was dealing with such issues this month, and he had it with him. So, during the ‘black out’ I went through the devotion for the day and the day before, and it spoke straight to me.
The title of the devotion for the previous day was ‘Mistrust – the root of sin’ with text from Psalms 77:1-20
In summary, it said that our negative emotions reveal more than the fact that we are feeling uncomfortable, but also reveal the root of our sin, that is, the suspicion that God cannot be trusted to have our interest at heart. It said that though emotions are generally aroused in a human context, they also reveal something of how we are dealing with God, indicating how we are handling the problems we encounter in the world and the concept we have of God
The current devotion expressed some of these negative feelings as:
Fear – is God capable of taking care of me?
Anger – why does God allow my goals to be blocked?
Envy – God seems to bless others more than me
Disappointment – is God fair?
Both days also talked about being honest with God, instead of being in denial because you’re scared of admitting your issues with Him and how you truly feel.
When I was done, I didn’t feel better, but I felt aware. I still wanted to scream, so I got up and went to the bathroom, shut the door, closed the toilet lid and sat on it and began to talk to God, pouring out my heart to Him. I was crying so hard I couldn’t speak, but I knew He could hear through the blubber, and eventually I was sitting on the floor (which is very clean, if you were wondering) and screaming silently (didn’t want anyone barging in). I told Him how powerless I felt, confessed my living in denial, my inability to focus on the Word or confess it in faith right now, and asked for mercy and help.
After the whole ordeal, it felt like a ton of weight was lifted off me. I felt my burden lift, and I felt peace. My mood changed. I was reminded again that He’s my Father (amazing that we forget that reality at all), and of His Word that says
“cast your cares upon Him, for He cares for you”
And
“come unto Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest...”
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