Praising Him in All Seasons

When we fall on hard times, often times, we ask, ‘Why me?’ When death calls or illness visits, sometimes we are moved to curse God. When we lose our prestigious jobs, worries crease our brows, as our lives are upended. But when we believe in His bounty, when we believe that we are just upon another season, that the sun rises tomorrow, then, we praise him:

Nitakusifu, nitakuinua
Nitakuchezea, nitakuimbia
Nitakutangaza, nitakutabiri
Ewe Jemedari, mmiliki wa yote.

(I will praise and exalt You
I will sing and dance in Your honour
I will proclaim and profess You
Oh Great General, Sovereign over all.)

2020. Covid-19. The year the world stood still. I had quit my job in mid-2018, intending to do business. And business I did, a start-up of sorts. Well, as statistics go, that a majority of business fails in their formative years, mine was no exception. Meaning I resorted to odd jobs here and there to survive. Well, come February 2020, I managed to finagle into a management job… A month later… Boom! The president initiated the country’s lockdown.

Fast forward to 2023… So many people have I lost… peers, colleagues, relatives, neighbours, acquaintances… The greatest lesson in all this? I have learnt to count my blessings: good health, the gift of life, God’s mysterious providence, time… I have also learnt to let go… of people, some dreams, love that was never meant to be… I have also learned to trust more in Him… to let Him direct my life, what I do, say, think… Finally, the tunnel has been obliterated and all around me is light.

Elohi tembea, tembea nami
Usiku wa kiza, tembea nami
Jua kucha-kutwa, tembea nami
Nikiwa nayo pumzi, tembea nami.

(Elohim walk with me
In the dark of night, walk with me
As the sun shines and sets, walk with me
As long as I have breath in me, walk with me).

Comments

My-Once Molly (Praying for a Rainbow),

Dear Molly, I hope you are ok and are keeping safe in these floods. As for me, I am heartbroken. I am in pain. My mind, my body, my spirit aches. I am numb with grief. As is the nation of Kenya. The picture just won’t get out of our minds – the father, trudging stoically, his dead, muddy son slung over his shoulder. It’s a devastating image… the screams, elsewhere, as a boat capsizes, the swollen river swallows a lorry… Izrael has visited the land. Dear Molly, a while back, the nation faced drought. Then, images of dead livestock, emaciated men, women and children, parched, cracked earth, haunted our screens. Elsewhere where there was a glut in food production, the farmers cried for their fellow starving countrymen. They demanded for lorries to traverse the rutted roads and take the produce to their brethren… collectively, we prayed for rain. Dear Molly... will we ever catch a break as Kenya? The Covid-19 pandemic that paralysed lives and livelihoods in 2020 as we recovered from th...

My-Once Molly (thinking of Valentine),

My-Once Molly… the girl who broke my heart, the one who got away, the one who promised me the world and left me to survive alone – typical of our Kenyan politicians… I hope you are good. Now, as February – the month of love – lurks about, I find myself thinking of you. Thing is, my dear Molly, I have new neighbours. A young couple, very much in love like we once were. The young lady, her name is Val… maybe Valentine… I don’t know. This Val, a spirited girl with rich, deep, heaving laughter - almost like yours. Her smile… ah! You should see it. The shine of the morning sun distilling the dew upon cool meadows… I am totally in love with her. Alarmingly, she teases me much and I am getting ideas… Molly, dear, wherever you are, please pray for me… the temptation is too much. If you don’t, the frail creature that I am may fall. This, despite having numerous songs in my playlist to warn me. Invariably, Majengo – that infamous locale – does a dishonourable appearance in most of them… ‘Maj...

My Once-Molly (A Theft),

Hi Molly. How are you? The floods are here and I almost drowned – should have gone for swimming lessons as you often times suggested. Anyways, I now walk with a motorcycle tire’s tube and pump in my backpack. DIY lifesaver gear as instructed by Grade 3 CBC cohort. Dear Molly, as I informed you last time, I shifted. Partly, the floods, partly, change, partly, finances. This Creative Writing journey is taking a bit of time to yield fruits, but I hang on, consoled by the words of one Ernest Hemingway, whose ending was horrible: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Where I shifted to, is a downgrade. ‘Mabati’ rooms – plenty of stories, though as living is communal and one’s business is everyone’s business. Such as the recent theft – a woofer, charger, ‘meko’ gas, a bar of soap, and a bucket of maize flower - that’s how ‘flour’ is pronounced, FIY. Must have been pretty hungry, them thieves. How it unfolded. A bit of commotion early mor...

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