I CRIED ON THIS DAY FOUR YEARS AGO
This picture here, a facebook memory from four years ago, still moves me to tears. On that day I cried and shed a lot of tears. They were tears of joy. And it was a turning point in my life.
I obtained my National Diploma certificate in Mass Communication with distinction and four best student awards from the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, NIJ, Ogba, Lagos. I was interviewed by several TV Stations, Newspapers and News magazines.
When I was invited to the podium to speak, I was overwhelmed with emotion and broke down in tears -weeping like a child in the full glare of hundreds who had gathered for this convocation. You know why I cried?
I cried because in that instant when I was called forward to receive award after award, my past, the years that preceded this day, brutally flashed across my mind.
They were years of falling from grace to grass - when my family had lost all. They were years of failure, of disappointments, of pain, of suffering, of rejection, of lack, of loneliness, of bitterness, of despair, of hopelessness and of disillusionment.
Before this day, I had gone from being chauffeur-driven to very expensive private schools in some of the most exotic cars to unloading and selling paint at Awolowo Way in Ikeja, Lagos, where I was being paid N1,500 per month by an in-law who was kind enough to give me employment. I had just two pairs of clothes at this time. It was traumatic and not many - even close family - understood what was going on in my head. I slipped into deep depression and hatred for family, for the world and was deeply embittered at how unfair life was to me.
I avoided friends I had gone to same high school with. Many of them are friends here on facebook and can attest to the kind of surreal life we had back then.
For close to a decade after leaving secondary school, I had lost my way by no design of mine. I became visionless, directionless and hopeless. I went from having everything taken care of by wealthy parents to not having the slightest clue on how to survive in an unfriendly world on my own.
After several failed attempts to get admitted into higher institution, an aunt once lovingly suggested that I try to become a mechanic. An uncle told me even if I was priced for N5, he wouldn't pay it because I was worthless and unserious.
I had also actually given up hope in myself and ever returning to school. These and many more reasons were why I cried on this day four years ago when from obscurity and a nonentity, I became the cynosure of cameras and attention.
God turned my life around. That story I will tell another day.
Today, I just want to say another big thank you to God for what He so graciously did in my life. And to say to you, that it does not matter how bad your situation is, once you determine that enough is enough, with faith in God, you will move mountains and what formerly seemed impossible will turn to glorious possibility.
As shared on facebook by Bamidele Salako
*God is so wonderful. Please share
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