SHADED VIEWS

My mum is a big character. She comes in all shapes and sizes...most of the time she's complaining about something but when it comes to bringing it down and knocking some sense into someones life...she is always dead on!
This is a belated mothers day wish to my mum...she has her negative sides but lately I have seen a lot of wisdom in the stuff she is saying. The latest is how i should be the boss of my house. (thats another story). But yesterday, I was at her home and just like mum does, she had gone all out with the chapatis, pilau, stew and fruit platter. As it is custom on a sunday afternoon, there were visitors and i had to cook a lot of tea which coz of my teabag ways was quite the challenge since I was having problems measuring the number of cups of milk, (since she gets her milk delivered to her straight from the cow), water and amount of tealeaves to make the tea.
It was at this time that more visitors came, it was a lady and her two kids. Mum came into the kitchen and asked me to warm the food for them. Now warming food is not a problem, warming food without the help of a microwave is. My mums microwave had died on the Friday so here i was trying my best to use the science i used to use as a child (before microwaves came to kenya) to warm this food, nevertheless i succeeded. Mum came into the kitchen and said she would serve the food and leave me to continue with the tea. As she was serving, I noticed that she had put a mountain of servings on each plate, I did not mind it for the mum but for the kids, i thought she had placed too high hopes on them finishing even  a quarter of what she served so naturally i pointed it out.
The next thing i know, my mum has pulled me aside and talking to me softly, she says "stop shouting, the food is enough, they can eat it." At this point im of "huh". So she goes on to explain about how the family is not so well off, the kids have food to eat but its not enough so they are often hungry. "when you see me doing this Mueni, its because I know they might not even have dinner tonight," mum said.
That just got me of at another level! I had never in my wildest dreams ever thought of that possibility. You see, where my mum lives is relatively for well off people so naturally i assume that her neighbors are all well to do people. I was like heeeeeh!
Then i asked myself, are there such people in my neighborhood? People that need help but are doing so much to hide the fact because of where they live or a reputation they are afraid to loose? Then i thought, can i live up to be like mum, always helping people with whatever she can? Doing what she can to easen a burden that she sees around her? have insight into peoples troubles?
Lesson learnt.

MAZE

I’m driving down this road… I know where I need to get to but its feels like am in a maze… you know hose fun mazes you’d do as a kid and how much fun you’d have going round in circles just to find a dead end and having to retrace your steps so you end up back at square one…

Mine is a different kind of maze...infact when I think of it, I remember the game snakes and ladders. You can see the end of the game, where you need to get to but there’s the snakes and the ladders.

The ladders are what help you get there faster...they are there to boost you up...give you a little hand when you’re drowning. I have seen ladders in the shape of friends and loved ones who have sent me a thoughtful sms or email…you know, the kind that just speak to you when you are at your weakest point. I have seen ladders of all shapes and sizes and some have come from the most unexpected of places... it’s like when you’re  wondering who you are to think you can get that job and the guy who brings lunch to the office is telling me in the lift to not lose hope, the faith that enabled me see the advertisement and apply for the job is the same faith that will enable you to get that job…just keep praying. I’m talking about people coming from nowhere and asking you about your talents…random encounters that provide a link to something bigger. I’m talking about opening your bible and reading Psalms 91 when you are thinking “nobody can get me out of this darkness…I’m so screwed.”

Then I’m looking at the snakes…you know those people and things that are there to stop you from getting home. You know that little voice in your head that’s telling you, “you can’t make it, who do you think you are to think you can get that promotion, you suck, you make mistakes and that’s how you will always be”…its that thing that brings you to your knees and completely breaks you down so you find it hard to get up and keep moving…that thing that makes you shift focus so instead of moving forward your always doing two steps back..

I have learnt that in the game of life...there’s gonna be snakes and there’s gonna be ladders… it’s how you choose to deal with the hand that your dealt with…good and evil are at work in our world and just like in the movies..evil is working to ensure that good does not triumph…but if you trust in God, it does not matter how long you’re in the maze...you’ll make it out and get your prize.

Imagine God is the game-master, He knows every aspect of the maze…He can see that when you take the right, you will meet the snake and the right will lead you towards the ladder. Challenges as I have come to learn are here to grow our faith…we would all like to have it easy and sometimes ask God to just lead us in the path of the maze with the least resistance and the fastest means to get to the prize…and it is not wrong to ask…but how would you learn to face the snakes in the next level of the game? If God is the game-master, it means He sees and knows how the game works, and if He allows you to meet a snake, it’s because He is shaping something in your life…building a character that will be useful in the next level of the game.

The point is, at the end of it all, He intends for each of us to win the game and get our prize. This game requires some crazy kind of faith…the kind that believes in the end even though he/she cannot see it or how to get to it. It’s the kind that says … “I don’t know where this is going…but I trust the Game-master to get me there eventually.”

So come on…tell the snakes “Game on!” and trust the Game-master to walk you through it every step of the way.