Taking a trip down memory lane…I remember those days when I usually woke up been depressed… Even then, in my sleep, I had no peace as I would roll from one edge to another on the cold ground of my cubicle (as I called it back then) in my “face-me-I slap you” room…I know how much I hustled to keep this dingy room.
My name is Oluwadarasimi, but has God been good to me? I seriously doubt that…..For as far back as I can remember, I have always been a Christian. Yeah! Yeah, you probably rolled your eyes. I couldn’t have been born again from the womb, but I honestly can’t pinpoint the exact transformation point as I had always been a good girl and an active Church member….. My good deeds surely outweigh my bad… You see but my life has not been so easy and that’s why I said that I doubt if He has been fair to me!!!
Been born into a family struggling with financial hardship is no joke and being the first child amongst seven children in such a family has its attendant responsibilities. I have been the breadwinner of the family since my teenage years which was partly responsible for my inability to attend a higher institution. Before you ask if I passed my WASSCE and UME, let it be known that I passed remarkably well and even then, some of my friends who didn’t do half as well as I did at the final examination are already graduates from various prestigious higher institutions of learning.
I am cheeky! Oh well, that’s just one of my few bad flaws. I actually gained admission at the university on three different occasions, but I was unable to raise the required funds to pay my fees…Sourcing for funds online wasn’t the in-thing and all the people whom I sought help from either had no means or wanted an exchange for the release of their hard-earned money… Yes! You guessed right….. That three-letter word that is driving the whole world mad, but adds ‘illicit’ to it…
What is really the big deal in trading favors for sexual intimacy? It’s just an act that wouldn’t probably last up to 10 minutes, right? After all, if I could engage in such an act with my boyfriend freely, why couldn’t I do it to benefit myself? I surely would have been a graduate by now if I had given in… I know the next question you will ask me is if I exercised my faith.
Yes, I actually did! I wore my spiritual sneakers and workout clothes and traveled from the Centre of Excellence to the Land of Virtue (My Gym) attending lectures for a period of three months, hoping and praying that things would work out in my favor, but neither the Excellence of Lagos nor the Virtue of Osun worked for me… I left when I couldn’t meet the deadline and was back to worse than square one… Wouldn’t it have been better if I had failed UME rather than having a false hope and expending so much transporting myself from the Centre of Excellence to the Land of Virtue and back?
I returned home into my cubicle in shame, even my neighbors in the same compound who were secretly envious of my admission into the University openly rejoiced when I returned home hopeless and helpless. Some called me “undergraduate” in jest, others “Jambito”. All these in a bid to break me more…
This dingy room of mine where I sometimes find feces in front of my door, where I’m privy to the bed activities of some of my neighbors and the kitchen competition harassing my nostrils and eardrums… In the same dingy room, I renounced God and decided to live life on my own terms, after all, He failed me and broke my heart… Yes! I said it. I left Him, He didn’t love me…and even though people still called me Oluwadarasimi, I had changed my name to “Oluwakodarasimi” in my mind as I scoffed whenever my name was mentioned…
My parents, siblings, friends, and loved ones reached out to me, but I “ko eti ikun” (meaning turned deaf ear). “God has really not done me any good:”, so I said…Until that fateful night… The dingy room actually didn’t help me been so gloomy, drab, and draining of life’s energy. But I was almost too proud to retrace my steps…This day I heard an unknown man calling “Chidinma” while sitting in my cubicle.
For some strange reason, I turned and answered (I’m not an Igbo girl why would someone be calling me Chidinma)? He swept my dingy room with what appeared to be a magical broom (of course, I know it’s not magic) and my room was transformed… I was no longer in that dark space but in a sparkling room…And though, I begged him to take me away permanently from my dingy room… He said to me, “tarry for a little while here and bloom where you are planted”…
“Remember that you are Oluwadarasimi Chidinma! GOD has surely been good to you and let no one deceive you into believing contrary”
It sure feels good to have a sparkling room even in such a dreadful place…
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Waaaw… I must say, it a meal to the soul indeed. At some point we’ve all had our portion of lives ups and downs but the ability to hold on to our faith is what makes the difference.
Ni otito (truthfully) Oluwatidarasimilopolopo (God has been good to me severally).
Well said… holding on to our faith makes a whole lot of difference. Blessings