“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.” – Anonymous
One of the
greatest lessons I have learned in life is that when you are shipwrecked in the turbulent
sea of life and everything around you is falling apart, don’t ever jump ship
because you can easily be swept by the stormy water and drown. In the midst of life’s
shipwreck, look around the remaining pieces of your life and grab to hold on to
a piece that might allow you to keep afloat to the safety of the shoreline. When
life puts you in a place where you are consumed by the pain of rejection,
divorce, abuse or joblessness its suicidal to resort to temporal safety of vane
things like excessive alcohol intake, drug abuse, or inconsequential habits and
relationships such as gangs of all sorts. Remember Gangs are just a group of
frightened people whose identity is nothing without the gang because
individually they are lost souls. There is always one thing (a piece of the
shipwreck) in life you should never lose but hold on to and that is HOPE. The hope
that God loves you and His thoughts towards you are thoughts to prosper you no
matter the circumstances, but He needs and counts on your active participation.
Like God wants you to eat but you are
the one with the hands, hence, you have to do the actual cooking yourself. But if
you like you can choose the spiritual path of praying for a well-cooked meal and
hope the food will cook itself by faith. The choice is yours!
A year after the
turn of the millennium somewhere in the year 2001 and after the reboot of my
life (discussed in the chapter “turning the page”), I got a second job in a start-up
IT company in Kitwe in the Copperbelt province of Zambia. The company had a
rough start and getting our monthly pay was a nightmare as business was really
bad. The whole period I was there, I don’t remember getting a full pay and the
pain of not getting a salary was almost consuming my soul badly. At the time I was
being kept by my aunt, a very kind woman with a sweet soul and I really thank
God for her generosity towards the helpless me at the time. Without a stable
income I couldn’t even contribute to buying the daily necessities of the home
and the guilt was killing me. This situation was almost making me to start
lamenting painfully why God should allow me to have a job, report for work every
day and yet not getting a salary at the end of the month. Believe me. It wasn’t
easy at all and the pain of brokenness and loneliness I felt was real. I had
three children at the time my son was being kept by his uncle and my two little
daughters were being kept by their grandmother who also didn’t have an income and
I had no way of taking care of them financially. I was in a turbulent storm that
was drowning me fast under the water of pain with nowhere to turn. I could have
chosen to become a beggar or look for ways of getting quick cash through crooked
fellows I met every now and then who really wanted to be my friends which of
course would have come with a deadly price.
As everything
around me was weighing me down and was considering my options on what to do
next, suddenly a flashback from a teaching I came across in the early 90s by Dr.
Myles Munroe became so vivid in my mind. This was a teaching on the most
important questions one must keep asking themselves at every stage of their
life. Two questions jumped out prominently “Why am I and why am I here”. It was
like a light bulb of wisdom had just been lit in my life. In the twinkling of
an eye, I became curious about my surroundings. The “Why am I here” question made
me to start to look around the office I was working in to consider what was there. I realized suddenly as if I had not even been working in that same office for some time and that there
were desktop computers fully installed with all the Microsoft applications ready
to be explored. It was like they (the computers) have! been there staring at me
probably saying “Bright, we are here and we have what you need in the future,
dummy!”. That moment taught me a fundamental lesson that, for starters, I could
have been getting a salary that could be spent and finished in a day and be broke
again without money and the cycle would be continuing over and over all through
the year. But I could alternatively explore knowledge, computer knowledge, and
skills that no one can delete from my mind or life ever with the potential of
giving me an opportunity to continue earning income beyond my current job. Money
can be taken away from me at any time but knowledge can never be taken away.
Nobody can tell you to forget what you have learned or the skills you have acquired.
That moment became the beginning of my pursuit of mastery in computing as a lifelong
skill. That day I realized my purpose for being there and God had placed me in
the right place at the right time where everything I needed was present and
readily available at my will. I channeled my pain into a positive pain to
educate and build myself. I started going to work as early as possible so that I
could have at least one hour of learning practical computer skills before
everyone else reported at 8hrs at the office. Realizing why I was in that
company gave me the drive and the joy to keep working despite not getting a
salary. I knew then that God was not interested in my earning a salary but in
the development of that which should be the generator of lifelong income. Liberating
phenomena as it was, I chose to be grateful every day for the gift of life and the
divine opportunity I had to be in the "place" without a salary. Many times, we
want to choose the place where we think we should be. Places that look replete
with great opportunities. We look for packages wrapped in gold packages
believing there is gold inside. However, experience has taught us otherwise.
Gratitude has been my everyday mantra and has been my “Alladin’s” magic carpet
to fly me to places of my grace. I am
grateful for everything I have or not, even my enemies too. Try it!
As a positive consequence
of newly discovered treasure, I designed my own program to teach my co-workers
everything I was learning in secret, in the early hours of each day before they
reported for work as a way to remember and sharpen my computer skills in specialized
areas such as web design, spreadsheets, data analysis, databases with Microsoft
Access, Computer graphics, Word Processing, Computer hardware repair, and Computer
Networking plus many other computer related subjects. (of course, along the way
I have since attained Bachelors and Masters Degrees). Academic credentials are
also important because while you may have great skills, employers of companies
may not trust your word and they will usually ask for evidence of training such as Certificates,
Diplomas, or Degrees that sort of thing. In my pursuit of knowledge, I learned common
things I know computer users knew and advanced topics they didn’t know and
through that, I made a pledge that whenever someone asked me to teach them one
thing in computer and computing, I will teach them 10 things more which I know
they need to know without asking for any kind of pay. Through that teaching
approach, I have gained mastery in productive computing skills which to this
day, I generously give away through mentorship programs to anyone willing to
learn.
The skills I developed
in what could be described as my painful era, have over the years brought me before
Kings, great men and women, and consequently the beautiful life I live today. That’s
how I turned my Pain into the Power that has transformed my life today.
However, when you gain this Power, blend it with Love for others in the Blender
of humanity guided by God because we are all just a “pencil in the hands of
the writer” who is God Almighty. Do not use the gained power to degrade or make others powerless. Power
in the hands of an ignorant man will eventually destroy the power holder. Don’t be deceived.
What are you
going through today? Maybe you are a doctor or nurse. Have you asked yourself
why you are that and working in a hospital? Have you considered the possibility
that maybe you chose that career because God placed a hospital inside you and
it has been crying out from the inside of you and God has allowed you to work
in a hospital setting to learn how to manage such facilities before you eventually own
one. Maybe you even wonder why your bosses are always on your case to the point
of considering quitting! Don’t quit and don’t give up. You are in the right
place where examples of how different people can be a pain in the butt are also
present so that you are fully prepared well enough for future challenges. In
whatever career you have chosen, you may just be another industry type yet to
become, and right now it's still inside you unmanifested and life has placed you
in the cooking pot of preparation. Just imagine how many people will remain
jobless if that company in you does not manifest one day! Make no mistake, I am
not saying go and resign today but you must be aware of the cooking pot of
preparation and begin your pursuits with wisdom
Maybe you are not
able to have a child and you have done everything to have one. Have you
considered the possibility that maybe, and just maybe there is a vulnerable child
somewhere waiting for you to adopt and become his or her dream parent longed
for! While other men and women fortunate enough to bare their own children end
up abusing the little innocent children. God does not make mistakes
Well as for me,
one bright sunny day, Lo and behold, everything I learned, the skills I sharpened, and the knowledge I gained during my days of pain came to fulfill their divine
purpose in my life in one unexpected but precious moment of potential exhortation
to a position of prominence. It was that kind of moment when a candidate only
has one shot at glory like Joseph stood before the Pharaoh of Egypt with the power
to exhort you or kill you metaphorically speaking, that I stood a similar test …
(read the chapter “Experiencing the Joseph Effect”)
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