Christmas 2005…
The water Odyssey soaked his legs into, was tepid.
Christmas 2023…
The water Odyssey soaked his legs into, was also tepid.
It is funny how one unseemingly similar forgotten stimulus can evoke profound feelings. Tears rolled down his cheeks and dropped one by one into the water as he stared at the disfigured reflection of him crying. This was him in 2005 of course because as a man why you would cry in this day and age? (Just kidding)
He met her then. She was a good woman. She was initially a hairdresser in his father’s salon of whom they were a little acquainted with. All he knew was that even at his young age he noticed that je ne sais quoi that made her a great professional. Often he would pass by their work establishment to watch this stellar employee of theirs and probably have a chat.
Before the author is misunderstood and you assume this is a love story, Odyssey was 4 by then and Samadora was in her early 20s. Naïve little Odyssey. He thought that he was the only one to notice her. Unbeknownst to him, Odyssey’s father had also noticed Samadora. Being an African traditional home, Odyssey’s father took Samadora for his own. On the 23rd of December 2005, the news was broken to Od and his siblings but he was the only one who was happy. Od conceptualized that all this was awesome news. Since his first mom was so great, it meant having two would be an excessive outpour of blessings from God. Od saw the probable feng shui Samadora was going to add and he was buzzed, or so he thought.
On the 25th, she was introduced as mom number 2. Samadora looked and acted different on that day, like a Nigerian stepmom. First, she felt that she was too special to greet Od’s mother and all his siblings. Od initially didn’t notice that it was odd and reasoned that the rest would like her over time. When it was finally Od’s turn, Samadora put a foreign facial expression that left Od confused and dazed for moment that felt like eternity. Before he could walk out, Od heard her saying, “These children of yours have dirty and smelly feet. Your first wife should do better.” It was ironical because for once, Od was cleaner than ever and he was even wearing fresh socks. No sooner had she finished talking than Baba Odyssey called out all of them and told their mother to prepare water for them to wash their feet outside.
Od had already started feeling the betrayal, anger and sadness, a cocktail of feelings he was too young to process. He therefore played with his feet in the tepid water as his tears fell into the water, hoping that the feelings would also go with the purported dirt in his feet. Many repeated insults would ensue but this was the initial hit.
Fast forward to 2023 when Od was now a man. There were three major differences in his life: His age (alikuwa na ndevu), his legs were actually dirty this time and he had given his life to Christ. With the tepid water, all these feelings came flooding back and more and he was surprised because he thought he had forgotten about it. He had heard God’s call for him to forgive her before but he did not heed. He just avoided those feelings (as any typical man😂!).
What changed his mind? God spoke to him even through the water he was washing his feet in. He saw that his feet were dirty and remembered that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. He then realized that even though he was hurt, he was also a sinner. Samadora and him were all equal before God, as impure and sinful, and needed Christ as the propitiation for their sin [Hebrews 2:17]. Furthermore, the Lord’s Prayer concept on forgiveness according to Matthew 6 had not yet sunk in.
“…Forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us,” was now a reality for Od. In that moment, he reflected on the two-way expectation of the prayer. He realised he was not supposed to hold on to those feelings regardless of how justified to him they were.
Scriptures were now flowing in his mind like never before. He remembered Luke 23:34, when Jesus was crucified, He made a prayer to those who oppressed Him and asked for their forgiveness from God. Od realized that even though he felt crucified by those feelings, it was all up to God.
He therefore cried to God, cast all his burdens to Jesus, and asked God to help him let go of all his bitterness. He prayed for Samadora and found himself immediately feeling lighter. Ias the year ended, he knew it was time to forgive and when he felt did not want to, he would ask God for strength. God had been on his case all along and it reminded him what his friend Vincent had told him, “No matter how far you feel you’ve veered from God, he is always with you; it only takes one step to turn back to him.” He added a thanksgiving to the prayer for God’s eternal grace and realized that since God continually works on him, he realized that this prayer would not be the last one he would make on the matter. He made a mental note to pray for Samadora since then and to God for deliverance: and he would write an article about it when he felt that he had truly forgiven her.
This story ends with Odyssey being called by his mom to eat chicken because remember, it was Christmas day.😅
~Chief Kut 🫡~