How to tell when you're gossiping

Most people like to convince themselves that they don't gossip, they will say they only "discuss " or "gist". It's obvious that many don't even understand the difference between a normal relevant conversation and an idle talk aka "gossip". Let me illustrate with this conversation between two ladies.

Dialogue
Jane :   Have you heard that Ada is getting married soon?
Ann:  Woaw! I'm happy for her. So who's the lucky guy?
Jane:  They say he's from South Africa & he's a very wealthy lawyer.
Ann:  hmmm...it's ok. After all her dissapointment  God has finally blessed her. I'll attend the wedding.

Now check this out.
Jane :   Have you heard that Ada is getting married soon?
Ann:  woaw! I'm happy for her. So who's the lucky guy?
Jane:  They say he's from south Africa & he's a very wealthy lawyer. I heard he's been married before, with 2 kids already from 2 different women. In fact, I learnt his first wife left him when he got another woman pregnant.
Ann:  Really? tell me more! So after her dissapointments this is the kind of husband she ended up with. You know her last boyfriend was an alcoholic & a junkie and he almost killed her. She always came to me for advice whenever they had a big fight. Any way sha, God has blessed her. I'll attend the wedding, let me see this guy with my two eyes.

So,  you'll agree with me that it's very easy to tell when you're gossiping.  The difference is the extra irrelevant details added and it's usually something unpleasant especially about someone's private affairs.
Gossip hurts and damages. If you can't stay away from people who gossip, you can at least try not to contribute to irrelevant gist, that's how I do it.

Total Forgiveness.

Forgiveness can be a very difficult thing to do. Over half of the people that preach forgiveness don't really know what it truly means, some because they have never been deeply hurt and others because their forgiveness has not been truly tested. Many times, we fail God's test of our so called forgiveness without even knowing it.

Years  ago I had a friend Ngozi who betrayed me, hurting me so badly. Forgiving someone unrepentant can be very difficult but I eventually let go. I didn't know that God would test my heart.

One morning I was at Ngozi's office to see another friend. That day, Ngozi  had made the mistake of leaving her office without asking anyone to cover her duties while she's out. Same day, a very important client came. After waiting unattended for long the man got very angry that he had missed an important meeting just to be there and it wasn't the first time he was having this experience . He decided to withdraw his contract and swore never to transact with Ngozi's company again .

If he leaves, it would be a very big loss to the company because he was a major client. He was about to call the managing director to inform Him of his dissapointment. I thought about it, a worker had previously been sacked for such truancy and negligence of duty and if this man makes this phone call, Ngozi would be in big trouble.

I wanted to do something but then,  the memories of all the wrong she did me began to flash through my mind. She definitely didn't deserve my help. But then I heard this tiny voice inside me  "this is what total forgiveness is really about, if she were your sister or best friend, what would you do for her?"

So, since I was very familiar with the environment, I pretended like I was a new staff (I didn't say that though) and I apologized to the man for the delay telling him that Ngozi had something urgent that needed her attention  and she would be back in no time. I also called my other friend who was a staff to take over attending to the man. Soon, the man sat down again and relaxed.

About an hour later Ngozi walks in. Of course she doesn't know all that transpired in her absence but within me I was glad to know that I had totally forgiven her. That's what Jesus did, even when we are unrepentant.
I'm one of those young ladies that have been deeply hurt and emotionally abused severally in life, by loved ones, by friends, even in past relationships but I chose to let go.
When we forgive and release our enemies to God, He restores  peace to our heart. Mind  you, He will definitely take revenge for you in his own time!.

"Little by little" says the snail

One afternoon I strolled out of my office depressed and preoccupied with thoughts of a failed personal project I had been on for about a year plus, all the resources wasted! My time, sleepless nights, money all gone. Hot tears clouded my eyes, the tears of a young lady struggling so hard on her own, pushing it and trying to make a difference in life. I just wanted to go home fall on my bed and shed all the tears in me. I'm such a cry baby you know.

Then I bumped into a friend who had just succeeded in a similar project and had moved unto the next level. He tried to cheer me up with encouraging words. He said, " there's no level in life that is too little nor a point in a journey that is too far behind. What matters is that you're moving and someday you'll get to your desired destination. Someone else is somewhere praying to get to even half of where you are right now in your life"
Those words seemed so magical at that moment, because it gave my spirit some glister of hope.
 Little by little, the snail moves, but she eventually arrives somewhere. Many are in the grave afterall , thank you a Jesus for the gift of life.

Photo credit: animatedimages.org

The Giraffe women of Padaung.

The Kayan Lahwi  people also known as the padaung are a minority  ethnic  group with populations in Burma and Thailand. The padaung women are peculiar for their interesting culture of wearing brass rings around their elongated neck, even on their arms and legs. They are a serious attraction to western tourists who pay a good sum of money to see the "giraffe women" in flesh.

The Padaung girl begins to wear her neck ring between two to five years, following a ritual by a priest. Initially it's quite uncomfortable but begins to feel normal over the years. As she grows, the length of the coil is lengthened so that a full grown woman could have up to twenty or thirty something rings of brass wound round her neck giving her a seemingly elongated neck which is considered very attractive by their men.
No one knows for sure the origin of this weird culture but many of these women still hold fast to it in Thailand today.

Neck-stretching is form of beautification to the padaung women, they rarely remove the neck rings in their life time except on rare occasions like during medical exams. It's also said that a woman on committing adultery can be stripped of her neck coils as a punishment. When the ring is removed after many years, the neck muscle has atrophied and can no longer support the head normally. Besides that, the neck is usually scarred and discoloured leaving the woman with little or no option than to put back the brass coils.
(Image © Keystone/Getty Images) 

Does the brass neck coils really elongate the neck?
X-rays have shown that the ring compresses the rib cage and pushes the collar bone/clavicles and upper ribs  downwards giving the illusion of an elongated neck. The weight of the rings twists the collar bone and eventually the upper ribs at an angle 45 degrees lower than what is natural.

I'm enthralled by God's creation of varieties of beautiful amazing people with their unique cultures, many of whom we are not even aware of their existence.

Really, I respect this culture but I don't fathom the idea of disfiguring one's body out of a misplaced sense of beauty. Imagine the pain and inconvience those little girls have to go through with such heavy object on their neck.
(Image © Karl Lehmann )

Time changes yesterday.

Take a look at the scene in this 1956 photo, I see about four men bringing out a big structure from a container sorounded  by a crowd of men on suit. By the way they were eagerly waiting and watching you can tell that whatever was inside the box must be something very vital or amazing .
 Well, it's actually a 5 mega byte hard drive that had just been shipped  out by IBM. That's right! Only 5mb and its about the size of a small car.That was way back when the computer had just been invented, and that hard drive which can't hold more than a single track in an album was the scientific wonder at that era.

Today, over 6 decades later, I can store hundreds of movies in my 1 terabyte hard drive which is about the size of my palm or in my 64G memory card which is as tiny as as a nail on my finger. Well, such is life, time changes yesterday and change is constant in life.

Today as I look at this photo , it looks ridiculous and funny. But you know that's how life really is. Sometimes we find ourselves engulfed by trend or entangled in a prevalent condition that seems so overwhelming as at then, such that we might be forced to take one or two decisions. The truth is that it will all pass away.

Someday you will just look back at that same thing or situation that either amazed or terrified you (maybe laughing too) and be like "I can't believe I did this or that just because of this common/ordinary thing...."
Time changes so many things, including your opinions and perception of the world around you and life in general.

Photo courtesy of History in pictures

Separated from death - the story of a passenger.

On one of my trips to western Nigeria, a passenger shared this unique story of how God singled him out from death. Mr John is an elderly man who has spent most of his life as a Christian evangelist.This is his story;

Mr John wanted to travel to Lagos, Nigeria.  When he arrived the park, the que was terribly long and it seemed the transport  company had sold out much more tickets than the number of seats actually available.  There was just 2 luxurious buses  currently available, with the passengers all lined up according to their ticket numbers patiently waiting to get into their seats.
One of the transport officials came to a point just in front of Mr John and devided the  que asking Mr John and those behind him to move into the second bus. Inside the second  bus, there was chaos as many passengers did not sit according to their sit numbers. In the midst of the confusion and quarrels,  Mr John lost his sit and was peturbed on realising that he was the only one without a sit.

Fortunately, a third bus came along soon and Mr John was asked to move again into the third bus which he did without complaining. But suddenly someone came out to inform Him that there was a mix up and there was actually a vacant sit behind in the second bus. Now fed up and not minding that he was still the only passenger sitting in the third bus, Mr John declined and decided to patiently wait for the bus to get filled. Just then a fat woman arrived, a woman whose destiny had already been sealed!. She seemed to be in a hurry and quickly demanded to have the vacant sit in the second bus.
About an hour plus later Mr John's bus moved. Mid way into the journey, they were forced to stop at an express road where a large crowed had just gathered in front. It was an accident, a luxurious bus had just run into a fuel tanker and there was a huge fire.  It was the second bus that Mr John was sopposed to be in and there were no survivors!

As John narrated the story I could feel the pain in his voice and tears in his heart. He emphasised on how much God cares for and protects his servants. He also admonished us to be however ready at all times because no one knows tomorrow .
Well, that's a scary story to hear while you are on a journey but thank God for journey mercies .

by Chioma Morah

If wishes were horses.

I thought I had a mountain of a dream
A dream that seemed almost impossible
Day and night I prayed and wondered
Do dreams still come true?

I thought I had a mountain of a dream
One that kept my mind constantly preoccupied
Night after night sleep eluded me
As my heart cried, God, will I ever get there?

Then I saw this touching picture
It's of a little boy with a very big dream
he was courageous enough to nurse it
A desire that seems almost impossible.

No one deserves to be incomplete
I know that miracles do happen
but I also pray that someone helps him.
A prosthetic leg at least would do!

by Chioma Morah
photo credit: unknown.

Why old couples look alike.

Ever wondered why many  old couples have striking resemblance? It's a popular observation and scientists have proposed some explanations for this. These are some of the explanations given.

Decades of shared emotions.
Research reveals that the happier the marriage, the more the couple resembles each other. A study was conducted at the University of Michigan by psychologist Dr Zajonc & Co-researchers. Test subjects were randomly given photos of people with the background blacked out. They were told to match the men with the women they most resembled. Twenty-four pictures were of couples when they first married. The other Twenty-four  were of the same couples 25 years or more later. The couples were white, lived in Michigan or Wisconsin, and were between 50 and 60 in the second photos.

The judges discovered that the young couples showed little or no resemblance to each other while there was marked resemblance between the couples who had been married a quarter-century.While the resemblances were not dramatic - some seemed to involve subtle shifts in facial wrinkles and other facial contours, for instance - they were marked enough that the judges were able to match husbands and wives far more often when the couples were older than when they were younger.

Dr Zajonc proposed an explanation for this; common life experiences over years and years can alter facial musculature and wrinkle patterns, leading to an increased resemblance. Couples unconsciously mimic the facial expressions of their spouses in a silent empathy and that, over the years, sharing the same expressions shapes the face similarly.

Similar  environment
Similar environment, similar diet, similar disposition, postures, gesticulations etc

Initial resemblance
Some others are of the opinion that some couples initially look alike when they got married.

If all the above is logical, then what happens in the typical  african polygamy scenerio?  Will a man look like his 4 or 5 wives at same time? Or will they all find a way of collectively looking like each other?... just thinking aloud!

photo credit : www. Stopcoloncancernow.com