It was few minutes past noon. As
I washed my vehicle, my neighbour’s children rushed out to greet and do their
normal question and answer session. One I am never tired of because the answers
are always easy even when I don’t understand the questions.
The eldest asked many questions
supported by her immediate younger sister and the last born just assumed the
role of an audience of one. She recalled a particular time I asked her about
the beautiful single female teachers in her school and reminded me that she
never delivered my message to the one we finally concluded as the most
beautiful female teacher. I hadn’t forgotten so we laughed and played about it.
She asked me when I would wed and
I
pretended like the question was erroneous. She emphasized it again and I
asked her if a wedding was compulsory. She said she wanted to know who would be
my page boy because her youngest sister was qualified given the low-cut she had
on. Low cuts were significant details of the identity of boys as far as she was
concerned. I was amazed at the level of thinking going on underneath the local
weaving she had on her head.
She didn’t stop there, she asked
if I was decided upon who to marry, the fine-faced Miss Teacher in her school
or the lady that came to my house in a jean and clutching a black bag. I will
be understating this article if I tell you I was not taken aback. She went on
to say the teacher is beautiful but short. I just kept washing my car acting
oblivious of the turmoil she was creating inside of me.
Then it told her I would marry
her younger sister since she was a name-sake of the said beautiful teacher, the
younger sister didn’t let me conclude before she shouted
“Uncle Charles, I am too small”
I then rephrased and told the
elder sister that I would marry her instead and she also said she was…she
didn’t want to say she was small since her younger sister had claimed the
adjective already. She just muttered some words under her breath then came
towards me. I was bent over as I tried to clean the dirt of my car wheels.
She touched my fourth or fifth
rib and said “if I reach you here or here then I may agree but I am not up to
this place then I will not agree”
I suppressed my laughter,
supposedly created by her words and the tickling she was generating by touching
my ribs. These children were really innocent, thinking like children and being
very frank, nothing existing beyond the knowledge they have and not undermining
it either.
That was when it dawned on me
that if we all could check ourselves before we decided to AGREE to a
relationship then this world would be a better place. The younger one knew and
stood her ground that she was small and so wasn’t even eligible. The older one
tried to give me conditions by which she would AGREE and her conditions were
based on whether she MEASURED UP, not what she wanted or what she must get.
It’s a classic case of being the right and not just hunting for the right.
Many of us are wont to desire
what we do not deserve neither having worked for. It is wisdom to know how to
blend-in in relationships and also what we carry, so we can know what match
should be made or unmade.
It’s not the physical things,
attributes and features that we see, the abstracts that we envy or the virtues that
we covet that really counts. It’s the contents we embody, the persons we are,
the focus we have, the purposes we pursue, the targets we aim, the goals we set
and the end we daily forecast. If we aren’t standing firm yet, we have no right
to help another stand and if we know where we stand, we ought to have wisdom to
know how to sustain the stand hence, how to mingle.
Determine today to improve
yourself and raise your value, internal and external. To work towards becoming
a better person irrespective of your environment and circumstances, your past
and present notwithstanding. No effort invested in grooming oneself to become
better is ever wasted.
When one has grown to some point,
one finds out that not everyone measures up to him. Life is in stages and
growth in ages. Both of which never recede but daily advance.
While it is yet day, do yourself
a permanent favour and to an established standard, measure up!
2Co 6:14
“Be ye not unequally yoked
together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with
unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?”
Gen 2:20
And Adam gave names to all
cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for
Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
