Of late, I have been filling up drafts in my editor. I have been running short of ideas despite the short tips I write from my Evernote and Keep. I thought maybe, why shouldn’t I resuscitate my blog by re-posting the only one post that took me to this new path? The post that I sent to drafts? I wrote this in 2012 in my blogger. It is the story that gathered more readers than I could imagine. People called me on this telling me of how brave I am while others confronted me of my stupidity.
Here you go: Do not mind the poor grammar, verb and tense confusion
The Day God Killed ‘Me’
Awesome title huh? Yeah this is a story of how God killed ‘me’. I really love sharing what the universe has taught me. Whenever I write, I write from my soul and that complements what I usually tell my friends, “I rather tell you the truth than tell you something to please your ears.” This is all SilomaSays is all about, “More to reality than old parchments and desiccated bottles of ink.”
Enough of that, now to my story.
It all started in High School. The place many wish to go back or the place where people like me will never wish to go even for that final year certificate. I don’t talk much about my high school life, I don’t tell stories of the friends I made, the fun I had because I totally had none. High school to me was not just a nightmare but the darkest pit in hell. This is why.
I joined this high school in Form One second term having schooled in other two high schools in one term. Funny, I was the only of my tribe in the whole school. I remember my classmates asking me where I came from and they would look at each other in bewilderment. People like us were categorized as an “X”. Soon, people started making fun of me, a thing I was never used to before. I took everything so personal. My peers were making fun of me and all of this was killing me.
It ha knew a form four whom I reported those making fun of me to. What followed was hell! The condition went from bad to worse. The Form Two’s were beaten, then the form four’s left, what next? Surprisingly, the form two’s had no grudge against me but my peers hated me with a passion.
I hated my high school for one reason, students classified themselves according to how cool you are, where you come from, how aggressive you are etc. Now there was the top class of cool guys who were aggressive pack leaders during school events, they were aware of the urban language, ‘modern’ vices and latest songs, these guys had a voice, an impact. We then had the moderately cool guys whose work was to praise the pack leaders, they would shine the leaders with glory. Their work was to blindly follow and make minor utterances. We then had the focused ones who were bowed to by everyone by their intellect. These guys were few and had great wisdom. They were usually quiet.
Then we had the spiritual ones who mostly lay in the focused lot and other who lay in the “X” category. Finally, at the bottom, stained with soot was ‘us’ the “X’s” who were to be seen and not to be heard. No one from the top class would interact with you because you were regarded as filth and it would be a great shame if they were seen with you. I remember there was a time I was walking with a ‘friend’ up to the dining hall and on nearing the hall he said to me that am an “X” I should not be seen around him. The stigma was untold as even getting a group during lab sessions was hectic, group work was also a big stress as no one would want you near them.
I joined basketball as I had passion for basketball since birth. The irony was that I saw my first basketball court in high school. With perseverance as we had only one court in high school, I grasped the game later in form three. Basketball became my best friend but challenges ceased not. I was disliked, even by the form ones who didn’t even know me. I was so much filth that even as I was announced as MVP in the parade, almost everyone would boo though I would receive some few claps from the Christian “X’s” though.
Self-pity and bad thoughts distracted my school life, many are the times I wished I rather be dead than face all this humiliation. I would perform very poor in school as I thought I was no good in anything. As basketball was my friend, I would not play it all the time. I took to writing. I started writing poetry. I found a mate who did poetry too and we would display our art on the notice board every week end. We recruited some form one’s, two’s and threes and we grew from two to nine members and we thought of a club. I had that courage of going to the principal and asking for a new club formation even though I was a poor performer. He knew that I was disliked. The club wasn’t formed. I love leaving it like that.
The stressed, hopeless, hated “X” never gave up. I continued spilling my ink onto those parchments and my art was deep. I was writing from the soul. It was so rich in emotions and feelings because I was channeling what I felt to art. I was not an angel in high school and neither was I a devil. I had my ills yes, but I didn’t quite understand why people hated me that much. I had all the reasons to quit living as I seemed to have no positive progress in my life.
This was the description of the ‘me’ in high school and why God killed ‘me’. Many were the times I cursed God, Many were the times I said ill words about Christians and Christianity. I hated my life so much that I would tell God to kill me. I wished death upon my life and sometimes I would even ask God what He was waiting for. I considered God as a liar because I used to pray hard, try to study, go to the Christian Union (CU) after prep services but nothing good came out of it.
SEE ALSO: Why Do I Write?
No matter how bad things had become, I would still go to that CU, praise and worship and confess that God may forgive me. There were times I would really get spiritual in school but other times I would lose complete hope in God. For long I was a rebounding ball. I was the hopeless ‘me’, the negative ‘me’, the weak ‘me’, the crying ‘me’ and the ‘me’ in me had become a burden. I was hopeless, totally hopeless that I wasn’t even reading for my final year exams. I saw that life was grabbed from me and I had no life. I remember there was a time my mother told me to write what I would get for my final year exams. She shook her head and was so scared that the once bright son in the society is going to shame her.
Guys, God will always manifest himself in your life. All we have to do is to trust His timing. No matter how much I had seen that God has let me down, there was always that rebounding spirit that made me confess and continue worshiping him. It reached a time, at the very end before the main exam, when God now was ready to kill ‘me’. To kill the abstract filthy ‘me’ that people saw, to kill the ‘me’ that was covering the real ‘me’ that did not trust Him, but trusted and believed what people said of me.
For the first time in my high school life I was relaxed, this feeling was awesome, it was not just that feeling that you feel when you are finishing school but that awesome feeling when the spirit is in you. For the first time in my high school life I was courageous and had no worries in life. I felt that am now a person worthy of respect. I had another perspective of life because God had killed that past ‘me’.
It was so bizarre for a boy from the bush to get a grade he has never had in his entire high school history nor ever neared a grade lower than that. It was so bizarre for a hopeless “X” categorized boy who seemed to have no future to be the outstanding guy in his lot. I was index number 137. Results were posted on charts and placed on the noticeboard with your big passport photo and a big writing of your grade underneath. I was on the fourth chart as we were grouped according to our index numbers. I was the top in that chart. I remember standing on that notice board for almost 30 minutes as thoughts of my past bombarded in my brain. Tears almost gave a stream on my cheeks but I let them flow to the heart. I whispered “Thank You God!”
I troubled myself for four years, I thought God had forgotten me, I thought I had no life. I was so blinded to what others saw of me. I hated myself, I looked down upon myself, I thought I could not make it as I was not prepared but I tried to do one thing, I did my best to look for God. Any expert would say it is impossible for me to get such a grade but God would say it is possible. I had no patience but God proved to me that He will manifest in His own time. God’s timing is the best, we humans we have a weakness of wanting to have our things done at our own timing. You are not forgotten. If everything was done at my own timing, I wouldn’t share this story with you. Recently, someone told me that at any particular moment, there is tragedy in the world and there is happiness elsewhere, there is a blessing and also a curse, a family is mourning while another is celebrating a new life. All these things happen but that does not change who God is. Guys, let us stop being bitter with God simply because we don’t have what we wish done at our convenient timing.
SEE ALSO: Is God a Murderer?
You don’t need to be extraordinary to do extraordinary things, just do what you are required to do and give it your best and God will do the extraordinary.
Famous quotes say:-
“You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.” ~Swami Vivekananda
“Prayer is not asking. It’s a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weaknesses. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
You don’t need to be a leader of the pack and show your might upon the worldly. We humans tend to please other humans and not the creator. How great is God that He only says, call upon my name and you will do wonders, you will drive out demons etc.? No matter how down you feel because people have put you there, remember the one who placed them there has a great place for you. If I have favor from the one who grasps the universe on His palm what will his creation do to me? I will always say, it doesn’t matter when you come to Him. He will always forgive and love you for who you are. And Christians out there don’t be half-baked, worship in truth and in spirit and God will truly manifest Himself in your life.