The Story of Hope: My Story

Ok, so I’m sitting on my sick bed (well, more like ‘sick sofa’) and decide to meditate on the Lord… and what keeps ringing in my spirit is “The God of Hope”

You know, hope is very powerful. A man can lose everything in this world and can still work hard to regain his lost estate. But when a man loses hope, that’s a tough one. The reality is that many Christians are losing hope today. It pains me to write it but it’s the truth. And for some, it’s no making of theirs.

Life can be too tough and very unfair at times.
People are broken.
People are going through challenging situations.
People are struggling to feed their families.
People are dropping out of school.
People are hurting from wrong relationships.
People are dying.
People are struggling to keep up with their mortgage payments and the banks are threatening.
People are waking up each day only to realise their pension pot is drying up.
People are tired… really tired.
People… are losing hope.

I’ve been there before you know:
Destitute, no roof over my head, slept in church for months, lived in a slum for 3 years, hungry, begged or stole for at least a meal, ‘hunted’ every tree in the neighbourhood for unripped fruits for the belly, cooked and ate hand-picked vegetables with salt and nothing else for ingredient, fanned and burned charcoal-heated pot because kerosine was unaffordable for me, ironed my shirts with charcoal-fired iron, went to bed farmished for consecutive days, wrote my final high school exams with borrowed uniform and I remember the owner threatened to disgrace me on the final day of exam and requested I took it off in front of everyone (oh bless him!). And at university? Oh dear, where do I start? Results withheld every year because I owed tuition, paid my way through university and stayed hungry half the time… Enough now! There is more, lots more but for the sake of the emotions I feel right now, I must stop. You get the picture now.
All of these within the past 13 years and I’m still in my late 20s!!!

But my story has changed. Something in me refused to give up. When I told some I had the dream to study abroad, many laughed me off. They couldn’t fathom how a lad from the slum could find himself in the UK. So they laughed. A few listened and even fewer supported. The latter group know themselves and may be reading this post and I am eternally grateful to them for allowing God use them keep my hope alive.

Today, I’m a living testimony of hope and I live to inspire others with my story everywhere I go. But all the glory goes to God. I didn’t sit down and curse the world for my plight. I wasn’t born a pauper, actually on the contrary I must say. But stuff happened, many things went wrong and I mean things you cannot control. Indeed, life was unfair to me but I refused to resign to it.

I charge you today, I beg you today, I plead with you from my ‘sick sofa’ this miserably wet December midday: DON’T GIVE UP. YOUR STORY WILL CHANGE IF YOU KEEP HOPE ALIVE. Dead visions can and will be revived. And here’s my prayer for you, that God restores hope in you to dream again.

With love!