People are not their situations

For some reason I woke up around 6:00am that Sunday morning. Church wasn’t till later but I knew I had to go out to look for fuel. The heat of the previous day without electricity was almost unbearable and I couldn’t afford a repeat.

Driving around a bit, I finally found a filling station with about 3 cars on the queue. The catch? Well, they were not selling fuel…yet. A tanker had come to discharge fuel and they wouldn’t start selling fuel until it was done. Did you know discharging takes over an hour? Well, now I know.

Rather than sitting in the car doing nothing, I decided to go strike up conversation with those discharging the fuel. As I walked down to the tanks, I couldn’t help but notice the jerrycan queue which was probably longer than the queue for cars. “Oh well, I will leave here one day“, I thought to myself.

Don’t get comfortable

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A short true life story to begin: I know a certain guy who traveled out of his native country to go further his education. However, he always had a plan to return “home” after his studies to build his business empire. 1 year after the completion of his studies, he found himself stuck abroad – the fear of “what to do if i return” had crippled him. He began to think to himself, “maybe this place isn’t so bad after all”…he had gotten comfortable.

I met him in Church (part 3)

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You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.

~The fall~

Even he was amazed at how lucky he was with this one. It didn’t take long for him to convince her that sex between two consenting adults that love themselves irrespective of marital status was not against the laws in the Holy Book. His explanation was based off 1 Corinthians 6. “Paul said you should not take your body and be with a harlot. Are you a harlot?”

As time went on, He had even succeeded in cutting her off from the fold. She had a fallout with her choir leader in Church and he had advised her to leave the Church completely. At that point, he had complete control over her because even for a heathen, he knew there was something about that Word they preach in Churches that is able to pierce through hearts. That wasn’t good for ‘business’.

Discussions: The woes of a long distance relationship

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Thank you to all those who dropped comments on the just concluded series: The woes of a long distance relationship (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3). Like I said at the beginning of that series, the story was meant to stir conversation and discussion. This post will be a compilation of comments and some more.

• Communication: This is key. Communication- not just “we talk everyday” but more about “we talk about the things that need to be talked about”. Folake and Tayo should have constantly evaluated their relationship and should have caught the hint when things started drifting. Since the other person is not inside your head, complaining to yourself is pointless. “There’s no time. I’m too busy”- Just drop that line. You make time for what is important to you.
• Don’t be selfish: If you are serious enough to be in a relationship with someone thousands of miles away, then you are planning for the long haul. In that case, you need to start thinking of your plans that will affect the other person. While we all have our individual plans, like Folake who wanted to do her PhD,

The woes of a long distance relationship (final part)

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Previous posts: Part 1 and Part 2.

The Long Distance Relationship

He’s sure the people at Skype had convened a couple of times to discuss if they should start charging these two account: tayo_adeyele and hadafolake. Initially, a bug in Vectone Mobile allowed her to call him at 1p per minute. Until they found out and blocked it. Calling from Nigeria was expensive. It was much easier for her to buy one of those packages- £5 for 100 mins or something. Funny names they have over there- Lyca, Lebara, Vectone.

At first, LDR wasn’t as bad as they had thought. Although they had to alter their sleeping patterns, it was okay. It was only for a few months. How many months till you see her again? 2 months. Where will you stay when you travel? Hmm…I haven’t thought about that. With her I guess. LOL! You’d stay with her in winter?

The woes of a long distance relationship (part 2)

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You can read part 1 here.

The relationship

Three years later, Tayo had graduated, served his Fatherland and was now working. Waking up by 5am everyday to get to work was not really the plan he had in his head when he was in school. In fact, he had practically sworn “I will work for no one!” But here he was, yawning at 3:15pm and wondering why the earth was moving very slowly today. His phone rings.

“Hi babe, how’s work?” The voice on the other end asked.

The woes of a long distance relationship

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I figured (yes, I always figure) that this will be a nice topic for us to discuss since relationships are a major part of our lives. We’d focus on dating/courtship/marriage kind of relationships. I’d write different stories and then we would discuss these stories.

The meeting

Tayo was every teacher’s boy; class representative, loved by a lot, he was in his final year. One day, his Maths professor, Prof. James called him into his office.

“Tayo, I’m short of hands for an exam coming up for some 300 level students. I was wondering if you could help invigilate“.

“Sure thing sir, it will be my pleasure. What day sir?“

“Wednesday by 3pm.“

The date was set, Tayo was at the venue 30 minutes before time. This wasn’t his first invigilation. It will probably be his last though. Final Exams were round the corner and-

His thoughts were disrupted as the students started shuffling into the hall. Game face on! Wait…game face off. “Who is that?” He mumbled to himself as he saw

Just Enough Information

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Recently, I’ve been practicing “Just enough information”, learning to answer just enough to any question. There are two things that are relevant to note for this post:

1. Not everybody needs to know
2. Not everybody wants to know

Not everybody needs to know the in-depth details of your life, not necessarily because of who they are but because of the sensitivity of the info.

Secondly, not everybody wants to know. It’s not everyone who asks how you are doing that really wants to know- it could just be courtesy.

Let’s take a story:

Is less better? A conversation on

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This is a conversation I had with a friend of mine, speaking about the post on “Is less better?“. It’s pretty insightful.

Friend: So I thought about your blogpost. Faith normally isn’t (shouldn’t be) tied to (lack of) positioning (like the preparation u have) for what you are having faith for. Back to the basics. Faith comes by hearing, hearing from God’s word. So you can have more faith, when you know God’s word concerning the situation. Not just knowing, more like hearing it in you. Like the way Bishop David Oyedepo (for example) has reckless faith about health and prosperity. Its revelation, not preparation, or the lack of it that increases faith. If you have more or less faith because or the physical situation, then its not faith.

Me: :p I got around to reading your reply yesterday. I was confused so I said I’d read it again. Lemme try now

***a few mins later***
Me: Ah, I see

Friend: *laughs*

Me: So it’s either you believe or you don’t; That’s in d context of a particular situation

Friend: Well, my point is, having or not, does not contribute to faith…If your faith is based on what u have or don’t, then its not faith

Me: Okay

Friend: Its easier to have real faith when u find God’s word concerning you. And hold to it. For instance, Gal 6:9- The basis for me doing a lot of things in advance as long as it is good because the day of reckoning would soon come. So yea, when I keep doing my exams and taking certs and reading books and wondering if I’m killing myself, I remember his word, and believe that my due season is close and then refuse to faint.

The problem is, specifics. Say you’re trusting for a job. Well, you can hang on a generic scripture or you can have the Holy Spirit interpret a generic scripture to mean a specific to you

Food for thought:

Have you found out what the Word of God says for that particular situation you are in right now?

Life nugget:

Proverbs 27:17 “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.”

Is less better?

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Have you ever been in a situation where you have an exam for example, and just before you start studying for it, you go through a past question paper, and you rely on your common sense and intuition and even though you don’t do excellently well, you do well enough. Then you study for the exam, come back to the same past question paper and then it just seems more difficult?