Deroda's Diary

          Jimi was walking me to my hostel. I enjoy his company. He is good at keeping a lively conversation, sometimes I think he sees right through me. We talk about anything. He has been trying to get me to talk about what was making me withdrawn. Some days, I feel bad for thinking such thoughts and want to stop, only to fall back into it. Jimi was talking but I could not hear him. The mild sorrow I felt, the full moon shining above us and the street lamp that cast a gold glow on the wet and empty street, making the atmosphere serene seemed to have set me thinking. For the first time, I noticed him. How come I never thought about him in that way?                "This night breeze is doing so many things to my head", I muttered. I shook my head to regain composure. Jimi was saying something about idols when I came to.        "Huh"        "Idols", he said again.      ...

Let me see your countenance, Let me hear your voice, Sweet is your voice, Your countenance is comely. -a secret lover                         In my world, I was Ivy the girl he was desperately in love with. We'd hold hands and enjoy each other's company. Some weeks into our relationship, we hugged and kissed. One day, we went  giggity-giggity . Dating Stranger was fun. He was super rich. We travelled a lot. Places I have never been. We tried new foods, played a lot (pillow fight, water fight; all that stuff). We had couple goals, fights, moments. It was my fantasy, everything was possible. Nobody gets hurt. Or so I thought. You use your imagination to get what you don't have. Once I really wanted to go to Italy. I simply looked up pictures of it and voilà my own Italy experience right on my bed. It was almost like the real thing.                   "Abigail, have you ev...

         You are all fair, My crush, There is no flaw in you. -a secret lover             Those stories where the ugly lady gets the handsome guy, yeah those ones, I got tired of reading and watching them too. My story is different. I would not say ugly, I am not. He was a stranger with a pair of glasses that looked really cute on him. We will call him Stranger. Come now, my love was not blind. First, he was short, alright medium, something like that. My dream guy should be tall, but this was the one my eyes picked. Second, he had a funny walk and stammered when he spoke. It was cute to me anyways. The irony. Third, he was not popular (I am not into popularity, but you should be influential and intelligent (he was, but not on the geeky level I find attractive).           I never had a crush until then. It started on a sad Friday. My day had gone really bad. I was scrolling through Instagram for f...

         It was my younger brother, he held my leg in one tiny hand and the other held a chocolate substance to his mouth. I smiled at him and lifted him up in the air. I looked at the spot he held my trouser, it was smeared with the chocolate substance. "Even forgiveness is freely given", I smiled at him. He grinned as though he understood what I said. My mother can't be far, I looked ahead to see her discussing with someone, occasionally looking in our direction. Thank God for the wisdom she displayed, I sighed.           The ride home was better than the ride to church. I was comfortable in my skin again. Alone in my room, I ruminated on the things Pastor Emmanuel said. He talked about how the world is waiting for the sons. God is also waiting for His sons to become mature. Such that we leave the level of struggling with sin that easily beset us to the level of getting the news of His grace and power, the kingdom to come know...

        "Through your faith in the Son you are made righteous", he said. "It was not by any work of ours but by the gift of the Son we have received abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness. You have access to God. The same way by Adam's sin we became slave to sin, so through the obedience of the Son we have been made righteous by default when we believe. Our consciousness of sin made it increase but under grace, we are conscious of our righteousness through the Son which causes an increase of grace...". His voice trailed off as I zoned out for a moment. This is Romans he is discussing , how come I never read Romans?         "Ayo, are you with me?" Brought me back to the present. "I was saying you are dead to sin. The old you that struggles with anger, masturbation, unclean thoughts is crucified with Christ. You are no longer under the dominion of sin because you are under grace, you can choose. You are not sold to sin such that you can...

            Luckily, I was not assigned any class in church that Sunday. All through the service all I could think of was pastor Emmanuel. I played out the scenario over and over, his questions and my response. I looked out for him during service, for someone who knows my dirty secret he did not as much as take a glance at me. "The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God...", and service was over. I can hardly remember the topic of the sermon, not to talk of the details. Getting to church was a huge struggle. I was beginning to consider whether suicide was not better than this walk of shame. "here goes nothing" I said, some minutes later when I found myself in front of pastor Emma's office. I knocked. No response. A second time. Still no response. I was about to leave when he showed up behind me. "Ayo! How are you doing?" You would be deceived we have known each other for long. "Fine sir, good afternoon sir" I rushed my words. "O...

          It happened so fast I could not retrace my steps. One night became two, three and I lost count. At first, I felt sorry when I did it. I felt dirty and guilty. I lost every sense of self worth. Some days I resisted the urge and some days I submitted without a fight. Other days, I did not need the urge, it was sufficient that my day had gone badly. I carried on life as usual, no one could tell something was wrong. I got so used to my double life, my conscience did not bother me anymore. My friends did not help matters, they discussed it like it was a normal thing.          I felt terrible as I lay on the bed. How do I get back on track? Can God still forgive my willful disobedience? I have been down this pit for so long . I felt defeated. The knock on the door startled me out of my sleep. I realized I had fallen asleep in the midst of my self pity. I slipped into sleep again. "Ayo!" It must be a dream , "Ayo!!" This time my sleep...

       I have had 'worse day of my life' experiences but this was different. I paced my room with slow but steady steps, each step heightening my fears. What would my mother say? How would my father react to it? What would my siblings think of me? Moments ago my mother had walked in on me in the middle of self help.          Self help is the code name my generation has given to masturbation. It makes it sound presentable and normal. "Sorry" she had said and turned on her heels out my door in a hurry.  She had simply apologized for barging. I could not recollect the expression on her face as I sank into deep shame. I have being in this forced meditative mood since then. It was time for dinner but I could not face my family. I wondered if I would survive the night with this guilt. Self help is no big deal to some people but when your father is a pastor and you are a Sunday school teacher, it is simply unheard of.       ...

       Hooray! I am so glad to finally get this off to a start. Took me over two months to scale over the hurdle of self doubt but I did, learnt a lot of lessons and here I am! Why I started the blog? I love telling stories but it has always been for my personal amusement and a few close friends. I recently got my eyes opened to what the Faith should be like and I wished everyone knew.        So many things we are never taught and it affects the foundation of our belief. And then knowing God becomes a burden, when it should be the best thing that ever happened to you. Been there. I thought what could be done? And Ruach HK goes 'you love writing, yea? You should totally tell people in story form, it even sticks better'. And Chesed said we could tell them about the love of God, how they are righteous, what has been done for them and who they really are. So you can expect to see nothing but the truth, mercy and person of God on these pages.  ...