Living the CHRIST life on a FAB lane… 200stars

Whoop Whoop Whoop…

This is my 200^th post and it is absolutely dedicated to all my very fabulous FAB’ers…

Cheers and more cheers to y’all…

I had thought long and hard as to what to do with this 200^th post.

Then I got another email, this time a reminder email from one of my Readers. That settled what my 200^th post would be on…

“E’ how do you manage to remain Christian in today’s world as a young person? E’ I envy your relationship with God. E’ I would really love for you to mentor me. E’ you are such an inspiration to lots of young people out there. E’ I am having problems with so and SO and I want you to advice me. E’ I wanna be your friend…”

These are prototype of the emails I get on a regular…

and I am really like “WHO ME???????!!!!!!!!!”

I can’t begin to tell you how HUMBLING it is to get even one. Gosh!!! Let me begin this with a disclaimer…

DISCLAIMER;

My life is NOT perfect. I am NOT always good. I am just like any other young girl out there, loving God and by His GRACE, doing right. I make mistakes. I have my issues of course. For example, two days ago, someone really close to me said “I am very disappointed in you Eziaha…” A little over two months ago, I had an issue with an inner circle friend and SOUTH went the friendship (That is the last this would happen without a major fight ooo.  I will fight all I have to keep those in my inner circle there so you guys just know…). Again, I am hardly perfect. But hey, I am a very aware GOD-GIRL loved perfectly by God.

I can sum up all these questions into one… “How do you manage to live this Christ life on a FAB lane…?

And it is indeed a FAB lane because indeed, I am still that average young girl… I love make up, dress up, I do my nails long most times in different colors, I wear very high heels (I am very tall btw) and oh, I love pictures… Like ants love St. Louis Sugar… And please don’t get it twisted, I am an intelligent young woman. I read a whole lot so I am pretty knowledgeable about plenty stuff. I was a nerd in school. A cool nerd. I graduated first class.  But hey, how do I still keep all this going and stay a God-girl…?

I would be sharing some as the days go by… Like I said, this is really about me and what has worked for me. You may not agree with all I say but I hope you learn something as I take you down this lane…

Let’s start right from the beginning. When did this all begin?

Like most of us, I was born into a Christian home. My parents didn’t make church an option. It was compulsory. Ditto family devotion, morning and evening. I was and have never really been bad. My parents would have flogged the living day lights outta me. So I’ll say that the best Christian foundation comes from the home but of course it is not exclusive to. Some didn’t have such upbringing but they turned out better. Some had and turned out real bad. Not all my sibs are believers YET so… Go figure… So even when I got to boarding house, I was pretty much uninterested in the ‘bad things’ looool. I had very bad mouth though and I could yab and insult people for Africa.

One thing though, I was never reall  y in love with my parents’ Anglican church and lucky for me, my eldest sister branched out to TREM with a lot of resistance from my dad of course but I used to follow her whenever I came home for the holidays. She was happy to have me tag along. Several times my dad will lock us out but we will still go again. My sister was VERY active in church and I loved the kinda passion and ‘gragra’ I saw in the pentecostal world unlike the conservativeness of the Anglicans. I loved that I could wear trousers, not wear a scarf, wear big earrings and still be allowed into church. The FREEDOM or should I call it LIBERTY held a very special appeal for me. I was a child, I joined choir and drama just like my sister. On Sundays sometimes, I would go to my parents’ church and I did all the catechism and holy communion tins… #wideyawn#. Then my sister got married when I was in JS3 and I moved in with her. I loved TREM.

The young people were cool and ditto the Youth church. The kinda programmes they had interested me e.g KLWC. They had guest ministers from Yankee. The kind we see only on TBN. The pastors and wives dressed VERY well and wore makeup and weaves.

In that time, there was not a proliferation of ‘cool churches’ as we have today and certainly not many churches could bring in such guests. I recall TREM would have tarry nights (night vigils) and they would bring KUSH, Dan Foster would anchor with Tee A, etc. Church was like a party to me yet very spiritual still. I have always been a very showy, extroverted, fun loving person and I needed a church that would align with all that, a church that was very E’ without losing the essence of what church should be.

As a young teen, TREM fit the bill. They really invest in their youth church. Bishop Mike Okonkwo had a child who was about my age so her spiritual growth was important to them too.

We had assignments and projects and quizzes and cool stuff so I fell more and more in love with this cool God… reading my bible was fun because aside from showing off by answering all the questions asked during quizzes, the bible stories in my bible were just sweet. I could relate with this God jare.

As I grew, I felt a gap… More like a call to the next level…

 

The Odukoya’s are spiritual children of Bishop Mike Okonkwo

and everytime we had KLWConference, Pastor Bim (bless her sweet soul) would come and preach in the morning sessions on relationships. I didn’t usually make the morning sessions but my bro-in-law would buy the DVDs of all and I got introduced to relationship messages. Prior to then, I had never heard any talk on relationship. It was like that SACRED, TOUCH-NOT thing. hearing a woman preach it was infinitely interesting to me. Then one evening in a certain year 1997, she came to minister. She was absolutely gorgeous and elegant. She talked well too and she gesticulated a lot while she talked. She was young and best of all, and she was WORDED. Her messages were unbelievably practical… I could relate.

I absolutely loved this glamour woman of the pulpit. She made me want to even be ‘more Christian’.

She had something I coveted. Something leaped in me as she preached. When she made an altar call, I was the first to come out. That was my very first time of publicly giving my life to Christ. She prayed for and with us and led us to Christ.

That gap was filled… TODAY I am so proud that I started this CHRIST journey on a FAB lane with Pastor Bimbo Odukoya of blessed memory…

I would stop here for now… BUT let me also say that there is a church for everybody… Some of you may not like or dig the fact that church had to be ‘cool’ for me to flow but hey this is E’. Find the church that works or you. My second sis still attends an Anglican church (the super cool OUR SAVIOUR’S loool). Ditto my parents. I have a fantastic relationship with the Venerable of my parents’ church so I can’t be shading them. My point is whatever your personae, there is a church for you… For me, my attraction was that all the coolness and tushness had a spiritual depth to it. It wasn’t just a bunch of fine preachers and young people wearing fine dresses and deceiving themselves. The WORD was real too.

This will be continued… If this helped, share with me in the comments session. If you have a specific question you would like me to address, holler too in the comments session or do me a mail eziaharx@yahoo.com

Stay FAB,

E’