Oh how He loves us!

It was the end of another hectic week and Vincent was glad to be heading home for the weekend. He had just arrived at the departure lounge for his flight, when he heard someone singing at the top of their lungs, “I’m going to see daddy. I’m going to see daddy”. He turned towards the sound and noticed a little girl, six or seven years old, with pig-tails in her hair, singing and smiling. How cute, he thought. Half an hour later when his flight started boarding, she was still singing and he was starting to get irritated. Just when he settled into his seat and buckled up, who did he spy sitting next to him? Little miss pig-tails, still singing the same song. Thank God it was only a domestic flight.

Each time the stewardess passed by, miss pig-tails grabbed a coke and some cookies; and in-between the snacking, the singing continued. Just as they prepared for landing, there was some turbulence in the air. This must have triggered some internal turbulence in miss pig-tails because before he knew what was happening, there was puke everywhere. He had never smelled anything so foul. How could something so gross come out from someone so cute?

Once the plane landed, he rushed out of the cabin as quickly as he could, almost bumping into a smartly dressed man who was waiting in the terminal. The way the man was peering excitedly, he suspected that this might be “daddy”. He decided to wait and watch the reunion between miss pig-tails and her dad. Not too long afterwards, she emerged from the plane, still covered in puke. As she ran towards her dad, he scooped her up in a massive hug, planting a kiss on her puke-covered cheek.

Vincent choked back a tear as he walked away. He had never seen anything so beautiful.

Just like the dad in the story, God doesn’t expect us to clean up our acts before we approach Him; we couldn’t, even if we tried. In fact, Isaiah 64: 6 reminds us that at best, our self-improvement efforts are filthy and worthless to Him. However, if we come to Him in faith and put our trust in Him, He will clean us up and make us whole again. Romans 5: 8 tells us that God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And again, we see in Ephesians 2: 4-5 that because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace we have been saved. Thank God for His grace!

My best foot forward

After much internal deliberation and a very long conversation with my dear friend/ matchmaker, I finally took the plunge and waded into the deep waters of online dating. I chose a discreet username, registered with a singles-only Christians site, diligently answered the profile questions, and uploaded a photo. I must confess that I had some reservations about putting up a photo, but finally decided to go for it because that’s a practical way of getting more people to view my profile, plus it bought me an extra 3 days of free membership! And so began my first attempt at putting-myself-out-there since the break-up.

Next, I created two saved searches – one for my ideal guy in the UK and the other for my ideal guy anywhere in the world. My ideal guy would be a Pentecostal Christian whose faith defines him, be involved in church activities,  be between 31 and 38 years old and of African descent, have never been married, have no kids and no pets, be marriage-minded, be at least 5ft 6 ins tall, not smoke, and not drink heavily.

Before the end of day one, to my surprise and well, delight, some people had initiated contact. There was mr wink-buddy, mr i-want-to-find-my-baby-but-can’t-be-bothered-with-a-decent-profile, mr nna-men, mr location-location-location, and mr chatty-and-interesting-but-older-and-pictureless. I also typed a quick email to give mr i-like-your-profile-but-you’re-never-online an award for the most descriptive profile I had seen!

To be continued …

Nice to see you ... to see you nice!

After many many months of absence coupled with lots of teasing and prodding from Gee, I finally return to blogville. Who knew it would take this long eh? I didn’t even have a witty retort when Gee accused me of being a one-hit-wonder. Well, all that is in the past now… It’s good to be back, and it’s even better to prove her wrong lol. So much has happened since I’ve been away, as you might imagine.

Like a true subject of Mama Charlie, first a shout out to the weather lol…I survived another winter in the Burgh and the longest ever spring, thanks to an uncooperative previously-unheard of jet stream. They say we’ll get some good summer weather from next week, but at this point I’ll believe it when I see it.

My elder sister got engaged (yayyyyyy!), so we’re all gearing up for the wedding this autumn. This will be my second time as a bridesmaid. The first was at my aunt’s wedding in 1987, but of course we were called flower girls then… Anyways I’m so excited for the couple and I’m really looking forward to the wedding.

The friendship project is going well. The university badminton thingy didn’t take off cos there were way too many people involved and standing around in an overcrowded sports hall wasn’t much fun. I stayed on at my homegroup and I’m building great friendships there instead - slowly but surely. Everyday I’m reminded that friendship, like many other good things in life, is all about intentionality!

Blessings,

Uzy xxx

To new friends!

Kedu onye ga-abu enyi m o? (x4)

If you grew up in Nigeria (like me), you might have sang this simple song many times on the playground, and if you’re Ibo, you would certainly know what it means. We used it to play the find-a-friend game on the playground, in which the child in the centre of the circle chanted the song as she danced around the circle. When the song ended, she would grab the person closest to her, and voilà – a new friend!

I turn *drum roll* 31 sometime tomorrow! As one of my friends aptly put it, this is the last year that my age would be on a calendar. Yay for me and Yayyy (to infinity) for God who has kept me and brought me this far.

My sister was asking what my plans for the big day were, and honestly I don’t have any. Aside from the fact that it’s on a working day in the middle of winter, it has slowly dawned on me that even if my birthday was on a weekend, this year I don’t have any close friends to celebrate with in the Burgh. It wasn’t always like this, and honestly I didn’t do anything to chase them away. They just gradually moved away to pastures new – six to southern England in the space of 18 months and one to Nigeria two months ago, and I haven’t been intentional in recruiting (lol) new friends or drawing old acquaintances in. I still keep in touch with the abandoners, mind you, but it’s so not the same.

So like I said to my sister, I need to make new friends. When? ASAP! Who? Preferably young single adults of like minds that I can hang out with. How? À la Proverbs 18: 24 - A man (or woman) that has friends must show himself (or herself) friendly.

So maybe I should spend a little more time welcoming new people and catching up with old timers after church next Sunday (like I used to), instead of racing away in a bid to dodge my ex. Or I should step out of my comfort zone next week and visit the homegroup that is actually closer to where I live. Or I could join the badminton club at the university like I’ve been meaning to. Because until I do, I won’t be able to sing the second verse of the song “A fugo mu enyi m o”!

Blessings,
Uzy xxx

PS: So I'll like to know, who is your closest friend at the moment, and how did you two meet?