I’m writing this piece in our church bus, just returning from the burial of one of our dearly beloved sisters. She was 51 years old. She was born into a Muslim home, but gave her life to JESUS CHRIST while at St Louis, Ibadan. That is what happens in TRUE MISSION Schools, where JESUS (and Salvation of Souls) is the paramount FOCUS. Selah!
She returned home a firebrand for the LORD, and was instrumental to her other three sisters coming to know the Saving Grace of CHRIST. Surely, the same FAITH awaits her only brother. We were in the same Counseling Unit, but her demise has revealed more about her than I knew in her lifetime. Before she died at UCH last week Tuesday, she was reported to have said, “I am ready to go home!”
It was after her passage that those words became clearer to those who heard them. My wife told me how she was moved to tears at the Service of Songs and Testimony Night held for her yesterday.
Please, note that nothing was said about the three nice cars she drove in the last 6 years of her life. It was her good works in the LORD, her winning smile, and love for people, that people talked about, and would always remember her for. Even when we weren’t so close, she gave me some two or three trays of eggs for our feeding outreach to the mentally challenged. That was about 3 years ago, or so. ‘Mr. Ore’, your pursuits of today will be worth NOTHING tomorrow, except they are done for CHRIST.
In conclusion, when Facebook brings up birthday reminders and I see the celebrants’ faces, I sometimes say inwardly, “Who be these?!” Now, I may actually know those faces, but, because they have NEVER impacted me in any way, I just, at best, like whatever they post to celebrate their birthdays, or ignore the reminder completely. On the contrary, there are some other people whose birthdays keep dancing round my head all year long. And, they are not necessarily people who have ever given me money or anything material. Some of them are just regular encouragers with KIND WORDS, or were there in my time of need. How USEFUL, or useless, is your life? Are you truly LIVING and IMPACTING people, or you’re merely existing?
Good night, Sister Toyin. We’ll meet at ‘Home’, someday. We’ll surely see on the RESURRECTION MORNING, at the MARRIAGE SUPPER of the LAMB OF GOD. These things are not real to many church goers, but they became very real to her just before she crossed over to the other side. We are PILGRIMS on earth, and our labor here should be driven by KINGDOM FOCUS and DEDICATION. We live on earth, not for earthly things, but for the KING OF kings!
Let’s get our PRIORITIES RIGHT, going forward! The LORD GOD be with FiyinfOluwa – her only child, and all the family members and friends she left behind. From what I heard of her last few hours on earth, that woman is in GLORY. Let no one be sorrowful; she’s smiling and laughing and celebrating where she is.
SHALOM.
PS: written about 4 hours ago.
DA