PURPLE HEART

I don’t remember dying… but I remember lying on the hospital bed… awaiting transition 

I wasn’t that old… maybe a hundred and a few toppings… but I had lived a great life… in the jungles of Somalia… the deserts of Sudan… the roughies of Congo… and the heat of Kenya. The beautiful thing is most of my peers would not even remember that I once existed… not because I had not thought about leaving behind empires and legacies… but because I knew all earthly empires and legacies eventually fade away. 

I had forsaken all my PhDs, my investments, and my wealth at the age of 52… when it occurred to me that I would always want more despite the apparent sufficiency… avarice was and is an inherent strand in the human DNA… the unregenerate… and I wasn’t going to leave on like that. 

So I had taken up my cross and not only sponsored missions but volunteered for every mission I sponsored... the complex newness that came over me was beyond the principles of quantum physics and philosophical dissertations… I was a new man, heaping my treasures in heavens… trading the currency of faith for the souls I reached out to… 

“Hey” I heard that all so familiar voice that you could never get used to “Welcome Home…” he continued and when I spun round my aged knees buckled (despite the new strength that surged through them)… 

I fell in awe, not quite sure if standing in the presence of “Greatness” was appropriate… I looked… but it felt like I could never exhaust the vista of his face… 

“My Lord” I uttered with a voice lost in emotions… 

He smiled “I am not He… I am Michael” he came over to me and helped me up… “Please rise… I am at your service” 

If Michael was this beautiful how entrancing would My Lord be…? Hitherto, everything was all white, but the moment he took my hands, the true nature of my whereabouts was revealed to me… now I grasp what Paul meant when he said “the man beheld things that he’s not allowed to say”… not because his voice failed him or he was banned from saying anything… the words to communicate them just didn’t exist. 

It wasn’t about the streets of gold… gold here is the least of awes… allow me the youthfulness of using the word “Dude”… Earth is a mangled work of art compared to this… just pacing this streets alone was enough to pleasure me for an eternity… my whole body wept in bliss as we were transported through space without moving our limbs… 

Then we arrived the throne room… words do also fail grey hairs… sensations too wild to be imagined by the best of authors wracked my body when I beheld My Lord sitting at the right hand of My Lord… both were wrapped in Light… strong enough to shield Jehovah from my view but subtle enough to let me experience Him…

Oh! What glory treaded my cells… my body burned with so many tender emotions that I fell flat and moaned in awe… “glory… glory… glory…glory”

Then I felt my Lord stand above and when I lifted my head… I saw… I saw… I saw those golden holes in his hands as he held a crown over me…

“In Sudan I saw you” He smiled as he said this and I knew life “In Somalia you fed me… In Kenya, you visited me in prison, in Congo you clothed me… and in Nigeria you gave it all up… I was there son… I was there” 

I opened my mouth to say something… anything… but only tears bubbled out

“Well-done” he continued “here”… and he placed the crown on my head 

I don’t know how long it took for you to realize that earth is just a transitory phase… but I want to encourage you to keep faith… and set your eyes on the glory that awaits… It’s beautiful beyond your comprehension of beautiful 

And if you haven’t come to the knowledge of Christ yet, hop out of that path to eternal doom… don’t miss this awe for anything on earth…

I am… doesn’t really matter… but I am dropping this note from heaven… the awe here is inexplicable...

ORIENTATION OF A KING III

Kunle Smith stared at the map in his hand and considered his son’s face. Eti’s thought patterns were

vividly spelt on his face, just as Kunle had planned. The map was a prototype of the Lagos Island blueprint. Kunle knew the roads too well because he had grown up on these same streets. He could walk around these streets in blindfold and name every turn.

“Which path do you want to take?” Kunle asked his son without taking his eyes off Eti’s face 

“Dad” Eti observed the map as his teenage mind searched desperately for the shortest route to arrive the finish line.

Today was fun Saturday for the Smith’s and Kunle had come up with a fun way to yet again teach Eti an important lesson that would be essential in his walk with God. Earlier on in the week, Kunle had made copies of the map from an old Lagos State Diary. He then traced three lines for probable race routes from Start Line to Finish Line. The Start line was at Marina and the finish line was at TBS. 

The women in the house had gone shopping at Shop Rite.

“Route B” Eti finally spoke, trying hard to conceal his excitement at finding the route with short cuts. 

Kunle smiled, knowing he had his son right where he wanted him. “All right then… remember the emergency dial on the phone if you get stuck, but it should be easy” 

“Sure dad” Eti replied, taking one more look at the route with short cuts 

“Let the race begin”… Kunle strolled off as Eti tore away with youthful excitement. Eti got to the end of the first turning and observed that his dad was just strolling towards his own end of the street. Eti didn’t pause to ask himself why, he had a race to win… If he won, they were going for go-cart racing the next day but if his dad won, He would have to summarize the book of Psalms. 

Eti’s first challenge was the human traffic along Mandilas… unknown to him; human traffic was heavier here because of wholesale distribution done by marketers in the numerous complexes that lined the street. No sooner had he negotiated the street did he encounter more human traffic. 

All the short cuts on the route that he had chosen were crowded by buyers and sellers trying to close sales because sunset was fast approaching. His frustration bore his young heart weary but the thoughts of summarizing the book of Psalms urged him on. At every point Eti stopped to look at the map, he felt like he was losing time so he memorized the route and tucked the map into his pocket. 

Two hours later he arrived under the horses outside TBS and found his dad sipping a can of coke. 

“Dad, how did you get here before me?” Eti asked with short gasps 

“Catch your breath” Kunle smiled at his son and tossed a can of dew at him.

Eti caught it but wouldn’t open it. He kept staring at his dad, trying to catch his breath “Dad, did you cheat?”

“That wasn’t and will never be an option” Kunle replied… still smiling “Son, you chose the route because it had short cuts right?” “Sure” Eti paused “You knew?”

 “I traced the routes didn’t I?” Kunle smirked as he drew his son near “In your haste to arrive first, you picked that route not realizing that there would be other factors like human traffic…” Eti raised his brows in surprise

“Son, short cuts are the most traveled routes in life but they seldom guaranty early arrival…” Kunle continued “If you want to arrive exactly where and when God wants you to arrive in life, you have to follow His way, even if it seems like it’s a long route”

“Are you saying you knew I would lose the race?” Eti puzzled 

“I made you lose the race son” Kunle hugged his son “I wanted you to learn that the race is not to the swift or the strongest… but to whoever follows God’s proposed way… there are no short cuts with God” 

“Not fair dad” Eti sulked 

“Come on” Kunle tickled “summarizing the book of Psalms will be fun… it would be your introductory classes on poetry” 

Image courtesy of Fuse MQ Enterprise

SUBLIME

After the fifth time Stacie promised herself she wouldn't call Jim again, she dialled his

number and her heart skipped a trifle when his image appeared on the screen. She knew she had no business calling him after he had blatantly told her she was worthless…

 What happened to all the sweet words, the attention, the petting, and the "I am crazy about you"? 18 months into the relationship and she had never even kissed him, until that movie night when the watched a romantic flick in a candle lit room. It was all so beautiful, just like in the movies…

 "Hello" Jim answered irritably on the other side "Stacie, what is it?" "Baby" Stacie returned from her reverie "baby, how are you doing?"

 "Listen Stacie" Jim growled "I'm at work, if you have nothing important to do, I do…"

 "Baby what happened to us?" Stacie resumed her sobbing routine, but the line went dead. She tossed the soiled tissue on the pile that was fast rising to the height of the couch. She wasn't naïve, matter of fact this was her third relationship and every one of them had ended after she gave up the "cookie". 

She had thought what she had with Jim was different because he never made any demands, never threatened and didn't even act like he was interested in "Cookies" before marriage. Truth be told, of all the men that she had dated, Jim was the sweetest… well, turns out the sweetest sometimes have fangs.

 After their first time, Jim started acting cold and she felt she had done something wrong. So, she tried to get his warmth and sweetness back by giving up more cookies, but nothing changed. It was raining ice by the fourth time… Jim stopped calling, stopped texting and didn't even bother replying her messages… 

 What had she done wrong? She was a good Christian girl, beautiful (sexy even), had great character, worked hard and earned good… maybe she got too emotional… but was that it? Isn't a woman allowed to be emotional? She pondered on these until exhaustion drove her into the warmth of sleep. 

 Later that day, she came across a psychology journal, it featured results of a research on subliminal messages that are inculcated in advertisements, to get consumers hooked on products. 

Then it hit her, even though Jim had never mentioned sex or implied it, the movies they saw at the cinemas, the songs he made her listen to, the novels he bought her, and the sort of underwear he bought her all suggested sex implicitly.

 "Wow…" Was all she could say… Jim worked as an advertising executive in one of the top ad agencies in Lagos. The whole time, he was all about the cookies even though his words were all about their future… 

Then the popular proverbs 4:23 verse hit her "guard you heart with all vigilance and above all you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life" "How many things do we know, yet don't put to practice?" She asked out loud… 

While Jim featured a "Christian" façade, he was subliminally suggesting "Cookie take-outs"… She should have known better than receive media content and gifts that were not edifying from Jim… she should have paid greater attention to Paul's warning in Romans 12:2 that we ought not to conform to the standards but rather to renew our thoughts with God's word. 

 She exhaled in realization of the fact that she had been duped… through subliminal suggestions and she got down on her knees… It was time to hit the refresh button… She had messed up, but she wasn't going to stay messed up… 

She knew Christ would be waiting with open arms… and she resolved there and then that she was going to filter everything that she read, listened to, and watched…