Slow Fade

The journey from your mind to your hands

Is shorter than you're thinking

Be careful if you think you stand

You just might be sinking

It's a slow fade when you give yourself away

It's a slow fade when black and white turn to gray

Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid

When you give yourself away

People never crumble in a day

It's a slow fade!

*Casting Crowns - Slow fade

I've been fighting with some demons for a long, long time. Sometimes, i think i'm winning but deep within i know that if opportunity presents itself, i'll fall flat on my face. It takes not just courage and support to break bad habits, it takes the grace of God. The spirit is always willing to do what is right but the body is almost always weak. It may take a while but bad habits/addictions are breakable, 2Timothy 1:7 says "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind". We've been blessed with the power and sense to breakaway from sin/addictions and though old habits have been said to die hard, they die eventually if we keep starving them.

I'm not 'clean' yet but i'm close and that's mainly because i have found Grace and also because it is not a substance abuse (and it's not pornography o, lol). People with substance abuse on the other hand need not only our prayers but also our tough, undying love. Addictions are little demons that crawl up your brain and cloud your every judgement. People with addictions know they need help and most times, they know where to get it but the yearning for a quick fix is always stronger than the need for a cure, that's why most of them never break free. And that is also why interventions are the best gifts you can -try to- give the people you love who are struggling with addictions.

Pasted below is a beautiful tribute written for Amy Winehouse by Russell Brand. Yes, Russell Brand! That seemingly crazy man with the wacky sense of humour is also a very smart man and good writer. Please read, (be wowed) and try to reach out to anyone you know struggling with a(n) addiction(s). God bless you

******

For Amy

When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they’ve had enough, that they’re ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it’s too late, she’s gone.

Frustratingly it’s not a call you can ever make it must be received. It is impossible to intervene.

I’ve known Amy Winehouse for years. When I first met her around Camden she was just some twit in a pink satin jacket shuffling round bars with mutual friends, most of whom were in cool Indie bands or peripheral Camden figures Withnail-ing their way through life on impotent charisma. Carl Barrat told me that “Winehouse” (which I usually called her and got a kick out of cos it’s kind of funny to call a girl by her surname) was a jazz singer, which struck me as a bizarrely anomalous in that crowd. To me with my limited musical knowledge this information placed Amy beyond an invisible boundary of relevance; “Jazz singer? She must be some kind of eccentric” I thought. I chatted to her anyway though, she was after all, a girl, and she was sweet and peculiar but most of all vulnerable.

I was myself at that time barely out of rehab and was thirstily seeking less complicated women so I barely reflected on the now glaringly obvious fact that Winehouse and I shared an affliction, the disease of addiction. All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they’re not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his “speedboat” there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they’re looking through you to somewhere else they’d rather be. And of course they are. The priority of any addict is to anaesthetise the pain of living to ease the passage of the day with some purchased relief.

From time to time I’d bump into Amy she had good banter so we could chat a bit and have a laugh, she was “a character” but that world was riddled with half cut, doped up chancers, I was one of them, even in early recovery I was kept afloat only by clinging to the bodies of strangers so Winehouse, but for her gentle quirks didn’t especially register.

Then she became massively famous and I was pleased to see her acknowledged but mostly baffled because I’d not experienced her work and this not being the 1950’s I wondered how a “jazz singer” had achieved such cultural prominence. I wasn’t curious enough to do anything so extreme as listen to her music or go to one of her gigs, I was becoming famous myself at the time and that was an all consuming experience. It was only by chance that I attended a Paul Weller gig at the Roundhouse that I ever saw her live.

I arrived late and as I made my way to the audience through the plastic smiles and plastic cups I heard the rolling, wondrous resonance of a female vocal. Entering the space I saw Amy on stage with Weller and his band; and then the awe. The awe that envelops when witnessing a genius. From her oddly dainty presence that voice, a voice that seemed not to come from her but from somewhere beyond even Billie and Ella, from the font of all greatness. A voice that was filled with such power and pain that it was at once entirely human yet laced with the divine. My ears, my mouth, my heart and mind all instantly opened. Winehouse. Winehouse? Winehouse! That twerp, all eyeliner and lager dithering up Chalk Farm Road under a back-combed barnet, the lips that I’d only seen clenching a fishwife fag and dribbling curses now a portal for this holy sound. So now I knew. She wasn’t just some hapless wannabe, yet another pissed up nit who was never gonna make it, nor was she even a ten-a-penny-chanteuse enjoying her fifteen minutes. She was a fucking genius.

Shallow fool that I am I now regarded her in a different light, the light that blazed down from heaven when she sang. That lit her up now and a new phase in our friendship began. She came on a few of my TV and radio shows, I still saw her about but now attended to her with a little more interest. Publicly though, Amy increasingly became defined by her addiction. Our media though is more interested in tragedy than talent, so the ink began to defect from praising her gift to chronicling her downfall. The destructive personal relationships, the blood soaked ballet slippers, the aborted shows, that youtube madness with the baby mice. In the public perception this ephemeral tittle-tattle replaced her timeless talent. This and her manner in our occasional meetings brought home to me the severity of her condition. Addiction is a serious disease; it will end with jail, mental institutions or death. I was 27 years old when through the friendship and help of Chip Somers of the treatment centre, Focus12 I found recovery, through Focus I was introduced to support fellowships for alcoholics and drug addicts which are very easy to find and open to anybody with a desire to stop drinking and without which I would not be alive.

Now Amy Winehouse is dead, like many others whose unnecessary deaths have been retrospectively romanticised, at 27 years old. Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today. We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease. Not all addicts have Amy’s incredible talent. Or Kurt’s or Jimi’s or Janis’s, some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill. We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care. We need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalisation doesn’t even make economic sense. Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there. All they have to do is pick up the phone and make the call. Or not. Either way, there will be a phone call.

Language Challenge... Tiv

Hey everyone, I put this up yesterday and put it down cos the sound quality after i uploaded it got messed up but what the heck,  i can't do it again and after suffering to traslate it i might as well put it up and hope someone reads it to the end even if they don't listen. Enjoy...

Language Challenge... Tiv by doshiX

I greet you all, my name is Dooshima. First of all, before i explain why i'm speaking in Tiv, i want to apologise, i know i've abandoned this blog for such a long time and i don't even have an excuse. I'm really, really sorry.

Ok... i'm speaking to you guys in Tiv today because Sugabelly started something called the language challenge and everyone, anybody who is interested really, is supposed to put up a blogpost speaking their language so that others can listen and learn what other languages sound like and probably pick up one or two things. So that's what we'll be doing today.

My dad is from Uganda but i've been there just once... i was there for 2 weeks to visit my step brother. My mother is from Nigeria, here, she's Tiv (from Benue State) and i grew up here. I was born in "the white man's land" but i grew up here, that's why i know how to speak Tiv. My mum speaks to me in Tiv and the whole family here speaks Tiv so i just picked it up... it's only natural. I speak Hausa too, *in Hausa* I understand Hausa, i speak it fluently (this is the only translation i can come up with, lol) and *in Yoruba* I understand Yoruba, I can't speak it well but i understand, shey you get me? and *in French* I speak French but a little because i'm a begginer... if anybody understood what that meant at all. I think that's all and yes, i can speak broken English, dis kain, i sabi scatter de tin well well, you no fit sell me (this just means i speak broken English fluently, shikena). That's all i understand.

Let me gist you guys.
There was this night i was going to church for night vigil, i slept and got up at about quarter to 12, dressed up, picked my bottle of water and was walking there (i live very close by)... i wasn't paying attention and before i knew what's up, i was walking inside a puddle of mud. I got so upset. When i got to the front of the church, close to the gate, i started using the water i was supposed to use through the night, during the prayers to wash my feet. Then a man who was driving by started horning and asking "are you going?" i thought he thought i was looking for a ride to the junction so i was about to say "no, thank you" when i realized that he thought i was a prostitute. I got sooo mad and was like "are you crazy? I'm infront of church, I'm coming for night vigil" then he said "oh ok, i'm sorry... please pray for me".
I was so disgusted, who does that? Even if i was a prostitute, who picks prostitutes infront of church? Are you crazy?!
Anyway, after he apologised i hissed and said -i thought i said this in my mind- "there's no hope for your soul!" I know i shouldn't have said that but i was really upset and the worse part was that he heard. The guy reversed and parked where i was, infront of me and said "why will you say that? I thought you were a christian and christians are supposed to pray for others?"
My God! I've never felt so ashamed, i felt so bad. I told him i was sorry and half of my prayers that night was for that man. I feel so bad.
What i'm trying to say is that sometimes we get so carried away playing church and sit down on our high horses judging people, forgetting that Christianity is about loving people, accepting them, preaching hope and Christ. We get so carried away with our salvation that we forget to minister that to others and it's a really, really sad thing. I have never forgotten that day, i feel so bad about it and... wow... i hope someone is still listening and will not do what i have done. Please pray for that man for me.

Aaanyway, i think i've ended up speaking more English than Tiv but i have to stop this now cos it's getting too long. I hope i haven't embarrassed the Tiv Language, i hope someone is still listening... and... yes, thank you for listening and may God be with you all.
Bye-bye.

Here are the rules:

1. It DOES NOT MATTER how well you can speak your language. The goal is to speak regardless. So don't worry if you don't speak that well or you have to include lots of English words. ALL language levels are welcome.

2. Video posts or Audio posts are strongly preferred. This is because the point is to hear and enjoy the spoken language. Written posts are frowned upon but will be accepted too. ^_^

3. Please always provide a translation for your readers of other ethnicities! Translations should be in English and can be in the form of captions under a video post, or written transcripts for audio and written posts.

4. Please tag each participating post as - language challenge - and post the link here in the comments so I can link to it and make all of them easy to find.

5. Please encourage other Nigerian bloggers to post in Nigerian languages.

She lives...

My phone rang and it was my mum calling... my heart skipped a beat. The only time she gives me a phone call when we are both at home is when there's something interesting or hilarious on TV she wants me to see, but on this night, no TV in the house was on.
And when she whispered "Dooshima", my heart skipped another beat because the only time she calls my full name is when i've committed a crime - and she usually yells it.
"Rumun kpe..." (Rumun is dead... ) I didn't hear the rest of the sentence, i didn't want to, i didn't need to. My favourite aunt had just died and that was all i could take at the moment.

Some call it shock, i don't have a name for it. It just felt strange and tears failed me.

We got in the car and drove to my uncle's house. It was quiet. There was no wailing. Little sobs and teary faces but no wailing. I still couldn't cry.

My aunt had been ill for quite a long while and we all thought she'ld get better but she only got worse and eventually became bed ridden. I was serving (NYSC) in Abuja at the time when my mum called to tell me how bad it was and asked me to come and see my aunt, that's why i was in Makurdi the weekend she died. I'll always be grateful to my mum for 'making' me see Aunty Rumun shortly before she passed on.

My mum's friend came to see us the next day wailing and shouting. It's quite funny now. She fell on the floor and threw her scarf away, lol. I couldn't stand it so i just went back to my room but the silence there was deafening so i headed back to the living room. And that's when i saw and heard my mum cry for the first time in my life... it broke my heart.
She was consoling her friend and lamenting "...my little sister, why? Why didn't you come to me? I've always been there for you. Who will tell me what's happening with Dooshima now? Ehn? She tells you everything. Who will i ask? I told you and Kpadoo to take care of my baby when i die... who will i ask? Who will i make plans with? ..."
I froze
I died
and rose
and died again on that spot
my mummy was crying!
...but i still couldn't shed a tear, just stood there and stared. It was all too much to take in at once.

The most i got for tears were little shakes, i just couldn't cry. Not at the wake keep 2weeks later nor at the burial the next day (where i also saw my grand mum cry for the first time and my auntie's 8yr old run away, crying from the burial ground).  When the grief was overwhelming, i shook and sobbed... without tears.

I went back to Abuja and life went back to normal. I finished Service later that month and joined the oh-so-jolly state of unemployment.
Another month later, i had just gotten a job and was driving home excited so i picked up my phone and started scrolling through the phonebook to call my aunt and share the good news. That's when it hit me. Aunty  Rumun was dead. I cried, bawled and just lost my mind. It was like all the tears i'd forgotten how to shed had found an escape route and were rolling out in waves. I cried myself to sleep that night.

I cried alot after that - the first time i was proposed to (because i picked up the phone to call her again) and many random nights over the last year. I have cried almost everyday since last week.

My aunt played a big role in my life... she's the reason i learnt make-up and how to do facials, the reason i know Psalm81 and 91, the reason my little cousins call me "Aunty Dosh Dosh", the only aunt who called when i was going for the most important interview of my life and the reason i understand and forgive somethings i held against my mum, leading us to have a better, stronger relationship.

My aunty died a year ago two days back (on the 29th) but she is still alive... she lives in my heart.

The early '90s, check out her brows :')

Then, Will I Believe

Featured on the blog today is Chad Missildine, a blogger I met on twitter. He's a Pastor -with a sense of humour- and also a good writer. I read this post on his blog ( The Way It Could Be ) yesterday and it moved my heart so I thought to share it with you guys... Enjoy!

So I’ve spent some time lately with people who aren’t Christians. To be honest, it has been refreshing. At the same time it has crushed me to the point of tears.

                     Here is a letter to all Christians called, “Then, Will I Believe.”

Love me, don’t convert me. Then love me some more. Then, will I believe.

Don’t show me how much you know. It doesn’t impress me. Show me how much you care. Again and again. Then, will I believe.

Don’t teach me how I should think, show me your beliefs by your actions. Keep showing me. Then, will I believe.

Judge me half as much and tolerate me twice that. See if you can break through the tough skin the world has caused me to have. Underneath is the real me, but you’ll probably never notice.

Why would I spend an hour at your church when you won’t spend a minute with me?

You are too busy with your religious activities to even stop and see me hurt. Too rushed to even see the oppressed. This is why I don’t believe.

Just because I look different than you doesn’t mean I am less in God’s eyes. I’m really not that much different.

You probably get more joy in pointing people to yourself and your good deeds than you do pointing people to the real God. Point beyond yourself to something bigger, someone greater. Then, will I believe.

Live it. Breathe it. Own it. Then, only then, will I believe. Who knows, I may even change the world.

I put her in a box!

I have two sisters. I haven't always had sisters but i found one and got the other a couple of years ago and it feels great. Kyla is my step-sister, she's 7 years old and really really bright. Ngodoo is my foster sister, she's also 7, bright and probably one of the strongest women i've met yet.

Ngodoo's dad died a couple of years ago and things got hard on their family so my mum brought her to live with us and help raise her. I remember the first time i saw her. I was sleeping in the room when my mum tapped me and said "meet my daughter". I looked up at my mum and saw the widest smile ever with a lot of love in her eyes, then i looked down at Ngodoo (barely 4years old then) and saw fear. Before i state my reaction, i have to tell you that my mum always brought home kids from the village, so this was nothing new and i had grown weary of the sweet hellos plus the excitement on my mum's face sort of annoyed me. So i muffled a "welcome, how are you?" then rolled my eyes and went back to bed. My mum must have been so disappointed, she raised me better. And thinking back, i can't believe i was that person. Someone who would see a sad, scared child and ignore her.

Anyway, less than a week after Ngodoo moved in with us i was already quoting her to anyone who cared to listen. She wasn't exactly sweet (she vehemently refused that no one should teach her how to speak English and was quite snubbish) but she was witty and always dropped smart remarks that made the whole house laugh and stare in wonder. I grew to like her and eventually love her. She is my sister and she is always on my mind.

Last weekend, during the Easter break, my mum was going to village for a meeting and asked Ngodoo if she wanted to tag along so she'll spend the day with her mum but she said no so fast it sent stares across the room. I don't know about the others but i immediately thought she felt too 'big' to hang out in the village... I didn't ask her about it though, just let it slide. At about mid day the next day (Easter Sunday), we were all gisting and having a nice time in the sitting room when Ngodoo's mum came in with Sughnen, Ngodoo's younger brother and her countenance changed immediately. She wouldn't smile at her mum and completely ignored her younger brother. We tried to get the other kids to play with him but he was already upset and couldn't be bothered. I got so mad at her and couldn't understand what the hell was going through her mind. Had she gotten to the place where she felt too good, too civilised to hang out with her family? Did we (my mum and I) do this to her? I even 'ordered' her to go be nice to her mum and brother but it didn't help.

About 20mins later, one of my little cousins came and whispered in my ear "Aunty Dosh Dosh, Ngodoo is crying outside" and i practically flew there. All the crazy thoughts disappeared and all that mattered was taking care of whatever was bugging her. She wouldn't talk at first but after some reassurance she said between sobs "I miss my daddy". Oh my goodness! It all came to me. Going to the village and seeing her family upset her that much because they reminded her of her daddy. She still didn't know how to handle the death of her father but lil' miss goody two shoed Dosh labeled her proud and put her in a box. I have never felt so ashamed of myself. Ngodoo is my sister and i'm supposed to love her no matter what but when she needed me the most, i sat on a high horse and juged her to hell.

We do this everyday, to strangers and people we seemingly care about. We see them act a certain way and without bothering to help or considering what may have made them act this way, we judge and condemn them. Shame on us all. Not only does Matthew 7:1 say "Judge not that you may not be judged", we've all lived long enough to realise that we sometimes act on impulse or get so confused/hurt that we forget the appropriate way to behave.

Being a Christian is not just about going to Church and quotiong Bible verses, being a Christian is mostly about walking in love to the glory of God. People say love is over rated but before anything can be tagged over rated, it needs to be over used and proven not to work. We haven't loved enough to have the audacity to say that. And people who have (been) loved even just a little bit know in the depth of their hearts that though love hurts, it heals even more. We are the children of a King and love should be our brand. Love IS our brand.

*1Corinthians 7-8a " Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves. Love never fails."

Whose back have you got?

literally, lol

Hey guys, i'm really sorry it's taken me this long to put up another post. The last two  months have been my craziest yet and through all that i didn't feel like i had anything worth reading to put up. Anyhoo, i'm back now and hope that you find atleast 1 sentence in every post that warms your heart and makes you want to do the same for others.

Remember when i told you guys about the trip to Jerusalem (in Toothpaste ) where i fell and broke a tooth? Well, our tour guide on the trip was a really nice, cheerful, old man called Joram - pronounced Yoram-  and our driver was Alex, a young man who didn't seem to care much about people. Alex wasn't rude per se but he couldn't speak English and it seemed like he had given up trying. He managed an occasional smile with a 'good morning' and followed us once or twice to sight see but most times, he would light a cigarette when we got off the the bus,  get somewhere to sit and smoked till we got back.

One day, after seeing The Dead Sea,  i got back to the bus pretty early and just watched through window as everyone climbed on. That was the first time i noticed it. Alex was still smoking as he approached the bus and he tossed the cigarette as he took his first step on but didn't look back to see where it fell. Joram who was behind him chased the stick (because a little wind had blown it away), stepped on it, came back, checked that everyone was on the bus, told Alex to drive off and carried on like nothing happened. He neither said anything nor carried an attitude and Alex of course, seemed completely unaware of his careless act and what Joram had done. I didn't know what to make of what i had seen so i just shrugged it off and enjoyed the rest of the day.

The next day though, the same thing happened in the morning, and two hours later, and pretty much every time we were getting on the bus. Alex would toss his cigarette and get in then, Joram would - chase it and- step on it, get into the bus after him and act like nothing happened. Every time! It made me love Joram, he had Alex's back one way or the other and didn't care that Alex didn't know. He cleaned up after Alex without making a big deal out of it because it really didn't take anything out of him to do it. It's little things like that that make peace reign and demonstrate true love. I wish we all lived like that.

The only people i clean up after without making a fuss are my family and even they get to hear from me now and again. I take care of people, one way or the other, we all do but most of the time we do it whining. Some times, we even go far as telling the people we're caring for/'loving' that we're only doing it for the love of God. As if, if we had our way, we wouldn't offer a helping hand to those who aren't family, who have hurt us, or who are in need. Unfortunately for us though, that kind of loving and religion doesn't count because"if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them"
Luke 6:32

It is a good thing to know that there are people who love us and have our backs but it's a greater thing to have someone else's back, especially someone who can't pay us back in full measures. We automatically become agents of God in their lives and it keeps us in check because we know that someone out there counts on us to not mess up. Most importantly, it builds our relationship with God. We sin so many times everyday and don't always pray for forgiveness yet God loves us and keeps blessing us. He has our backs despite our many faults and the fact that we'll never love Him half as much as He loves us. So forgiving someone who has deeply hurt us, being there for someone who'll never be able to pay us back, showing love to total strangers and being nice to people who have been mean to us puts us in good standing with God and opens doors for more blessings.

*Luke 6:32 But love your enemies, do good and lend, hoping for nothing in return: and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the ungrateful and evil.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I got invited to be a member of Faith Dames, a blog by women about great women in the Bible. I felt truly honored because everyone there is an amazing writer/story teller and i don't think i'll ever measure up but it's not about me jor, the stories are rich and eye opening and i'ld love you guys to check it out. I wrote the one about The Zarephath Widow

A Sling and 5 Stones

There are jobs we don't bother applying for because we are nobodys and our CVs aren't good enough.
There are schools that we don't even think about when sending out applications because our grades are just above average and we don't have 'godfathers' to write recommendation letters for us.
There are prayers we don't say because we feel it's an impossible situation and there's nothing even God can do about it.

 ********************

David was a boy and when the Israelites went out to battle the Phillistines, he was left to feed his father's sheep
David was a boy and when his brothers were at camp during battle, he was sent to give them food.
David was a boy but when Goliath defied the armies of Israel, the man in him refused to be intimidated!


Goliath was a warrior.
Goliath was a giant and he had so much armor that he needed a shield bearer to go before him.
But Goliath defied the armies of the living God!


David thought something his brothers and the rest of Israel did not think 'If Goliath was such a warrior and that big, why did he need all of that armor to battle a normal sized man one on one?'
David had weapons his brothers and the rest of Israel did not have, a sling and 5 stones. His sling was leather made from sheep skin which means blood had been shed and something had died for him to get that weapon so there was no way it would be useless. He picked out 5 stones because 5 represents grace.
David knew something no one on that field knew, if God be for us, who can be against us? He said to Goliath "You come to me with a sword,  with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied" and guess what? He conquered Goliath- by the blood of the 'lamb' and by the words of his testimony!

*******************
If rich kids and dignitaries are so high-up and untouchable, why do they need to bribe and pull strings to get into good schools, good jobs, contracts, visas, favours and all that?
Christ died for us that we may not just have salvation but that we may have life (even on earth) and have it in abundance.
Christ died and left each of us with a sling to fight -and win- our battles but we also need our 5 stones of grace to study the Word, know It, obey It, preach It AND use It hand in hand with the sling. The sling and the stones work together to give us victory.

If you know who and Whose you are, there is nothing on earth that will intimidate you, there is no Goliath (situation) that will ridicule you and make you feel like a nobody. Send out that application, speak up against that injustice, say that prayer and let God surprise you.

* 2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

P.S
This post was inspired by Pastor Iyke's sermon "Victory With a Sling" and you can read about David and Goliath in 1Samuel 17