a cooking pot and twisted tales
Thoughts and Tales…A Lifestyle Blog with a Zing.
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Sometimes, nature forces us to slow down due to certain challenges that it throws our way and we are literally left in the waiting room.
While in the waiting room, it shouldn’t be seen as a drawback, but as an opportunity to decompress, to keep our eyes gazing up at the stars and yet our feet planted firmly in the present.
That would be a good time to have a bird-eye review, regroup and relaunch of that which you are projecting on.
I call it the 3 R’s .
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
They called it an ugly name
They called it Slave trade
It was man’s inhumanity to fellow man
An injustice that took so many and destroyed the human spirit
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They called it by a fancy name
They called it The Holocaust
A horrific history
Of the evil machinations of men
*********
They called it by a fancy name
They called it apartheid
It was the great divide
That was strictly applied
*********
They gave it a fancy name
They called it genocide
It was monstrous and intensified
An attempt to cast aside and to nullify
**********
They have given it a fancy name
It is called racism
Which is just a term applied
To subjugate and sub-divide
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Each of these fancy names
Has created huge gulfs
Among the human race
That leaves us mortified
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How do we ever bridge
This great divide?
For the bridge across
Is a long, treacherous walk away from home.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
The Daily Post Prompt Divide.
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There are times when all looks dim and bleak, but if we look hard enough, there is always a way, no matter how tight that way may appear.
At that point in time when we are passing through hellish moments, we don’t stop to wallow in it and in self-pity. We have to keep moving.
Even if our will power is flagging, look to someone’s own to latch on to. There is absolutely no shame in leaning on someone’s shoulder momentarily while you catch your breath if need be. People are sent into our lives at some points in time for reasons such as this.
The only shame is in giving up because you have the fear of being judged or you are too proud. The persons judgement is not your problem.
Your problem is in staying focused and getting out of the miry bog in which you are stuck in.
Know that even at the end of the darkest tunnel, there will always be found a sliver of light, and, yes the darkness will pass. For the only constant in life is change and no situation ever remains permanent.
Surviving your test allows you the opportunity to be a testimony to others and someone else’s leaning post at one point in time or the other.
Be patient as you strive and keep looking in the way of the light.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
I like the combination of words we have this week for Ronovan Writes Weekly Haiku Prompt Challenge. Gem and ‘Flame’.
Here are my two takes.
When we pass through circumstances
Of life’s searing flames
We become refined rare gems.
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A gem he proved not to be
She heartily bade him goodbye
Their flame of lust had gone cold.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Blogging can be likened to having a child.
When you first start out,
You are expectant. Then you have anguish over everything being okay.
Then you labour over it endlessly.
You nourish it diligently. It takes up all your time and you lose sleep.
You pray that it will grow and be a good child.
…But the growth seems slow.
You worry some more that it’s a slow child suffering some developmental challenges.
Then you pray some more, nourish some more and begin to look for professional or elderly advise.
You hope that every friend that drops by would say ‘oh what a beautiful child you’ve got.‘
Then there’s a growth spurt and you finally feel some pride.
…And the cycle continues.
Some even go ahead to have more blog babies 🙂
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Image credit: Pinterest
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There are moments in life that I look back on and wished that it could have turned out differently and this is one of those guilty moments: a letter to the young man that died.
However, with the realization that the past is where it belongs, one can only strive to a brighter present.
I have managed to get above and beyond these feelings by first and foremost, conscientiously working hard at forgiving myself for something that was beyond of my control.
At times, no amount of penance can get rid of the burden of sadness that weighs down on my mind when I ponder on some of the guilt-ridden episodes in my life but the amazing thing is that I have found that the more I reach up and look up to the sky, the less burdened I become.
Through Grace and Mercy which are not of my own will, but by succumbing to faith, hope, prayers, I can actually say, that I have the peace of The Lord which surpasses even my own understanding and that the haunting has ceased.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
”My Grace is sufficient for you; for my Power is made perfect in weakness: 2 Cor: 12:9.”
The Daily Post prompt The Guilt That Haunts Me.
Share a time when you were overcome with guilt. What were the circumstances? How did you overcome you guilt?
In my second quote of the 3 quote series, I would like to share the often forgotten sense of ourselves as miracles.
I love to remind myself of this quote, which unfortunately, I have no idea where I learnt it, but when I started meditating on it with regards to myself, the sense of awareness of the miracle in me, simply grew and keeps growing.
Most of the time, we are seriously enmeshed in the entire drama of trying to eke out a living, the drama that unfolds around us everyday, the stories of our lives and the wishes that things should be different, that we lose sight of the fact that our mere existence, our every moments, are ”miracles in action.”
Our miracles start to happen when we channel as much energy into our dreams and being as we channel into our fears and shortcomings.
Leannenz, I thank you for inviting me to participate in this quote series. It is a good opportunity to reflect on those things that matter.
I would like to invite 3 awesome bloggers to share their favorite quotes in the series of 3.
Kind regards to you all.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
We thank you Lord for days and times such as these ones;
For your constant shield through life’s challenges.
You raise us, from deep places of despair, doubt and regret;
To higher grounds of Faith, Grace and Hope.
From places of discontentment;
To the overflow of fulfillment.
May our tedious tests become uplifting testimonies.
May the meditation of our hearts and mouths;
Be acceptable before you Lord.
May your blessings that come from the Deep and the Four winds;
Be ours today and always.
Amen.
Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
a cooking pot and twisted tales 