In two months, I will be fifty. I'm ready but still a little stunned. How can this be especially as I honestly remember being fifteen just yesterday.
Teenage Challenge.
It was not fun. I woke up one morning and didn't have a bra that fit! Here I was this tiny thing with an ample chest. Let's just say I learned how to sew the sides of my bras because you could not find a cup size with the right fit around my chest. Anyway, life moved on and here I am today. Please note, there is no need for bra sewing anymore. Plus, I love Calabar but blame moving there for my sudden change in anatomical proportions. But let's move on.
Almost 50.
Turning 50 does inspire deep reflection. At least, it did for me. I took some time out to prepare for my Golden Jubilee entrance. Sat with God, made peace with my previous four decades and got to this place where I was good to go. Higher in Christ. Hotter for Christ. Yellow-ER like my Savior, the Sun of Righteousness and of course empowered by God. Then, out of nowhere, as I reflected on my years gone by, this thought dropped in my mind as a question to God.
Read Also:The year of becoming a son.
Questions to God.
"Hey! Hold up! Papa God, if indeed you love me and crafted a good life filled with hope and good things for me and spoke it into my substance EVEN before I was born, then why on earth did all those bad things happen to me? Did you speak the bad things into my substance too? Did YOU ordain for me to suffer? To be abused? My PapaGod, did YOU ordain for me to fall? To fail?
My Papa God responded.
"Of course not. Don't be silly"
Then He took his time to explain how this works. His Word is cast in stone. If He says the plans he had for me are good, they are good. If he says he spoke good into my substance, then good it was. So how did bad come in?
Explanations.
Bad came in when I, as a Child of God, stepped out of His will. You see, the moment we begin to live out of God's plans we open up a door for the enemy's plans to take hold and begin to roll out. The farther away from the will of God we drift, the more progress the enemy's plan makes.
But wait! Smart me interrupted God. "How about Joseph? He didn't do anything wrong. Why did bad things happen to him?"
God responded. "Bad? Where they really bad? See where they led him. The Prime Minister's office".
I got it.
Sometimes, as a child of God, his good plans for us are worked out through 'bad' things. But the final outcomes depend on how aligned we are to Him. Are you a little 'confused’?
Don't be. Just be like me. This is how I see it.
God never plans for us to go through pain. That's the job of sin. The world is full of sin. And because we live in the world and are sometimes outside of God's will, the effect of sin touches us.
However, God is able to make ALL things work out for our good. Even the bad or evil things. Why? Because we love Him and are called by His name and according to His Purpose. Called by His name? Yes. We are born again and members of His family. Our surname is 'IAM'.
So, even the bad things we have been through, that were not part of the things God spoke into our substance before we were born... will work out in our favour. We are able to look back at them and glean God's goodness.
Read Also: Let your love be wise.
My Testimony.
And I can testify that this is my testimony. So today, as we walk into this first week of March, I boldly raise my voice in thanks to God: Papa, I'm grateful for the Good you spoke into my substance and for all the good you have brought forth from the bad that happened because this world is just so sin-filled.
I ask for grace to continue to be in the world but not of it. So that I can continue to experience more of the Good you spoke into my substance before I was born and less of the sin-induced, broken hedge stuff.
Because a fool at fifty will be a crying shame.
Written by Salt.
Salt Essien-Nelson is a blogger/author based in Lagos, Nigeria. You can connect with her via her blog - The Salt Chronicles on Blogger where she is ‘seasoning’ the world around her one salt blog at a time or send her an e-mail via abimbolaen@yahoo.com