By The Fire Place

Story telling is a beautiful art which when effectively executed leaves the reader or listener stimulated emotionally, mentally and spiritually. My extremely short but growing writing hobby has allowed me to learn that a diverse audience forces the story teller to grow and become better with time. It requires talent, skills and vast knowledge to incorporate the various preferences of a broad audience. I look forward to realize this as I continue to journal the chronicles.

The season was peace and tranquility, everything in my life seemed to be going just the way I wanted. School at the time was fine, the lectures began to make sense, and friendships with fellow students started growing. My social life changed from being an argument ignition in the house to a healthy young adult phase of life. It was pure bliss on the outside and I even convinced myself that everything was perfect yet there was a deep longing in my heart.


Days turned into weeks, the bliss continued to fill the air like blossoming flowers during spring. As I spent time with friends and acquaintances sharing our struggles and victories I could not help feeling I'm truly in a good place right now. The deep longing in my heart did not agree with my feeling and it kept tagging on my subconscious. The more I ignored it the louder it seemed to become.



I decided to indulge in the areas of my life that were working by investing a lot of time and money. The aim of this was to fully exhaust myself so as to avoid thinking about my nagging subconscious. The days I did not have much to do I replaced them with endless hours of movie after movie. In my reality I was enjoying myself, relaxing and keeping up with the block busters but looking back on it today I was doing everything I could to escape.



My subconscious refused to be sheared without a fight and soon started attracting reinforcement. This came in the form of a Jehovah witness friend, she began to teach and invite me to their meetings. I attended about two different forums and quickly felt this is not for me. However she managed to impart knowledge that would later lead me to a road of discovery and great adventure.



Many countries in Africa are considered as low-to-middle income countries because of all the poverty, disease, insecurity and poor systems yet it contains majority of the world's religious population. With this in mind, I ask "where is the disconnect?" As I toured different parts of the world I met people who had the same question, and some of their opinions were "Africans need to believe in something bigger than themselves because of all the problems we face as a continent." I strongly disagreed with this although I was not always so passionate about this topic.



As I travelled down the road of discovery I noticed a guy who intrigued me with all the mystery he portrayed. His lifestyle seemed to go against the current, while everybody walked or took a bus to school he would rollerblade, when the other guys had conservative haircuts, his was accompanied with a bright coloured braid at the nape of his neck. His clothes were well coordinated with matching hats to compliment the tshirt and once class was over he would quickly disappear with no time for small talk. I became curious about him and was soon introduced by a mutual friend.



We then formed the dynamic trio always together for class, lunch and study group. As I got to know this guy my image of him began to change we could not seem to agree, our backgrounds were completely opposite like night and day; this put a strain in our trio although it didn't not last too long. Our mutual friend changed courses and I was stuck with this guy. After months of working together the walls I surrounded myself with began to break and were replaced with genuine friendship and concern.



One Monday morning he came and said, "I want to grow my hair!!". I was shocked and quickly began to educate him on how such a venture would lead him straight to hell because I had heard God was against it. I condemned the poor soul passionately and all he did was listen patiently. Once I finished he comments,"where is that scripture in the bible?". I was completely thrown off because I did not know which scripture it was, all I knew was it must be there because I had heard from someone else. My pride could not let me lose this battle I quickly said, "I will find out and let you know".



My adventure began of searching for this scripture and since I had no clue where to start I called the only person I knew with vast knowledge of scripture, my Jehovah witness friend and she did not disappoint. Armed with proof I returned to this guy and told him of my findings, he listened and dampened all my efforts with a response of "okay!!". I did not let that put me down I had won so I thought. Approximately two weeks later he re-introduces this topic and says,"I studied the scripture, found others and ....." The dotted line is because I didn't hear beyond that I was lost at "I studied the scripture". Remember my description of him, in my mind I would never have associated him with a bible let alone him studying it.



After the shock wore off he offered to introduce me to a friend of his, a lady who could teach me
about the bible. I agreed because I knew I also had knowledge and we could go argue our points. Two meetings later with this lady there was no arguing in fact I felt she was cutting bits and pieces of my life yet all we did was read scripture. I opted to stop these meetings my life was in the peace and tranquility season and this lady's classes were cramping my style so I thought. Many months passed I maintained the friendships and began asking this guy biblical related questions. One day I felt I just wanted to know the end of the story, so I called the lady and said, "I want to know the end of the story".



She taught me and every meeting the calling of the bible was higher than the last meeting, it was fascinating, scary yet very fulfilling. I finished, made a decision and the longing in my heart was satisfied. The guy continued to be my friend, we challenge each other in more areas including scripture and today that guy is MY HUBBY.

For those who are in Africa or countries with a lot of religious people, let us address the disconnect. It is not enough to be known as a religious person or nation, transformation must accompany your faith irrespective of the denomination, culture or tribe. There are many whose hearts could be longing like mine, share your stories and live up to what you profess. Actions have always spoken louder than words. THE END