Birthday 2023: Gratitude
In my house, we have a piggy bank but its content is not hard currency. It is filled with notes of amazing stuff that has happened to our life in the year. In the last month of the year, we open it up and thank God for everything written in each note. It helps us keep track of how benevolent God has been to us in the year and to give him gratitude for the same.
The most important thing to me is my faith, the one I invested in my master and saviour Jesus Christ. It dictates the choices I make as a person. Being a sojourner (at least for now) in Europe, I have learned more to appreciate and deepen my relationship with the Almighty God. Two things stood out for me (and with me) in the last 365 days — my faith and the diaspora community God has placed me in.
You know sometimes, I ask myself how ‘godless’ people cope with life’s challenges. People who don't bend their knees to any kind of deity, how do they sail through this life’s storm? Where do they get the inner strength to keep moving from? Cause surely, human strength alone cannot pull through this life. Hence, among many things, I deeply consider God as a source of strength for myself as I navigate through life. Everything reminds me of the title of the book by Robert Harold Schuller, “Life’s not fair but God is good.”
From taking up a PR job at Oxford Circus to working across various arms at the University of East London; from graduating with distinction to ‘eating job application rejections for breakfast, lunch and dinner’; from scammers ‘wiping’ every pound in my account few weeks to an important event in my life (I eventually got my money back sha) to passing an interview at the BBC, met with prospective colleagues and manager but never to resume at the job; from strangers ‘carrying my matter on their head like gala’ to acquaintances rejecting to give a helping hand; from the miraculous carrying of our baby to the safe arrival of my son, Oba, in the most usual way; the list never ends but God was in everything!
I would have been confused and helpless without direction in a new country without the counsel I receive from my community, especially my church. Finding Upper Room Foursquare Chapel and the other sweet people was divine for me. We cannot do life alone. For Africans abroad, let me repeat here again, we can never win as a race until we come together to build a community everyone can lean on (not use and dump). This matter is a long conversation. We may continue to have the numbers in the diaspora but we will never have the strength other minority groups have and our success will only be in trickle until we throw away our “I better pass my neighbour” mentality. We are losers, no matter how we see it, if we don't win as a race abroad. I am grateful for the community I have and all the help God has sent through them.
This year, I want to make new friends, access communities in the diaspora, and strengthen my faith in Jesus Christ. If the chance to go back to class comes, I’ll surely take it.
PS: I have an NGO I support in Nigeria. You can see more of what they do on IG here: https://instagram.com/theiredefoundation?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= and you can be a part of it here: https://bit.ly/MY-BIRTHDAY-FUNDRAISER.
