Our fathers are great (not all though), but we do not want to be like them when we become fathers…we want to be better. Yes, better than they are or were! Come on fathers, a charge to keep we have…!
A charge to keep…🤔
My view of fatherhood has been a balanced one because of my personal experiences. Even though I focus most on the good, I appreciate the ‘bad’ as well.
Ultimately, dad has been a great dad, but he had his good times and bad times with parenting. I had a fairly balanced experience of fatherhood growing up. I grew up to witness at first hand, both the good and the bad. Dad had largely been a great dad; but at a point, he admittedly became a bad dad and neglected his responsibilities towards us. I wouldn’t say he is fully to blame for my parents’ divorce and our bitter experiences of growing up in a broken home, but he obviously contributed. Mum single handedly shouldered a lot of responsibilities until her untimely demise. But I’ve been blessed to also see Dad acknowledge his shortcomings openly to us following mum’s death and trying his best to make amends. I have seen a beautiful lesson of a Dad pick himself up and try to be better.
Even though it had to take the shock of mum’s death to perhaps bring our Dad back to his senses, I guess he really did his best to reunite with his children. Ten years on, after mum’s demise, he’s still trying his best to be there for us in every capacity as a Dad, obviously having learned his lessons. On our part as his children, I wouldn’t say there’s still any bitterness towards him for the way things went (trust me, words can’t describe how really broken our relationship with Dad was), except that we do sometimes wish mum hadn’t gone that early.
But we also do know that there are no guarantees in this life and that our story or experiences is obviously still better than many people who had to go through worse. Whether we like it or not, the obvious truth is that, there are families much more devastated by divorce and failings of parents. It is therefore important to have that balanced thought and always be reminded that, no matter what we are going through or facing today, our story is still better than millions out there.
So, on every Father’s Day going forward, we just feel blessed that things turned around for us and our Dad, when we never even imagined it would. And then, we also remind ourselves of our resolve to do better and be better.
Indeed, a charge to keep we have and a God to glorify! Happy Father’s Day to all you amazing fathers out there! Keep giving fatherhood your best shot, God being our help! 🙏🏾
Quickest Way To Start A Conflict In Your Home On Mothers’ Day:
When you as the man of the house go about posting, flaunting and flooding the social media space with your mum’s images and think less of doing same with your wife’s…the mother of your kids. Then you come to say that’s the job of her own kids to wish her; it’s mothers’ day, not wives day, etc. Whoever sold out that mentality to some of you men lied to you and only wants your downfall.
Women (Wife’s) don’t play like that bro! Do not say I did not warn you 😊
Happy Mothers’ Day to all the gorgeous women in our lives. We see all the sacrifice and we can’t thank you enough. Without you, we (men) are incomplete and the home is surely a wreck without you. Be proud of yourselves!
This day and age where people are becoming transgender and going into marriage without disclosing their true identities to their unsuspecting spouses is truly scary. In effect, they are making people unconsciously gay or lesbian. Because if I could be married to a man-turned-woman for a year without the slightest knowledge or cue, then the person has made me technically gay against my wish. 😂
My wife told me a true story that was shared on a social media platform she’s part of. Apparently, a man is in his 6 years of marriage and his “wife” (who was born male) and desperately wants kids but they are not coming. Now he’s been suggesting going to see a fertility specialist but his “most beautiful and elegant wife” sensing the truth will come out if they go, keeps finding reasons to prevent them from going. Now “she” doesn’t also know how best to come out clean to the man “she” claims to love for six good years and she’s out on social media anonymously seeking advice!
Guess, it’s no longer enough in our children’s future world to ask “were you born male or female” before accepting to marry people but they must go beyond to see at least childhood pictures displaying the genitals huh? 😂
In fact, I will surely tell my daughter not to marry any “man” who says he doesn’t have a childhood picture to start with. Who knows, she may even need to go and check the hospital records where he says he was born. Seriously, our children will need to do more due diligence in their choice of a life partner than we did. Surely, our parenting work is really going to be tough. Let’s brace up because this things are real.
Every child is a star and deserves the right to twinkle
To shine so bright with the beauty of a thousand stars
A child’s lovely eyes sparkles with everlasting joy
The voice of a child is soothing
More soothing than the serenades of a loved one
The smile of a child summons deep emotions within
Emotions that refreshes like an early morning dew
God’s gift of a child
Blesses our lives in too many ways than we can count
A mother’s most priceless jewel is her child
Who can tell of the joy she feels
As she daily cuddles her priceless jewel
Lifting her jewel sky high and peering into those little lovely eyes
Gives her an aura of accomplishment
And a sweet satisfaction no earthly treasure can offer
Her gift of a child is heavenly
And her heavenly gift is her well of joy
Though life may be difficult
As she beholds her jewel and holds it close to her heart
Her slate of life’s miseries disappears at least for a second
And she receives a moment’s comfort and reassurance
And a hope for the future
(A poem dedicated to our little Princess Arya, aka “Sweet Face” 😂. We promise to love you in every way possible to man. May you find fulfilment in your name and may life never defeat you 🙏)
Of all the children in the world whose beautiful pictures get shared on the internet or social media or even make it onto invitation cards and dps, it is my own that you fear for that something bad or evil will happen to? I don’t care whoever you are, but you must be ashamed of yourselves to even think that of any child anywhere in the world.
It’s unsettling to start with that you are even thinking the worse will happen to an innocent child and not rather praying that she will live and succeed in life irrespective of your supposed “wrong and immature decisions” of the parents. What has bewitched our brains in this part of the world to always be so backward thinking and so superstitious? And the way we go about it (the approach) as if it is our exclusive right as media or moral watchdogs to tell people what to do or not to do is so disgusting to say the least sometimes (please you won’t go to Hell for your failure to do certain things if that’s your push 😂). This is not a personal attack but I’ve had far too many “morally upright” folks trying to force their way into my personal life and business and I feel it’s right to share a few sentiments of my own.
Truth is that we don’t assume everyone feels the same way about social media and what gets on it — and you don’t approach this sometimes very sensitive issue as if your rules are better than those of others because the honest truth is that it all comes down to personal preferences or choices.
I have always maintained that life is freedom and it is plain stupid sometimes to want people to live their life the way you live yours. The fact that you are uncomfortable with something does not mean everybody should be uncomfortable with it. The fact that you decide as your personal lifestyle to do or not do something does not mean it should become the universally accepted rule of life or yardstick for judging moral conduct.
Always do what makes you happy
You see eh, this year 2018 eh, I don’t want to take any nonsense from anybody. You see, we are not dumb not to know that we’re not the first to be parents and neither will we be the last. It was not you that told us whether it was right or wrong to get married at whatever age we decided to…it was not you that made the choice of a partner for us, neither was it you that financed it even at the time that we both had no gainful employment. It was not you that made the decision for us about not having a child whilst married and still in school and rather wait until now. And if God has blessed us now with a child, we are accountable only to Him.
Having this child has been entirely our personal decision and every decision we make regarding this child throughout her life on earth will be our sole prerogative or responsibility. In this part of our world, we talk too much and want to express opinions about everything that involves the life of another…whatever we think gives us that right to, I don’t know. What’s even more sad is that we appear only more interested in killing people’s joy or pushing negativities.
You see, everybody in my family or life that has known me very well knows that it is not today that I am going to play very nice to uninvited opinions that don’t have any grounded basis but are merely sentimental and based on individual preferences. Say I’m proud or whatever, I have never cared and won’t start to care now. There are boundaries and we need to always respect them – I don’t know why people don’t know that.
Whatever anybody decides to do with their child is none of my business; so, I don’t go about telling people whether they are treating their child right or wrong…when it borders on documented legal or cultural violations, the laws of the land will take action. So, you can put him/her in a dustbin I don’t care and you can wait until they are 18 years to be able to give you their legal consent before you feed them, bath them, clothe them, allow them to shit on you, take them out to public places, beg them to take a picture of them or show them to the world, I don’t care. It’s your problem if you want to get your child to consent before you do anything that relates to that child – you might as well keep them in your womb until they attain the legal age of 18 or get them talking the minute they are born.
It’s entirely your problem if you want to hide your child from the whole world because there are too many evil eyes – you might as well keep them only within the four walls of your room and not take them to the hospital, school, market square, city centre, and even church (because there are evil people in church too that will want to sap the life out of your child 😂). It’s your problem if you are too afraid that because the internet never forgets and your child didn’t give his/her consent before you posted a beautiful picture of them or news of their birth, they will grow up to chance upon it and probably hate you for life or sue you. Need I ask here also, what’s the difference between not using or sharing a picture of a newborn on social media and waiting until they are 1 year or above…what consent does a 1 year or 5 years child give or waiting until they are that age means the enemies out there can’t kill them anymore? You see why your preference is simply your preference?
You don’t have to rub your personal fears on anybody and try to make it the morally upright rule or “matured way of doing things”. Let me remain immature in my personal decisions and life choices – as long as you’re not the one feeding me, I don’t care about your “maturity titles”.
Everything you decide to do in life as an adult is your personal choice and based on your fears or experiences of life. I agree not everybody has had a positive experience in life based on their background and the families they are coming from (or the spirits that are chasing them in life) but there are no rules in life that says that your personal fears has to be my fears or your personal choices should be mine as well and that it’s wrong if I do not do what you do.
We decided exclusively whether it was right or wrong to inform anybody we were expecting a child and when exactly we should, that we had put to bed, that we were naming and dedicating the child, that you are welcome to visit or not…and by extension only we will ultimately decide whether you have any part to play in the life of the child or not. When we don’t give you that exclusive right, you don’t take it because you are whoever…at best, you play a spectator role. 😂 As for being happy for us or not, we have no control over it…it’s entirely your choice. 😜
Your birthday is here again today! Not only that, but it’s also our traditional marriage anniversary. Tomorrow will be our wedding anniversary. You know all this, and you might have heard it before, but it’s still important that you hear it again…that,
you’re the best of life’s blessings to me and I am eternally grateful
I have been grateful every single day since we set out on this journey less traveled by many for fear of many unknowns and heartbreaks. I don’t have to say it every single day for you to know I am, right? I know you’ll agree because even though I know your ears are so sweet and always wanting to hear something (news, gossips, sweet nothings), hearing the same thing everyday will bore you to death. See? I know you too well 😜.
Typical of me, I always lose some sleep on occasions like this watching you sleep soundly and also lost in thought over how far we’ve come and how grateful we should be for God’s divine providence that has kept us. I usually sing in my head a few lines from that our favorite song that goes like…
“Your Grace and Mercy brought us through.
We living this moment because of You.
We want to thank You and praise You too.
For Your Grace and Mercy brought us through”
Sometimes I shed a few emotional tears that you never see, for a man must never be seen crying, even if they are tears of joy or gratitude for divine providence, right? 😂🙈
We were younger than most folks when we started out and still younger when we got married. I know how we always laugh when we remember how that “our very young members are getting married” announcement was made in Church and I know how that makes you feel 😜. I think laughing is one of our good perks because we always someway somehow find something to laugh about. I love that a lot…please don’t ever stop laughing with me? Aww! 😂
It feels like a lot of years have passed and we are still young and still stuck in our lovely twenties (we just can’t wait to get out of it huh? 😂). But the good thing about us being young is that we had a tremendous amount of zeal, faith and belief in what we had as true undying love that’s willing to go the extra mile. And surely the extra mile we went. I still see that zeal, faith and belief in you and it’s simply beautiful to behold, you never know…I see a lot of things. If you like call me “the seer” like we used to secretly call someone back in our school days. 😂🙈
Truth is we know our own love story and life story…nobody can tell it better than us. At best, they can only misrepresent it, even they that have been the closest to us. We know better all the things we have been through…the good, bad and ugly. I know you will laugh here because you know a lot of our folks think we’ve never seen ugly days 😂.
But all in all, the best part about you and I on this beautiful adventure has been God…how He keeps orchestrating things in our favour.
With Him, our relationship has been one heaven of an adventure; one I wouldn’t trade for anything. It’s all been worth it…all the love, all the sacrifices. May we never take God for granted.
Two years of distance marriage gave us academic laurels plus some beautiful life lessons and adorable memories of living apart. That was amazing, let’s try it again 😜.
One year living together has given us it’s own share of amazing memories topped with a beautiful bundle of joy that only you gets the privilege of naming “Sweet Face“. Such an adorable product of our secret antics in the night must surely have a sweet face 😂. I know you wished she came in your birth month December so you can boss over me but sorry she couldn’t wait to see me 😜.
Three years of marriage and we can finally say “me + you = three“. Trinity is good.
Now we can go back to achieving some more academic laurels, or better still stay put and make more cuties and sweet faces? 😜
Truly, on this occasion of your birthday, I’m just thankful for how God has made it all work out so well for you and I’m proud to have you in my life.
Now let the celebrations begin! Happy Birthday Dear! Savour every moment!
”The first and second surgeries to remove [her] testicles and penis were successful. The third surgery to transplant ovaries into her body led to serious complications. And [her] last surgery to transplant a uterus, so that the transgender woman might be able to have children, ultimately killed her”
The trans thing is growing at a fast rate and becoming very unsettling. It’s receiving so much push and publicity at a very discomforting level. Society in the name of Modernity and Human Rights is increasingly being accommodating of things that clearly should be “unacceptable”. We now have a growing number of people identifying as:
Homosexuals
Transgender people
Transracial people
Transabled people
Trans-aged people
Trans-species people
What’s the next big thing and where does this end??
OK, so I watched a movie recently and a guy brought a lady home and midway into the kissing and all, he realized the lady was actually “hard” down there. You can imagine the shock and emotional trauma on his face. He told his friend who then laughed at him that per the episode described, he’s TECHNICALLY A GAY now 😂😂
Then recently a guy was being tried in court for stabbing and killing a woman he slept with. Apparently two minutes after the sex, the woman told him she was actually born male. And the guys defense in court? He said he’s sorry but he absolutely lost it! And why wouldn’t he? 😂😂
This things are real? Wow!
I sometimes think every responsible parent and yet to be parents must begin to shiver at the thought of the kind of society their children are going to be raised in and the overwhelming work of damage control they would need to do to keep their children sane. Imagine your little girl asking you if she can identify as a boy?
We have a lot of work to do in teaching our children all the good stuff about their sexuality and how they should accept and embrace their God-given sexualities. And the best ways they can work through anything they seem not to like about themselves.
And we may have to do it way earlier before they stumble on all the garbage out there. The church will not do it for us and when we wait too long, the schools and this technologically advanced age may corrupt them way beyond repair before we even begin thinking of doing damage control.
A lady friend of ours recently said by age four (4) she will begin to give her kids thorough but well-thought-out sex education because you wait too long and you will be surprised what your kids already know. At first my wife and I laughed at the idea of them being too young but on a second thought, it’s a very cool idea. We just have to make sure all the information churned out are very age-appropriate. And surely, with all that is going on in the world, sex education for kids must surely include gender confusion education.
Parents have a lot of work to do in shaping their kids’ minds before they get polluted by all that is out.
I envisage the parenting battle is going to be harder than before in this new age of sexual revolution. And I believe would-be couples and parents must not close their eyes on starting discussions along these lines.
Like I always say, it’s better to know what your partner thinks about something (a habit, a societal ill, etc.) before you marry them than to wait until marriage to discover. For instance, you don’t assume your partner wants kids and would want to raise them a certain way only to marry and realize he/she does not even want them in the first place or would want to raise them that way.
And I hope by telling my children some day that I want them to be everything or whatever they want to become in life, they do not assume the impression or freedom to want to become anything trans. If they try I will very sternly tell them to look inside their pants and tell me what they see. 😂😂
But seriously, God forbid it! But I hope He also grants us wisdom in dealing with any such eventualities should they occur, because the world as we see it now, we must be prepared and keep an open mind for just anything.
God help us all! 😂
A girl didn’t want to become like her mother when she grows up because all she does is cook, cook, cook and clean, clean, clean. She wanted to become the CEO of her own company and have people serve her, and her Dad was pleased with her ambitions.
Her mother was sad hearing that from her daughter and all the more sad at her husband for encouraging their daughter to look mean on her duty as a wife and mother.
So, she gave up her duties for a few days and her daughter wrote something beautiful in the end that touched her heart. Her daughter had a change of mindset.
She wants to become like her mum when she grows up
The lesson I picked?
Value motherhood. And teach your daughters how to become mothers first because everything else comes down to that (Don’t read it wrong).
Just “misguidedly” get pregnant without being married and you will know whether the church that claims it loves you or everybody (sinners included) really do. If they don’t call you names, shame you, roll eyes at you like angels…come back and tell me. The church has a history and statistics in that area.
The same people that will treat you in church like dirt when your sins or “shortcomings” come to the open, are the same people who indulge in secret sins…some more grave than yours. It’s simple…the church’s attitude screams “do it but don’t get caught”; hide it as much as you can, otherwise you are in for trouble.
That is why the ones who get pregnant and immediately marry as “damage control” are more “accepted” by the church than the ones who unfortunately don’t. Trust me, when a church leader gets somebody pregnant, you can bet that the church will encourage and support him to immediately marry her. In that situation, the Church is OK with applying the Exodus 22:16 scripture to support the action [Read old post on that scripture here: Fornication…]. They will do everything possible to clean the mess of a church leader from getting into the public domain. We’ve seen, heard, and read of it countless times. But let the tables turn and a mere church member get tangled in same situation. You will see a different scripture and modus operandi being applied or enforced. Let a church elder or Pastor’s child get in the same mess as a mere member and just watch how both situations will be handled. The church cares more about protecting the image of its leaders and their household than the image of its members.
When we say there is no fairness or equality in the church and can never be, people say we are just “fault finders”. Well, whatever it is, some of us choose to live with the simple principle that when you raise your expectations of church, just like anything else, you risk getting hurt. So, just do Christ; don’t do Church.
The church as a human setting is full of judgmental people. Period! If you don’t want to be judged and discriminated against, don’t go to church; otherwise, keep an open eye and open mind and expect the worse to sometimes happen. It’s simple…the church preaches forgiveness and repentance but judges and shames “saved” people who fall back into certain sins! Just accept it because it’s the truth everywhere. Some sins are pardonable, others are not…and by now you should know where the sin of unmarried pregnancy falls. The church treats it as an abomination, a detestable thing that is deserving of hate…and not love. If you can deal with it, stay. If you can’t, leave and find solace where your soul will get the peace it needs. Your destiny is not tied to a church, it’s tied to Christ.
But truth for me is, no child should be treated as an abomination whether conceived in wedlock or out of wedlock. Sadly, the church will rather be happier you secretly kill or abort a child and come back to the front roll next Sunday and shout “glory hallelujah” as if nothing happened. But a church that makes you see a “child from a forgivable act” as an abomination should not be a good environment for you and your child. You may not like it but whether you do or not, nobody goes to or stays at a place where they are disliked. Well, I wouldn’t.
Nobody says churches should encourage promiscuity, sin or wrongdoing. Whether they think shaming people deters others from same acts; or accepting, loving and supporting them encourages others into same acts…whichever way they look at it, the ultimate should be doing what Jesus would have done. No good parent teaches or encourages his/her children to be promiscuous, but when they go wayward (because one can never rule out that possibility, even God or Jesus wouldn’t), what do good parents do?
Nonetheless, whatever the failings of the church, may God grant grace that we flee fornication so we would not have to deal with all the negatives of unmarried pregnancies.
Everything Marriage 