some time later

I forgot how to write. So much happening, so much change, not enough time to process. It’s a new morning, I’m listening to Rigga's album - The Awakening, he sings that stuff I hate – hip-hop, rap – but I’m listening to him because of the depth of the message he preaches. I’d love for it to be uhmm… much much less noisy, but his stuff is deep.

My woes began six months ago (it’s been that long already?), and as it has been from times past, it began with a boy. Unlike my brother, ours wasn’t a match made in heaven, but he made me laugh, and then he made me cry, and I cried for the rest of the year last year. For my truth all I got were lies, for my kindness all I received was manipulation. I know I’m too idealistic, I believe in the goodness of mankind too much. I also know the world is a cruel place where each one looks out for themselves, but the church too? Isn’t church the place we go to escape all that treachery? Isn’t church the place we go to lay ourselves bare before our peers, and try to walk the walk together? But the church too has become a stage, a place where they go to get the good ones. A place where you get the right profile for yourself, so that no one will doubt your story, you’re the perfect person. You’re born again. You’re even an official. You’re beyond reproach, your weaknesses are covered. No one can say anything against you. If they do, a thousand more will defend you. It’s a good place to be. Until the walls fall, and sooner or later, all walls fall.

Through all this I struggled with going to church, any church. How can do this to a God I love so much? How do I go back and fix what cannot be fixed? How do I stand before people and raise my hands to a God whose grace and mercy I find impossible to understand, hence accept? That just like that that, I confess my sin before Him, leave my sin, and just like that He forgets my sin. How? How can He say He forgets my sin, when as David says, my sin is ever before me? And I mean ever. How can He love me, after I spat on His face, took His blood for granted and destroyed the body that He paid the ultimate price for? So I went to church because it was easier not to have that discussion with anyone, and I looked around at those people who I knew since I was like zero, those people who taught me in Sunday school. Would they understand? Would their arms still be open when they realized she was not so perfect?

 And all the growing up I hadn’t done in the last since I reached puberty, I did in less than two months. The first thing I wanted to do was run to my blog and post Ntozake Shange’s poem here, “One thing I don’t need is sorry”. At the New Year I thought about a happy New Year post, but I had nothing to report, it was just another year to live, far as I was concerned. I shut everyone out; I sat in my room, cried all night and slept all day. I was only too relieved to come back to school, here I didn’t have to make small talk and pretend it was all right. Because it wasn’t all right. It wasn’t right at all.

I’d love to say there was a turning point, there was a moment of truth when it all got better, or I got angry and decided to let all the anger and guilt go, when I decided I won’t be captive to all that fear and helplessness. Maybe it was the diligent prayers of people like Dinah, and my mother. But the truth is, every day I wake up, it’s grace. Every time I lift my hands up to worship it’s grace. When I pray, when I go to church, all grace. Because I still don’t understand it, I still don’t understand what all that love is like, why it’s being poured out on a wretch like me. But if my father still loves me, if after everything he still said, “You are my daughter”, then how much more my heavenly Father? So I’m still here, I still try, and thank you Lord, by His grace, it gets easier.