My Ringed Fingers

“What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?“
Jesus Christ in Mark 8:36-37

This evening, I was distractedly looking at my fingers contemplating the two rings that I wear very rarely these days. Gold. Yes. I have two golden rings. One a broken circle with four stones on my ‘wedding finger’, the other on my ‘God finger’ – same finger on my right hand – a beautiful delicate piece graced with a heart at its center. I once tried to sell them…during dire times, but the lady who I had been told buys gold would not buy them. She said what she could give me for them would not be worth the effort. Besides. she had already gone over her limit for buying used jewelry for the day. I was looking at those rings today, or rather last night, against the very soft light at Southfield Mall and just thinking how beautiful they were – in this light.

My thoughts wandered off, and I remembered some really valuable loops I once owned. Gold. Pure gold. Very high quality. One of the only two pairs of real gold earrings I have ever owned. My favorite – the other pair broke where it cannot be worn again, and a piece of it got lost during the myriad house evictions my household has lived through. I wore them all the time, everywhere, so much that I forget how valuable they were, and how dangerous wearing some of those things in some of ‘these places’ could be. So, one day, I was on the way to a place that I had never been, for the wedding of one of my brothers in Love. I think that was the day I tried to sell my rings. I dont know what happened to me when I left that shop but I was not as alert as I usually am while walking. I notice EVERYTHING without lifting my head or seeming to look around. My friend and current walk partner Ps. Anne likes to joke about me, that I should be FBI or some high-level spy. I laugh nervously when she says that…I actually see more than most people would be comfortable with my noticing. But thankfully, I forget quickly…or to be more accurate, forgive with alacrity. Life is too short to carry EVERYTHING you find with you all the way. But…back to what I was really saying. I got a little distracted after leaving that lady’s shop. I wanted to sell the rings so I could get a present for my in-law, as well as transport to and from the wedding and still feed my household when I got home. So, when I found I could not, I tucked them into my handbag and walked about a really densely populated portion of Kenya, praying for a miracle.

Suddenly, it felt as though a friend was hugging me from behind while tugging playfully at my ears. Then there was a sudden release and in the two or so seconds it took me to turn around, I saw a young boy, about 10 years old at most running away from me. I realized that he had been tugging at my earrings and had managed to get one off and that it was in his hands. I thought about screaming for help from the public…but at the same time I remembered my own very difficult pregnancy journeys, and my own pain in the labor wards. I looked at his fleeing back and wondered if I would ever wear that earring, if I had to pick it up from a pool of his blood after the public had dealt with him. I wondered about his mother…and her own labor pains. So, I stood and watched him run from death, from danger, from consequences, from me – his victim. I absentmindedly took off the other earring and a witness who had been standing near me as though he had NOT noticed the whole thing, stepped up to me and informed me that there were shops near there that bought gold to melt and resell. He suspected that that was where the young lad was headed, and I could try to trace his steps and buy my earring back before it was melted. My feet followed his advice. I forgot that even if I found that earring, I had no money to buy it back. I did not even have money at that time to get back home. At the end of my footsteps, I managed to sell my remaining loop for about 3,000/. Kenya shillings. Almost a hundred times less than it was worth in cash and incomparably less than it meant to me overall.

I am thinking about this today because it just occurred to me how much we take for granted what is truly precious, because it’s always there for us, with us. Until the day we loose a portion of it, and have to negotiate with God in public, over the cost of getting it back versus letting it belong to someone else. Someone to whom it may not mean much beyond a few thrills, and who would discard what was attached to your life for a set of pebbles…in less than a heartbeat. What’s your story so far in this regard. Let’s not loose anymore…what we will still mourn over, decades later. Look at who/what you have in the soft and True Light of Who God is. Perhaps, and I hope, He will birth in you a renewed appreciation of what He has given you, that is RIGHTLY UNLIKE WHAT HE HAS GIVEN ANOTHER.

Shalom. Do have a blessed week.

vipslit@yahoo.ca / vipadhiambo@gmail.com

GIVE THANKS IN ALL SITUATIONS

Subscribe to continue reading

Subscribe to get access to the rest of this post and other subscriber-only content.

Already a subscriber?

COMPLIMENTS OF THIS DAY

I wake up to a day where dawn is broken. The storm has settled and the sun is peeping defiantly from beneath the clouds. I realize I slept because The LORD OVER the storms combined them in Himself, and used them to rock me gently into His kind of rest. The BEST KIND EVER.

I am CONVINCED that this day Heaven will only cause me to receive what is from it’s divine and eternal Hands. And all I need besides to efficiently represent it. I am Heaven’s Ambassador – and The Kingdom provides for me ALL I need for Life and God-likeness. I am a warrior in The Hosts of my Beloved, and this morning I am shod by Him in His full Combat. I wake up, and His Minsters peal off the graveclothes from about me and I step forth as He beckons me into His Everlasting Arms.

There I am a risen one, forgiven, redeemed, beautified, I look like Him – my Father, The Ever Living God. Thorny growths emerge from my head as He holds me, at first they look like grotesque and deadly horn-like tumors, but I look again and they become a crown for which there is no earth-like equivalent. I hear it is made of Heaven’s treasure, won through the victories God Himself has worked in and through my life. It cannot be worn by another for it comes from within me and yet from God about and without myself.

My clothes – the sky and the sun cannot compete – for I am royalty, priest and warrior. By His Grace and His workings ALONE. I fall down before HIS MAJESTY proffering His way as I do, a crown for Him, from within myself, the victories He has wrought through this life I breath. I am home. I have received my instructions for this day. May my life be His Womb bearing fruit that looks, nay, more, that IS OF HIM. For This IS THE DAY THAT THE LORD HAS MADE: I WILL REJOICE AND BE GLAD IN HIM.

#GodISWORTHY #CastingCrowns #HisJoyIsMyStrength
“I am my Beloved’s, And my Beloved is mine…” Song of Solomon 6:3

The Emmanuel Code

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).“Joshua 1:9 ESV 

Just sitting here thinking, if God WILL NEITHER STAND with me nor HELP ME THROUGH whatever I am going through; who else could I possibly run to? EVERYONE ELSE is incomparably worse than He is UNTIL HE RAISES THEM to be His vessels for Good.

So… seems I am left with just two choices: ITS EITHER GOD OR GOD FOR ME…AND YOU TOO.

“I Am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside Me…” Isaiah 45:5

“I WILL strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with My RIGHTEOUS RIGHT HAND.” Isaiah 41;10

“…and lo, I Am with you ALWAYS, even to the end of the age.” Amen.” Jesus Christ in Mathew 28:20

#TheEmmanuelCode#Emmanuel#Still#TheLordIsMyShepherd#GodISmyHelp#GodMySalvation#NeverDestitute#IPledgeAllegianceToTheLamb

Deciding Tears

Was reading Judges 19-21 wishing I wasn’t all the while that I was. For me, its hands down, the most terrible story in the Bible. Remember the one about the Levite and his concubine? Always leaves me…in another not so good place… for days after I read it.

Anyway, I learnt from it how a single decision, a deeply personal decision, can affect a nation – in devastating ways. Without giving all the details, so the story goes, a woman decides her lover is not enough for her, finds another then takes off home to her Daddy. Her lover, a priest decides that he cannot live without her, leaves his duty post and goes off to woe her. The woman softens her stance and decides to take the priest – her lover – to meet her daddy. Her daddy decides he really likes this one…and decides to keep him for a few days – longer than the priest planned to stay, since he has a job to return to. On the fifth day, the priest decides to break free from his darling’s daddy’s manipulation and return home late in the afternoon. Home is not close by, so the priest decides to take refuge among those like himself – it would be too dangerous to find lodging among those unlike himself. After hanging out in the Quad for some time, an old man takes pity on him especially upon learning that the priest is from his original home, and decides to take the priest, his wife, his servant and two donkeys home with him.

Some time in the night, some young men decide the priest is too irresistible a guest not to be intimately partaken of – in a sexual way. They howl at the old man’s door and finally the priest’s resolve breaks…and he…throws out the woman he has gone through extended leave to bring back home. He decides it is better her than him…and the men glut on her…internally break her to pieces. She decides to crawl back to the old man’s house and dies face down with one arm penitently stretched into the threshold of the house. Her lover, the priest, decides to take off from this place as early as he can, but has to step over her to get onto his donkey – he decides to finish the journey with her body. Back home, not at work, he decides to break her remains into twelve parts and send this to the twelve tribes of Israel. Israel decides to come to him, to find out why. The priest tweaks his story a little, he decides to, so that the villains do not include him, but are those lustful sons of Benjamin…. Benjamin decides not to release the criminals…after all they are a super power unto themselves and can take on the nations of Israel single-handedly. They after all posses the war personnel to shame all warriors, and it was possibly against their national policy to surrender their nationals to those who are not Benjamin…even when they had committed crimes against humanity.

Well – God saw one of His little girls die…took into account her last moments and decides to arise – The Avenger, the Man of War…God The Just Judge…nothing escapes Him. Before the week is over, about 90,000 of a nation’s best warriors are in eternity. And they are not just from the offending tribe’s side. A daughter of Israel died. More than this, an entire tribe is wiped out leaving just 600 hiding behind a rock. Israel mourns one of their own…and decide to rebuild that tribe. 600 young women are not asked whether they would choose to participate in this ‘noble’ endeavor…a town is wiped out of all its inhabitants save 400 ‘useful’ virgins. 200 hundred others are basically kidnapped as they dance at a religious festival. Decisions were made by their kinsmen…and they are the ‘clean-up team’. For life. They did well…Israel’s first king came from these chaos and ashes. Because in their day, Israel had no king, and everyone did as they chose to.

May my one decision, a breath at a time, always Lord, be an echo of Your Wisdom, and birth Healing, Life, Resurrection, Order, Peace…produce what is like You. Shalom.

vipslit@yahoo.ca

Harvest Pursuit

What did you do with your elevation – your promotion? Did you use it to build or destroy lives? When we are or seem to be at an advantage, what we choose to embrace to the harm of another has the tendency of ‘imagining’ that we desire it for ourselves: it then begins its pursuit to be established in our lives – pressed down, shaken together and to the overflow. It’s not therefore always the system, witch or satanic agent pursuing you – but your own harvest. I implore us, to be careful how and what we are tempted to sow into the lives of others especially those we have judged adversely (as forsaken, powerless or wanting in some way)…because Life ensures that we reap…unless of cause, genuine repentance is met by God’s Amazing Grace. Shalom.

 

““Because you have had an ancient hatred, and have shed the blood of the children of Israel by the power of the sword at the time of their calamity, when their iniquity came to an end, therefore, as I live,” says the Lord God, “I will prepare you for blood, and blood shall pursue you; since you have not hated blood, therefore blood shall pursue you.

 

“I will do according to your anger and according to the envy which you showed in your hatred against them; and I will make Myself known among them when I judge you. Then you shall know that I Am The LORD. I have heard all your blasphemies which you have spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, ‘They are desolate; they are given to us to consume.’ Thus with your mouth you have boasted against Me and multiplied your words against Me; I have heard them.”

 

‘Thus says The LORD God: “The whole earth will rejoice when I make you desolate. As you rejoiced because the inheritance of the house of Israel was desolate, so I will do to you; you shall be desolate, O Mount Seir, as well as all of Edom—all of it! Then they shall know that I Am The LORD.” “

Ezekiel 35:5-6, 11-15

My One Time at a Time

Many times, you cannot imagine it getting to where you hope it will not: then it does, and God Alone holds you as you take a step at a time. A breath at a time. A word at a time. A tear at a time. A smile at a time. An ache at a time. A lifetime at a time. Sometimes a kick at a time, a setback at a time, an insult at a time, then back to a breath at a time, and His Embraces – one at a time.

Hope has endured. I look at another sunset, and the horrors of the night it heralds, but also the amazing view of what God’s words alone can create and sustain as I look at the moon, the stars, the clouds and sometimes encounter creatures that He made to conquer the nights.

So its gotten here, excruciatingly so, but how else would I have known His enduring Love, Might and Friendship here, if I hadn’t walked this night with Him? So I take another step, another breath, take in another bout of pain, block another onslaught of fear in His Might and allow His Word to take me in and hold me and mine within His Promise, Himself. I rest. I rest. In His Everlasting Arms. I rest.

vipslit@yahoo.ca

They Return

They Return.

They rebel in the dark. Enjoying the companionship, laughing loudly into the night…they think themselves clothed, and luxuriously so…not tattered like those with whom they come into contact and discard as inferior. Those whom God Himself had stripped and caused to fall flat at their onslaught. They capture cities, in the dark. They are well fed, seemingly orderly, considered wealthy by the nations that watch them march past…predictably. They pass by seasonally, and at the sound of their approach the nations flee to hide, for a season. In the dark. They are terrible and fearsome…yet almost frantically, they carry the worship of the conquered and vanquished as cherished and practiced souvenirs. In the dark. Oh, they are mighty, impervious, in the dark. Round and round they march, dying off yet rejoicing at the new births – the greatness of their numbers, in the dark. They are a coveted and covetous army, Laughing loudly, they articulate in their criticism of their God and His chosen leaders, in the dark, they march round and round.

 

Then…The Light dawned on them…and they realized that it had been long since they marched. The ancient chains that had anchored them to a mountain, had reached its limit. That they were hungry, wretched, that their decaying and shredding cloths covered patches of their bodies – just enough to keep them sufficiently deceived that they were luxuriously covered, in the dark. At the full stretch of their chains their left feet were captured tenaciously by concrete pits that produced maggots which crept up their legs, eating through their mobility rendering them dead even as they lived: laughing loudly, raining criticisms on those they could make out in the dark, believing themselves covered, fed,marching as they slowly died.

 

And The Light came and beckoned them, He broke them, crushed some, and then deliberately mended their hearts, their lives. The Light opened their eyes so that they could take Him in. He soaked into Himself the stench of the rot they had become in the dark; took over the dust that had imprisoned them causing them to tug their left feet free of it and take a step forward. Then another. They walked away from the stench of their own graves, God Himself stripping them of their grave-cloths; He embraced them, washed, refreshed, fed…then dressed them in true luxury…cloths that could not wear out, could not be stripped off them, did not attract decay, armors made to fit – that could not be stolen from them.

 

Now an army marches into the Dawn, limping as they re-learn to walk. They laugh deeply, cry deeper still, speak healing gently into wounds – their own and those of others. They speak and their hearers are no longer condemned but strengthened…they march away from their ancient path, forsaking ancient, rusty chains their heads raised and focused towards The Light. As they come…their true majesty is visible, strong, healed, prosperous, loving, kind, invincible…a people come destroying the feigned valiant, an army that heals the land they march through. Home is beckoning. They Return.

vipslit@yahoo.ca

Walking Naked: Blessed to Be Challenged

Today, while washing my face in the morning, I was tempted to rage at God for taking His time in keeping His promises to me. After all, doesn’t God’s Word in Proverbs 13:12 say “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life.”amp. But in that instance, God took over my spirit, and a thought arose above that which had preceded it “Even if it takes 400+, 70 or 22 years, I will keep packing, keep waiting for Your deliverance for YOU WILL COME.”

I realised this: It does not dishonor God to acknowledge one’s challenge, pain [[i]Romans 4:18-22, [ii]Hebrews 11:11-12] – what dishonor’s Him is to raise whatever it is above Him. To say in essence that He brought me to this trouble, and then left me. He is not a mere man to resort to such – After all isn’t He The One Who became and then overcame manhood to retain His Divinity? And isn’t it what I am called to?

So, in the last weeks my family has gone through an intense increase of occurrences on attacks on our health, seeming brazen heavens regarding our finances, deep debt and are currently walking through a season of eviction and are at limbo over exactly where home is. Loneliness bites, as associations stream out faster than you could take your next breath. I have known deep despair to the point of seriously considering taking my own life. Worse for me, is seeing those we love go through similar and sometimes even worse situations, and finding ourselves in conditions where we could be counted as absent to them in their time of need, because we could neither go to them or be of any assistance.

Key for me, has been my parents. This week for instance, things have been so hard for me that most of the monies received has gone directly to the hands of my landlord leaving me with nothing left by way of transport to go to them. The cabbie who normally extends affordable credit to us was arrested earlier on in the week for obstruction, and being unable to raise the fee stipulated by the courts, finds himself in a remand prison out of town. This, aside from the fact that I already owe him too much to even ask him for assistance if he was available. This was the week in which I desired mostly to stand with my parents as Daddy went through his clinics to receive an update on his health status. But I have not been able to.

Yesterday, I was reading through the chapter in the book of Isaiah [[iii]Isaiah 20], where God commanded him to take of his shoes and be naked before Israel as a symbol of God’s intention for His chosen nation. As I read that, I too felt naked, and empathised with Isaiah – THREE YEARS OF NAKEDNESS! Each day he lived through that must have felt like a year in itself. People looking and not looking, while seeing and not seeing, and making often unkind judgements about where you are at. About how you are. About how it should be worse for you…

And yet, God is bigger than all these. A week later, although we are no longer thought of as tenants in this house, we remain in it. Packed, but yet undisturbed aside from the constant visits by the agent demanding what we owe. God has also directed my focus on Him as my true Home. He also led seven prayer warriors and three old friends to give towards reducing the gap on what I owe the landlord. I am humbled, we are grateful for their initiative. We still owe, and we still have no idea where we are going. God has been Good to us, His Grace constant.

In this time, members of my household have received one attack on their health after another. Each time, without fail, there has been someone standing with us, who obviously would rather be elsewhere or spending their resources on what would benefit them and theirs. God placed them by our sides to bless them, to bless us and bring Glory back to Him. It has been for me extremely humbling – so much that there is no sense of relief for having received for the perceived deep wounds by those who have given. Still, we have slept and connected with God in our sleeping and waking hours. This too is God and His Grace. Oh, and in each of these cases we have received courage, God’s promise and healing. My daughter who emits chaos and mayhem at the mere sight of an injection told me last night that she had by herself taken off the stitches she received on her forehead two weeks ago after a fall, because we could not raise the money for her to go back to hospital for their removal.

Shame is a luxury we can no longer afford. A close friend of mine who faces an eviction from her servants quarter house, who had for years received a salary of approximately U$5,000 told me the same. Her seeming downfall has been so public that she stands poised, enraptured, expectant of her breakthrough from God. She too has been an invaluable treasure to me in this season; You see, when the world seems to fall on you, we are tempted to think that God is picking on us and giving everyone else a vacation. It helps our sanity to have someone to converse it who is both compassionate and empathetic, because they are either walking or have walked that path. There are many others, who have passed through this while I was still in it, overcome and turned back to judge me for not getting out as fast as they have – that was our mutual story. I laughed all through our phone conversation this week – of cause interspersing each spasm of humour with a sincere ‘HalleluJah’.

So, today I hurt. I have no idea when God has scheduled my healing and breakthrough for, but I am not alone. The One in Whose Hands I have trusted my life, assures me that in a place above and beyond time – I have made it through. I have not failed Him. By His Grace, I do not have the timings and the details of how this will unfold, but He has already convinced me that I am blessed of Him to be this way challenged.

Shalom.

vipslit@yahoo.ca

[i] Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he acknowledged the decrepitness of his body (since he was about a hundred years old) and the lifelessness of Sarah’s womb.

Yet he did not waver through disbelief in the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God was able to do what He had promised. That is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” Romans 4:18-22

 

[ii] “By faith even Sarah herself received the ability to conceive [a child], even [when she was long] past the normal age for it, because she considered Him who had given her the promise to be reliable and true [to His word]. So from one man, though he was [physically] as good as dead, were born as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand on the seashore.” Hebrews 11:11-12 amp.

[iii] “at that time the Lord spoke through Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, “Go, untie the ^[a]sackcloth from your hips and take your sandals off your feet.” And he did so, walking around ^[b]stripped [to his loincloth] and barefoot. And the Lord said, “Even as My servant Isaiah has walked ^[c]stripped and barefoot for three years as a sign and forewarning concerning Egypt and Cush (Ethiopia),” Isaiah 20:2-3 amp

33 and 77

The numbers 33 and 77 have been appearing enough times in my life, since perhaps April for me to notice them.

77 was particularly special for me when Daddy was at his worst in ICU. I would come in early, and sit in with him while waiting for the rest of the family to come. I would listen to the different sounds, Daddy’s breathing, the different beeps of the machines he was connected to, then inevitably God would cause my eyes to turn to the numbers on the monitor. EVERY time I saw the number 77, I knew God was in control. He would whisper to me “My Heart is Perfect towards you Vip.” I would relax…and journal my thoughts. Its been the same since…no matter how rough things got, God would somehow find a way of sending 77 my way – “My Heart is Perfect towards you, Vip.

This morning, I turn on my laptop. 33 shouts at me. Its been a challenging weekend for my family health-wise, but also, mainly victorious in Christ. First, my grandson Gio woke up from his nap on Saturday evening and drank a quarter of a bottle of Dettol Antiseptic. As we were handling this, I get a call from a number I did not know, “Are you Shukurani’s mother?” Those calls…

Apparently, my baby had fainted at her place of work. I got money from my hairdresser friend in order to take a motorbike (bodaboda) to meet the caller, a lady called Eunice (God bless her). When I got to the Health Center at Nyayo Estate where she was, I was met by a lady called Juliet, who hugged me though I did not immediately recognize her. I penned her down for hospital staff, and thought the worst. But I could hear Shukri’s voice shouting “No, No!” and the doctor and nurses around her trying to calm her down.The receptionist was asking me for the consultation fee and I just looked at her and said, I didn’t have it but wanted to see my daughter. I was met by the sight of her bleeding face, and noted also she had thrown up. Well lets just say several stitches, tests, injections, scans later we were finally home at 11:45pm. Hypertension kicked in on me…Sunday morning we were again first in the clinic. For Shukri not me. She was fine. Doing a lot better. Gio was fine, playing. Then yesterday there was me – Fatigue, Hypertension and two teeth aching. Finally in the evening, Dr. Simon calls me in for an injection to help me go through the night. Thank God for friendships.

So back to 33…I put my laptop on this morning and my yahoo and facebook are both reading 33. I wonder what that means for me today…and I Google this even as I ask God to speak to me. “Vip it is accomplished. It is finished.” I rest…

Eunice means ‘Good Victory’, Juliet means ‘Youthful’ and Simon means ‘hear, listen.

vipslit@yahoo.ca