the musings of this nigerian gal

Just to give you a heads-up, this post is as much for me as you.

For the past one week, I have been feeling really, really raw.

I feel jagged inside. Like the roughened and crass tips of a blunt tool. Or a desert mountain (honestly, I have no idea how a desert mountain looks like, but the description fits).

The only emotions I feel tend a lot towards the extreme…and not the positive extreme.

I didn’t know what was going on with me, except I felt spent.

From everything.

From trying to be a good girl.

From trying to always do what is right.

From having to act selfless and forgiving when all I want to do is scream and scream till my voice is gone.

From having to study my Bible, yet finding no joy in doing so.

I have no idea—okay, I do have a very slight idea—of what is going on. But I can tell you this it is not pretty.

It all started when the Holy Spirit said seven words to me while I was struggling to study the Bible. He said “Chinaza, you need to take a break.”

I almost broke down in tears because I honestly knew—felt it down to my wearied bones—that I did.

To cap it all, I have been reading a book, where in so glaring terms, I am being made to realise that without sweet precious Holy Spirit I can’t do nothing.

Christianity is not a set of rules to follow.

A truth that the Holy Spirit needed to remind me of.

Talk about being hit from the sidelines!!

A mantra kept ringing in my mind ever since the Holy Spirit whispered those seven words to me.

The mantra is this: I am tired of being strong. I want to be weak. I want to be human. I want to be held in the closest and truest hug. I want to be taken out. I want to be seen. I want to be loved. I want to be free. I want to be me—simply chinaza.

Those are whole lot of sentences for a mantra. But believe it or not, these words have been repeating themselves. Over and over again.

The Holy Spirit has been, among other things, calling me, prodding me, wooing me into the wonder of “first love”.

A wonder I have lost sight off in the midst of plenty activities.

You see, God loves me; He wants me above all I could ever do for Him. And it is by giving myself to be consumed by and be deliriously in love with Him as He is with me that I can do His work in a way that pleases Him.

It is by delighting in Him that I can delight His heart.

Somewhere along the way, I lost sight of this.

Looks like I should have been named Martha.

And so I am faced with a conundrum.

How do I remain in wonder, wide-eyed, simplified, pure, childlike while carrying about my responsibilities without slipping into religion?

As I chewed and chewed on just how I would go about this, I somehow shutdown—in my mind.

And in the murkiness of this silence, I hear His gentle whisper “write”.

He called me to share my thoughts—inner battles—with you and so I have.

Have I gotten the answer I seek?

Somewhere in the middle of my writing, He gave it to me.

He is the answer. And the beauty of it all is that He is holding my hands with no intention of ever letting go.