BLOGGING CHRISTMAS - I MET A LITTLE BOY TODAY

7:20PM
Notice :Please read to the end. It's important you do.

LIFE TYPOS

'Nothing is wrong with me' i console myself for the 6th time in 5 seconds. I just had to start this write up again, I mistakenly hit the delete button on the former and I almost beat myself for that. But not again. . . Mirror mirror on the wall, I'm not the foolish boy I use to be anymore.
I once beat myself for hitting the delete button. I wrote something so nice. So nice I was sure Oprah would beam when she read it. I was already practicing how I would act shocked incase she called me on her syndicated show and proposed 'would you like, like to write a book with me?'. Don't worry, I didn't plan to pass out. My reply as I planned was to say in the hunk guy kind of voice ' i did love to' and grin up to my ears. My daydream became a nightmare when I mistakenly hit the close button on Microsoft word without saving. I mourned my write-up for a week. The truth is I almost killed my self for it and I drained the energy I could have used to write something better to worry and blame myself for what I could never have back. The situation was horrifying in it's own sense. Soul torture class A. A week later I decided to move on, the same step I could have taken a second after every thing happened. Some of you might just think that scenario to be quite silly and dumb. 'why should I beat myself up just on a piece of writing, who cares' I can hear you say. But how many times have most of us pressed a long pause button on life because of a situation that came to rock our boat. We didn't see it coming. It all seemed random. Random disaster. It hurt us so bad and we cry at our ceiling 'WHY?'. Friends these are what I call 'life typos'. We don't see them coming but they come our way still.
A conversation I had with a friend whom I have been working together with on a project comes to mind. 'Life' I remember saying 'would always ask us questions. Our attitude to life situations is a measure of the answers we give'. A Bad answer answers for a long time I tell you. A few tips on answering life correctly are answering the following question first
- Who are you?
- What are you really living for?
- What really do you want? ( out of life of course)
Come to think of it I wouldn't have written this section if I hadn't mistakenly hit the delete button. Something good from the bad. Hmmmm. . . Without the right attitude we might just be too blind to see the good in the bad in life. It's Christmas, why am I even talking about this? Oh, it's all because I had a typo. Before I mistakenly hit the delete button again, we better move on

WE ARE HERE!
As we sat over a couple of well prepared native delicacies and well seasoned/spiced meat, I really can't remember the exact time the conversation about airbags, hospital wards and broken bones creeped in. It was a party and at Christmas after all. Why should we be having a conversation of things so morbid yet drawing our hearts in and renovating the connection that has grown thin over the year. They are my distant cousins and some relatives. The year has brought so much across everyone's way. A time to relax and reflect. I like! Someone was narrating with so much delight how he had narrowly missed a car crash. He was meant to go on a group trip. He stepped out. The accident was really bad. That was when the stories exploded. Stories of friends finding healing through the year. How some never came back from the hospital ward. Stories of young people losing their life to recklessness. One of the stories just gripped at my heart as my heart raced with fireworks of gratitude. It was one of a girl still on the hospital bed. Yet to recover. Severe brain damage. It stole her speech. And I'm like guys WE ARE HERE. It's not by our own doing. A relative seconds it by saying out loud ' it about the grace of God'. Oh yes it is. No greater gift for this day to have my family members whole and hearty laughing and talking their hearts out at christmas.
A lot has happened through the year and this guys are right here with me. I'm thankful.

PONDERING GRACE
Now the day is over and I'm still pondering grace. Two things happened today that shook a bit of human wisdom out of me.
It's the way of the world to always have something to offer. If you don't have something to offer in our world today, you are seen (by the world) as a 'nobody'. We must always bring something to the table to get the things we want.
I was with a group of people today who have these beautiful culture to bring gifts at christmas, drop it and like exchange it amongst themselves (by picking numbers randomly). A number of people came with something, maybe less expecting something more, or maybe more and not expecting something at all. A little boy who came to the group for the first time ( I think) didn't bring a gift. He didn't bring anything to the table. When the gifts were later distributed back randomly, the little boy got the best gift in the room. I was shocked. I really don't know why I was shocked. Maybe cause of what happened or when I heard someone mutter beside me ' but he didn't deserve it!'

CHRISTMAS MEANS GRACE
I'm Learning everyday to be like the little boy. Sometimes the things we bring to the table deludes us of how powerful our God is. We come with OUR skills, talents, charisma and even spiritual gifts. We forget the Giver- the One who gave them to us and call them OUR. Grace as I like to define it is a divine empowerment given by God himself to live life as God intended. It is what gives us the privilege to go away with the biggest gift when we have come with nothing to the table. But we defy grace when we think our abilities and strengths are what gives us a right to earn our blessing. That's not grace, that's craze and it's crazy indeed, we shouldn't be trying it. Let's come to the table this Christmas remembering our Jesus, a man of earthly nature but of heavenly culture who left all for all of us. We don't have to come to the table with any gift. Just come with your heart and put your trust in Him ( put the whole weight of your life on Him). It's then we experience grace for life's race. If you are rethinking trusting and surrendering your life to Jesus today, one thing is sure like the little boy I met today, you wouldn't be disappointed. He will never leave you empty handed. And though 'Life typos' will come your way, you would never regret you did.
I would like to end with something a man said to me today 'the best things in life come free'. How true. Try Jesus. It don't cost a thing.
Till next time it's your boy Ayo Stephens.

P.S- I know I said two stories and I only shared one and you are expecting the other. I promise to share it soon too. I sure didn't forget. LOL
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY HOLIDAYS :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad