Monday, November 9, 2009

Dichotomy of faith and confidence

On the 13th of October, I was sitting in my office around 8.30pm, waiting for the traffic in lekki to reduce and I got a phone call. One of those phone calls that you keep rememebering and wish never came, you look back and wish you never ever have to receive the sort, ever ever again. My friend called to tell me my cousin was in an accident and he had been taken to the hospital. I asked "Is he alright?" and I was told he was fine. I made the neccesary phone calls to alert my other family members and then I got another phone call.." Er... Ayoola has been in a 'fatal' accident" I grew cold all of a sudden, i mean, when you hear "fatal" right... you know its all over.. My head was spining, why did my friend tell me he was "fine" does he not know the meaning of "fatal"? i mean.."fatal" and "fine" can never be in the same sentence. This was not good at all. I was sick with fear, I was praying speaking in tongues and shaking. I still had to drive from lekki to the hospital in Ikeja where I was told he had been taken to. It was not an easy ride. I am naturally a worry-wart. I had absolutely no idea of what I was going to meet in the hospital, I had no idea whom amongts my family had gotten there and who had not, I had no idea who to call without aggravating any one further. I had only one place to turn to........... GOD. I prayed. I spoke in tongues, I made promises to God, HE must have had a laugh. I was weak, cold and hot at the same time. I could not get to the hospital soon enough.
My cousin is only 23. He is one person in my family that is just absolutely reliable. He's so young and so kind, he has a pure heart, a heart of Gold. He would do ANYTHING for me and I for him.
The morning before the accident, he made fun of me that he was back in his Ikeja office and I had to go to Lekki when he had only to get on a bike to work. He was about to eat "agege bread" before I headed out of the house. The next time I saw him was in the hospital. His head was the size of a soccer ball and he was unconscious. His leg was broken, and a multiple skull fracture.
He was on a bike home and he was hit. The bike rider died immediately. My boy was alive, found by someone who decided to look carefully at the body in the gutter, he was found twitching.
Today is 4 weeks since the accident and he has made a tremendous recovery. God has been faithful.
I had to hang on to God, I was walking in only faith because y'all know what a head injury is right???his head was pretty bashed in.I prayed so hard, I was praying at every thought, I was soliciting prayers left right and center. I was having faith. I held on to God( I still am holding on to God). But then I noticed something happend to me, with every news of improvement I heard or saw, I stopped praying, I did not notice at the time, but I reduced the fervency of my prayers, I started having confidence.
Then one day, my cousin told me she went there and he had started talking but a bit of what he was saying was incoherent.........
I remembered God.
I felt so terrible. I had stopped grasping on to faith, and I had started believing in the medicine of it all. I started beleieving the Doctor's reports and the scans, I forgot that it was the same doctors that told us that.." all you need to do now is to pray".
It was then i realised that there was a big big difference in the approach to these things. Faith according to the Bible is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
I had stopped having faith, and I was sorry. I repented of my unbelief and I told God that any confidence I have now, should be in what HE had done and what HE had told me HE was going to do, not the scans, not the x-rays.

This faith business however, is not easy oo.. no, it's a struggle a battle against your own mind. Your mind and education and enlightenment is telling you that someone whose head is bashed in can never regain his full senses, it's telling you he will be a retard, but when God puts a word of comfort in your heart, that just settles it, and you knwo the kick of it, God sometimes shows you HE means what he says, he shows you that when you go to hospital again, Ayoola knows "Nathan Petrelli" and knows that "Victor Esan" was his classmate in Airforce Secondary School.
So I'm not going to worry any more, because I'm holding on in faith,I am going to hold on to God's promises, I remain hopeful that Ayoola will walk out of the hospital, of sound mind and body, I have faith that this healing will be complete. I have faith that God will make me a better person, hopeful that each day, I shall learn something new from life's experiences, new things that would remind me on the need to be totally and utterly dependent on God.

I'm going to put confidence in self to the backseat, and I am going to walk in faith and not by sight!

Have a good week people and have faith, it may be hard, but it will keep a spring in your step!

1 comment:

  1. how is your coz..i hope he's all recovered now.i can imagine what harm head injuries can cause..am sure he's getting the best of healthcare tho The Lord will complete the good work He has started..

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