Birthdays and Friday musings…

July 22, 2022 jacquelineobyikocha6 Comments

And Friday arrived even before I could turn the page of a book. The days are galloping by so fast nowadays, that sometimes I feel that if one doesn’t buckle down for the ride of speedy days they will practically find themselves flying and landing in 2023 all bushy-tailed and surprised. Each morning, I set a to-do list and by the end of the day I find myself falling short in completing certain things. However, I am also cutting myself some slack and unlearning the ingrained habit of beating myself up when I fall short of my own expectations. What I am trying to do now is to set realistic and practical goals or tasks and prioritize them so that they are achievable. Although sometimes I find myself running around chasing every other thing rather than settling down to doing those things that needs to be done.

Tomorrow is my first son’s birthday and when I look at the young man I am always taken aback at how much he has grown and has now become a full adult of one score, whilst a whole part of me – except for the creaky parts – feel as exuberant and as hopeful as I felt when I was his age. Truth be told, I think I have become quite jaded a bit from life’s experiences and a lot more reserved, though each day, I fight mentally, physically and spiritually not to let the bitter experiences and setbacks get the better of me. I have grown to realize that focusing my energy on things that are out of my control and things that have expired such as the past, is sheer and massive waste of time.

Now to my young man, I pray that life treats you kindly and well. I give God praise for the gift of a son like you and thank Him for His faithfulness and mercy over your life all these years. May you continue to flourish in God’s blessings. May His countenance continue to shine on you. You will find favour in the eyes of men. The earth shall yield its increase for you and so you shall not lack. It shall be in agreement with you to fulfil God’s purpose for your life. As you grow in age, may you also grow spiritually, emotionally, mentally and financially. The Lord will cause you to dwell in good health and everything you lay your hands on shall prosper. His protection shall be over you and He will give you the grace to grow in wisdom. Amen.

I thank God for all the good moments we have spent together, as mother and son.

Personal

I Am A Year Older Today and Hopefully Wiser.

March 13, 2017March 13, 2017 jacquelineobyikocha100 Comments

Loving yourself is the best gift that you can give to yourself.

Finding happiness, fulfillment, success and the best version of you comes with the understanding that unconditional self-love is a critical determinant to achieving these things.

Take a listen to my video on ‘loving myself’ below and do subscribe.

It’s my birthday today, now I’m off to eat some cake 🙂

Gratitude

Mixed Feelings… personal

July 27, 2016 jacquelineobyikocha41 Comments

Often, getting older can be viewed with a mixed feeling of excitement and dismay. For the younger person, they feel that they are getting closer to independence while the older person sometimes wishes time could slow down a notch.

Having two of my favourite men (husband and one of my boys) celebrate their birthdays this week is a lot to be thankful for, asides from all the sweet consumptions that accompanies birthday celebrations, I am reminded of the countless blessings that my life has been decorated with. We are well. We have shelter and food. We have hope. We have a bright future. That is more than enough.

My son is fast galloping into a grown man and these days when I look at his tall, 6ft plus big frame, I remember my cute, itty-bitty baby boy with a head full of hair and shiny eyes. A boy who clung to me as a lifeline and laughed at my little jokes and play with him. Now he has his own ideas and jokes, independent in many ways and we are going through teenage ups and downs which I must confess baffles me at times.

Sometimes, the song “wish we could turn back time to the good old days,” hums in my head but I realize also that I wouldn’t have it any different than I do right now. Would I want my child to remain forever a child and not grow older? NO! This is the cycle of life and I am grateful to be a partaker as well as the parent of this beautiful child.

There are times I ask myself where time ran off to when I look at my darling Himself and realize that we’ve been married now for two months shy of 16 years and I realize that I’ve been awesomely blessed even when I didn’t know it. We are all aging with grace and maturing like fine wine and I am thankful 🙂

P.S: There are several gratitude/thankful platforms in the blogosphere that you can tune into and get your ithankful going on. I can’t express in words the enormity of Joy and fulfilment that comes from having a heart of gratitude. Please check out Maria’s blog, Colline’s blog and Bernadette’s for thankful/gratitude challenges.

InLinkz

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Stars, Five Stars, Logo, Icon, Symbol, Five, Rating

‘A Richly Layered and Passionate Read.’ Jan Cliff

If you enjoy my works, you can fuel my creativity with a cup of coffee or a slice of cake

Rononvan's Weekly Haiku Challenge

Hip,hip,hurray…Ronovan writes weekly haiku challenge.

June 21, 2016August 15, 2016 jacquelineobyikocha13 Comments

An apt prompt for this week ‘birth and cheer.’ It was Ronovan’s birthday yesterday, though because of the time difference between US and UAE, I don’t get to see the prompt until the following day because we are ahead by at least 9 hours or more depending on which state, so I’ll still say ‘Happy birthday, to you Ronovan.’

I also celebrate with a dear friend of mine who has tried for going on 17 years now to have a child. At long last they are blessed with two beautiful boys on Sunday 🙂

Let’s pop a bottle of fizzy drink,
to wish some birthday cheers
to Ronovan, our own charming Haiku General.

♥

To the cheer of her loved ones,
she gave birth to twins
after seventeen years of waiting and wanting.

***

Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

‘A Richly Layered and Passionate Read.’ Jan Cliff

Family · Gratitude · Life

Is it ever too much? personal

May 11, 2016May 11, 2016 jacquelineobyikocha23 Comments

I must admit to you that there are days when I start out to pray and that little impish voice in me will say “but you thanked God for this same thing yesterday, so why should you bother him to thank him all over again?”

….And the wiser one in me tells me that “God is never tired of hearing my voice and that I should never forget that he inhabits my praise,” which I can assure you keeps the impish voice sulking in a dark corner and wondering what wise retort to come up with.

Unfortunately for the imp, it always falls short.

Yesterday was my son’s birthday which was also a school day, even though he’s of the opinion that such an important day should be spent eating cake and making merry – which is not a bad idea, however, we struck a good bargain – that boy can negotiate 😉

A bargain that he’ll go to school for classes as usual and also join his mates for their scheduled outing to Ski-Dubai, with the promise that we would have a birthday dinner in the evening and also take him to the theme park to play during the weekend.

For some reason, I wasn’t comfortable with the school outing and my niggling mind led me to pray with them and talk to him about being careful.

By mid-afternoon, the day was running smoothly until my phone rang and it was the school nurse. I detest getting such calls because it’s never something to jump up and down over.

The lady nearly gave me a heart attack! Her slow narration on how some other boy got a bit rough at play with my son and mistakenly hit him in the eye had me chewing my nails in angst. A riot of emotions ran through me. I felt like having bionic powers and hurtling off to the school to grab my child, but a little voice told me to keep calm and thank God.

In relief, I thanked God, for it could have been worse. Asides from a slight redness and puffiness which had gone down, he’s as beautiful as ever.

Which brings me to this point of my story.

Each new day is a present day, a new beginning and the fact that I thanked God yesterday for Grace, Mercy, Favour and hedge of protection over my family, should not make me not to thank him today and tomorrow and the next…

For we are told that when we commit our ways unto the Lord, our paths are established. There’s nothing like too much praise when it comes to the goodness of God.

I hope that there’s something that you are thankful for today.

You can join Colline’s or Maria Jansson gratitude challenge platforms.

@ithankful 🙂

Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

Out of the silent breath

Never leave me lonely

With words left unsaid

You walk away into the dark

Like a mist, that melts away.

Personal

A ball of sadness in me…Streams of Consciousness Saturday.

March 12, 2016 jacquelineobyikocha25 Comments

Linda mentions ‘ball’ as today’s prompt and I think of the different balls that I am playing with right now.

The fleeting thought of my young sons ball comes to my mind and I pray his fever will break so that he can play happily.

It’s my birthday tomorrow and I should be preparing to have a ball, but I am just not feeling it.

A few days ago, I was excited and gearing for an awesome day and I still hope to, but when you have a child a little bit down, the last thing on your mind is a ball.

However the big ball that forms in my stomach makes me feel so sad and almost reluctant to talk about it.

As much as I can, I avoid race talks because it only stirs up strong emotions.

Last night a friend sent a video of a black girl being pushed around and insulted and insulted by some guy’s – white.

I wanted to stop watching it, but I continued. By the end of that short video, I had tears in my eyes and just felt so heavy.

I can’t even begin to articulate all the thoughts that went through my head.

My question has always been, are we not all human? Why are some people like this? What’s the benefit of such ugliness and discrimination?

We claim to be different, to be enlightened, we claim not being racists, yet at every turn it stares us in the face.

These boys who pushed a young girl about and called her ugly names, learnt it from somewhere and most likely their homes.

Racism is learnt ‘cos no child is born that way.

I have no answers just a ball of sadness that sits in me and I obviously went to bed with that thought and it’s been more so on my mind after watching the fiasco of American campaign trails in Chicago.

I strive to teach my children to work hard and rise up and above expectations.

I try to teach them that before God all men are equal.

I try to teach them to embrace life with an open mind, but sometimes society makes playing this ball so hard.