They passed
Dropping their coins
Each one
Today was good
At times was real bad
That I couldn’t get some food
Yet I wondered
And pondered
On how I could get yonder
To the ripple of the water
I tried again,
Telling each one of my plight
Yet they all felt fine
By dropping some dime
Then……
He passed by
Not pleasant to the eyes
So why make the cry
But he asked
Would you like to get to the well?
What a question
Maybe he would help I thought
Finally someone to show some love
So I wailed
Telling my tale
Of how I seemed so late
Just to get to the fountain
I seemed to say
Could you stay?
And help me to the way
Just to the fountain
But what love the master displayed
“Stand up, Pick up your mat and walk” He said
And I was healed
Shocked and pleased
I wondered
Not about the law
But at such love
Which didn’t wait for me to ask?
WHAT AWESOME LOVE
– Dr bolaji akanni
Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance. 1 Corinthians 14:17 NLT
Be patient in trouble and always be prayerful. Romans 12:26 NLY
I once heard the story of a man who gave his son a puzzle to solve. He disarranged a world map puzzle and gave his son to arrange it back because he was disturbing his meditation. Unknown to him, at the back of the world map puzzle was the picture of a man. The boy did not waste time arranging it back and this surprised the father greatly. He asked the little boy how he did it and his response was “If the man is right, the world would be right”.
When problems arise in your marriage and everything seems to be in disarray, and you are considering where to start from, remember what that little boy said – “If the man is right, the world would be right”. The solution could just be you. How do I mean? When you act right or decide to put things right in your own life, it influences a change in your partner thereby making your marriage right. Let the change in your marriage or relationship start from you. You don’t have to wait for your spouse to change first. Be an actor of love and not only a ‘reactor’. Take time to pray about the problems and situations you are going through, committing your spouse to God. I am confident that He would make a way out for you. One thing I found out about prayer is that it changes you first. So let your prayers change you for your situation to become right. Allow God to work in your life and your spouses’. Let your actions be commensurate to your prayers. Pray for a change and expect a change.
At times, the solution may be a change in character or habit. Majority of problems in homes are caused by character and habit differences. For instance, a dirty wife with a shabby dress sense and unsubmissive attitude has gracefully invited problems into her home. Such a woman would be wasting her time if she goes 40days fasting and prayer because of the problem. All she needs to do is to change her ways first. Check your life first; it could be your spending habits, nagging attitude, pride, anger, culinary skills, nonchalant attitude…
What are those things you need to do away with? Let the change start from you, be determined to win your spouse back with love and humility. Pray to God, learn of Him and let Him work on your character. God wants to dry away your tears, heal your heart and relieve you of your pains, only just allow Him to perfect His work in you, remoulding your character. For when He changes you, it influences your partner to change, normalcy returns and then your heart is filled with joy. I Peter 3:1 sets the tone – Wives, in a similar way, place yourselves under your husbands’ authority. Some husbands may not obey God’s word. Their wives could win these men for Christ by the way they live without saying anything.
After the change has come, remember to always succeed in your marriage everyday.
busola oshinubi
Love never gives up, never looses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance. 1 Corinthians 14: 7 (NLT)
Perhaps you are at the crossroad about to make a decision; Quit or endure? You are facing a lot of problems in your marriage that is getting you hardened by the day. You have probably exerted efforts to make your marriage work instead, it is growing worse. Love has turned sour; seeing your partner irritates you. Uhm … You say marriage is not a bed of roses.
I can understand how you feel. Marriage may not be a bed of roses to you but even if it were so, the rose plants I know have thorns in their stem. Sometimes you may get a small ‘sting’ while trying to pick the roses. Marriage may not fit exactly like what we were being told in the fairy tales “and they lived happily ever after”. It usually comes with very big challenges. Before you make your decision to quit, I would like to remind you that God is so much more interested in your situation and He wants a turn around for you so that you may enjoy the blessedness of marriage. Like the phrase, “it’s not over until it is over”, I know your innermost desire is to see a turn around in your marriage.
Consider this: The way you respond to life determines what you get from it – Gal 6:7. Your attitude affects a lot of things and as you truly desire a change, be positive in your mind. Don’t base your marriage on feelings because they can be very deceptive rather let it be based on choice; the choice to always stick together; choice to love no matter what. See those problems as a challenges; a challenge to love better, to be more patient; to learn. When you see problems as a challenge, you have already laid a foundation for change and for the solution. Challenges are meant to make you better. It works when you are positive in your mind about your situation, believing that turbulent times will pass away. No matter the situation, make a decision today that you will win your spouse back to love.
Have you ever considered why a larva has to go through a lot of struggle in the cocoons to become a beautiful butterfly? Of course to get rid of the ugly part. If the Larva had refused to see the cocoon as a challenge and decides to react negatively, it would die as a larva.
Regardless of the situation, be positive in your mind, don’t give up in Love. Be determined to win your partner back. Then you will enjoy the blessedness in marriage. You will begin to succeed everyday in your marriage.
– busola oshinubi
I’m sure if we continued, we could go on and on about Love because of its nature. But I will like to round up what we started, so we can move on to other things.
My desire is that after we’re through here we can say “I Love You” with a proper understanding of what we say. Remember the Scriptures say “By Understanding a house is established”. Everyone needs to act with understanding, it’s the greatest key to life.
Everyday I get to experience the different sides to love. I have found that Love grows when it is nourished properly. For love to grow some basic nutrients like Patience, Forgiveness, Appreciation, Faithfulness, Honesty, Care, Understanding, Trust and even more, needs to be continuously added. For a relationship to grow in love, these things need to abound. For love to grow, appreciation of one another even as weaknesses begin to show is very important. I have found that the closer a couple get, the more they see each other’s weakness and the more they see this, there is a need to pause and remember the goodies of the relationship. Appreciate your partner for the good person he or she is despite the many weaknesses you see and try to speak the truth in love about the other short comings you see.
Forgiveness after every argument is very important. Every argument is like a time of breaking bottles/glass and you know what happens with bottles. When you don’t clean properly, you find little bits of the pieces here and there causing harm later. To build a successful Love relationship that will go to the next level, you need to forgive and forgive and forgive. Take care of your hurts, and don’t hold grudges. Whenever you find the next piece of bottle, sweep it off like the rest, don’t allow it to cause any havoc.
Everyone needs and desires to be cared for. There’s that person in everyone that calls for attention. Most of us seek this care in our love relationship. It gets really disappointing when we don’t find it and when we find it we call it Heaven.
Honesty is very important to sustain a love in relationship, when a party begins to doubt the other person, a break down is almost inevitable. There must be absolute trust. This solves a lot of problems before they arise. It helps love to believe all things.
Faithfulness is also very key in a love relationship. Both parties need to be committed to the relationship. Never give room for distractions. I have found out that distraction come the minute you decide to settle in a relationship. Then all the Romeos and Juliets surface, just when you decided to start your relationship. Your commitment and integrity will be your stay in days like this. You need to get to understand its not just about how you feel alone. It’s also about the sense in how you feel and how right is what you feel. Love is not just a heart thing but a head thing.
Trust comes when the other partner sees day by day your honesty andfaithfulness.
Trust is earned when you don’t leave your partner in the dark. In love you should be an open book.
You need to display Understanding of your partner especially in the way you react at the display of his or her weakness. You need to cover up for one another and make up for each other’s deficiencies. Remember the story of Abigail how she rose up to clear her husband’s mess (I Samuel 25:14-37) and also Zipporah Moses’ wife when God was about to strike against them (Exodus 4:24-25).
You can never have enough patience, each day you need to increase in patience. Patience is a precious virtue you can’t have too much of. Bible says “For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise …” (Heb 10:35). Even after you have done all that God requires of you in a relationship, the effect or result is not automatic. You need to patiently wait to see the change in your partner while prayerfully doing what is right.
Finally, Love is not all soft; there is a tough side to it. Love must be firm too! Sometimes in a Love relationship you need to make some decisions that might seem harsh or even difficult in order to correct a wrong that has been done. You need to understand that as much as Love believes all things and forgives all things, you must be wise and check out the fact. It doesn’t make you gullible.
Always pray that God will teach you each day to Love more. Let us love people around us. Make love a lifestyle. You will find that it will make you a better person.
Some Quotes on Love
Real love is a permanently self-enlarging experience.
- Scott Peck, O Magazine, February 2004
The first duty of love is to listen.
Paul Tillich (1886 – 1965), O Magazine
– lola ezeifeoma
| “Greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends”
I must confess that love involves having strong emotional feelings for a person and I am sure everyone appreciates this side of Love. But then it is very insufficient to say Love is only a strong emotional feeling, considering the fact that this feeling is not always there. Sometimes we are hurt deeply by the one we love and at such times the feeling is not that so called strong emotional feeling. In situations like that, do we withdraw and say I don’t love you anymore? No! Love goes beyond how we feel.
Sometimes Love is about forgetting about ourselves. Love does not seek its own. It’s about laying down one’s lives, denying one’s self pleasures, delaying pursing personal dreams and even more for the one we say we love. Laying down our lives sometimes is forsaking the hurt we feel to give way for forgiveness, in order to have the pleasure of that strong emotion again. I have even found that when we say we love a person and indeed if we love a person, we always seek restoration whenever there is a fall out.
Another very important side to loving a person is understanding that the other person is not perfect hence perfection is not to be expected. The Bible confirms the fact that we know in parts, hence whatever knowledge of the other person which led to our feelings for him or her is incomplete and one sided, sooner than later the weaknesses will begin to show. I remember something God dropped in my mind while I was courting my husband; God made me realize that He (my husband to be then) would not always do things right and in fact would make mistakes but I had to stick to him always. I think I needed to be told that by God Himself because I always expected so much from people. I am sure everyone needs to know this. Loving a person is accepting the other person through and through. Love seeks to correct wrong, that is why it does not rejoice in unrighteousness. Whenever we discover the shortcomings in our loved ones the right attitude is to seek for means to correct such. It is not an opportunity to feel better than the other person. Love is not about scoring points. I believe love is primarily a choice and only sometimes a feeling. If you want to feel love, choose to love and be patient. – Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher.com
I’ll leave you with this saying for this week. See you next with more on love. Love you!
– lola ezeifeoma |
After I accepted to post articles in this column, I spent some time thinking of what my first article should be about.
After going back and forth for a while, I decided to talk about Love.
Why Love?
Love never fails… I Cor 13:8.
If any relationship will be successful a fundamental issue is love, both parties need to understand what they mean when they say “I love you”.
Through Wisdom a house is built and by understanding a house is established.
Proverbs 24:3
Being a person that believes in saying only what I mean, I started my journey to understanding what Love really means some years ago. (Note that I started the journey and I am still on it). I had just met my husband then and things were getting kind of serious between us. I noticed sometimes I felt this rush of emotions, very strong and sometimes I was just there. The feeling was not always high as I expected. At those times I questioned my love for him. I got confused, I felt like an insect trapped in a web. I needed to define what I felt. Was this Love? Could this be the feeling Celine Dion and the likes sing, write, and act about? If it was it didn’t feel like it.
My quest for answers to the questions bugging my mind took me to my concordance to check for Bible references to the word Love. I found a number of interesting passages.
Here’s one definition I want to start and end with, Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails….
– lola ezeifeoma