27TH MAY, THE DAY GOD CALLED ME DEEPER - PART 1

This is a series I have decided to publish after 3 years of a mind blowing experience. Although yearly, I published a post on facebook to mark its anniversary. The intention was to invite the public to join me in my retrospect-journey.  

I felt the need to share the things I went through at a time when it seemed like all hope was lost and I did not know what to do, there was no where to go, there was no one to turn to.
You may not have had any such experience before but I encourage you to read the first tranche. Each tranche captures the whole story and yet, does not capture the whole story (hence a Part 2 and Part 3) because this is an experience I can never fully recover from.

And if you have experienced such before or are still currently in such a huge mess, you are the reason I cannot recover from what happened to me. Hear this story and it will surely lift you up to the point where your faith can truly be in God.

I walked into the office that Friday Morning, it felt just like a regular day except that I was wearing a brand new long checked shirt. Nothing in the office looked or felt strange, after all, I got into the office at just the same usual time, I wasn't late. I sat down and logged-in. I opened my e mail but it didn’t open, I got an error message. I asked my seat partner to check if his own was opened and he said yes. I restarted my system and tried again but to no avail. Then my seat partner whispered, 'I heard they have sacked some people', I got up, looked around me; then I everything looked and felt strange.

My office, a big hall of Credit analysts had people with sad faces standing in clusters and everywhere was so quiet, it wasn't normal. how could this have been a normal day?

Suddenly, I felt so alone, so alone. Then I remembered several gists I have heard from my sisters and other senior colleagues about what people did when they got to work and realised they were sacked because they couldn’t log in - DROP YOUR ID CARD AND DISAPPEAR IMMEDIATELY! I didn’t have any problem doing that at all, there was no need to say bye-bye to anybody, after all, no one knew or had noticed my difficulty in logging into my mail box, even if they knew, they didn’t come close to confirm, empathise or anything like that.

So, by myself, I grabbed my hand bag, walked down the stairs, past my divisional head, called a colleague to pack all my belongings from my drawer and send then though the lady-cleaner who lived in my estate.

Then I felt like I stepped out of myself to observe what I would do. A major life changing and devastating experience had just occurred to me; it was not just that I lost my job, and all the Nigerian economic recession bla bla bla but I was in a strange land. 

I had just recently moved into Lagos, relocated because of the same job. I had spent a lot of money on trying to start life all over again. I had no friends as yet, no substantial saving. So first, I felt like trekking all the way from Akin Adesola street through falomo, Awolowo Road, Keffi road to Obalende ( that’s synonymous to madness, right?- walking on the street) but honestly, that was what I felt like. 

While I was still observing myself and my reaction, I thought to get home first, and have a good dance; I did just that – Mo ri’re (Mike Abdul) was my favourite song at the time. I decided to call a Pastor in my church and he asked me to come over to the church office. While I was there waiting to see him, I called 4 of my closest friends in Abuja to inform them and then my family. I called my 2 of my spiritual leaders also in Abuja. The big question was ‘what are you now going to do’’? they all suggested I came back home(Abuja).

With their suggestions in my mind, I went back to the house and brought out all my credentials again, Later that day, just one colleague (my immediate supervisor) came to visit me and I was still forming strong. I used the word ‘forming’ because at midnight, I cried and cried…..and cried and cried and then cried again. It was so painful. I was totally confused.

The days passed and I kept hoping that my colleagues, people with whom I ate and drank, were going to come over and check on me but no one did. To my shock, some have never called till date. 

June passed and then July came; FWC Abuja normally would have midyear fasting and prayer and I joined in, it ended on the 7th day but I stretched myself and I continued.

I know a lot of young Christians like me would once in a while ask God for a deeper or closer walk.

I have however heard several testimonies of how experiences and real life challenges have brought people deeper in God or as they said 'their perception of who God was changed' because of that 'experience' but I did not know if I would have same experience myself, but something happened.

In July, though I had attended a couple of few-day courses, made several attempts to get another job but nothing was  forthcoming; I woke up on some days with no plan on where to go than to just stay at home to read ,sleep and watch TV, of course I wasn’t cooking that much because of the fasting. So I decided to ask God - what is the purpose of this experience?

I remember I would just wake up, take a bath, study the bible , pray, pray and just pray. Don’t blame me, I didn’t know what to do. It was like the height of confusion. Without exaggeration, sometimes I prayed in tongues for 3 hours straight and broke bread too.

The Lord gave me a scripture (Josh 5:12) and beyond all reasonable doubts, I knew that He was a responsible Father who was going to take very good care of me but the ‘when’ and ‘how’ were the questions. So I prayed even the more and studied more.

A song like ‘made a way’ (Travis Greene) and 'Higher' by Lara George became my reality. I couldn’t stop singing and dancing to it almost daily even though I didn’t see a way.

My flat mates knew I was losing weight drastically but nobody wanted to talk about it; they were very supportive though. A few of my siblings insisted that I moved over to stay with them or relocate Canada; but I hand no conviction on that as yet.

So many other things I did within that period, time would not permit me to reveal but eventually something happened. In the midst of my confusion, God sent me His help and my History now is His-story.

To those who are in my life now, you know where I am today but this is just an attempt to narrate to you where I was coming from. 

I want to thank the few people who know about these events  and were there to encourage. You encouraged me in one way or the other. You cheered me up and through your words, I saw some ray of hope.

That entire experience lasted 4 full months and today, I can only look back with a heart of gratitude. I am glad I went through that fire yet I did not burn; through the deep water that did not sweep over me. I didn’t burn or drawn because my faithful Father kept/shielded.

We  wish to have a deeper walk with God but we do not want to lose a job, lose a child, fail an exam, miss an opportunity and trust God for another one. Now I believe that God uses these sort of situations to teach us how to lean/rest on Him.

Its 1 year today; I am glad that I am in a better place and I know He has greater things in store.

What’s your experience?