He is Good. Full stop

The year is somewhere before hipsters stopped being trendy and ripped jeans made their way from the dumpsters to our closets. I was still struggling with less than 50kgs of body weight, and cooking oil prices weren’t competing with Teslas. I was due to attend an interview for one of the electoral commission jobs. Heaven’s tanks were leaking that day, and prophet Elijah, Heaven’s plumber, was on a sabbatical leave to care for his mental health. The skies were leaking so badly that it rained like Noah was planning a sequel.

I remember standing at the maroon metallic door of our unfinished brick house — which we used to sleep in any way —staring at the streams flowing on the iron sheets grooves, making a muddy torrent beneath my feet, and wondering, “Did God dislike me that much?”

This interview was my ticket to pocket money. I was also planning to put window panes in our house because I was tired of sleeping and imagining an owl will fly into the house. I didn’t like owls. I still don’t. You can’t trust an animal that can turn its head 270°. I wanted to cry. (I may have cried.) I felt like I was God’s foster child, and He didn’t like me very much.

For a long time, my life motto had been Murphy’s law”. I was convinced that if anything could go wrong, it would go wrong. And I had enough evidence of everything that had gone wrong for me that I was convinced God could have done something about it, but he chose not to.

One time I was a bridesmaid at a wedding. Once the church bit was over, we boarded the rickety van to the reception, a long distance from the church. A quarter way into the journey, the van broke down. Try as they did; no one could repair it. By 5pm, we were asked to disperse and go home. After spending the whole day fixing a dead engine, the bridal party didn’t get to the wedding. I was angry, hungry, and bitter. See? Murphy.

Many years later, I kept counting the numerous application letters I sent without a reply— the enthusiastic potential employers who never called me back.

I was mad at God for all these, even my scanty hair and misaligned tooth. I mean, He could have at least given me well-aligned teeth! I was asking for much.

Turning point

I want to tell you that a specific moment changed my mindset, but I don’t remember it. One day, I was just done looking at God as a malicious, sadistic being out to get me. I started counting the little things that were going well for me. I had (and still have) a beautiful family and a wonderful husband I love to annoy. I have two gorgeous daughters, one of whom God snatched from the jaws of death on the day she was born. She was a goner, this one. When I was wheeled into theater for the CS, her heart had stopped beating. By God’s invisible hand, she lived! I don’t know how they never told me, but I know she came out purple and panting for air, but she lived! He’s a good God.

I have held a job that allowed me to work from home for five years. I’m not too fond of the rat race that is modernity today — waking up running to jobs we hate to pay for a house we seldom get to live in. I desired to be a work-from-home and be there for my kids. When I held an office job, a colleague asked everyone about their ambition. Amid many “To be a CEO one day, to grow my own company” answers, I said mine was “To bring up Godly children.” I sounded stupid, even to myself.

I beat myself up later for not coming up with a more intelligent, executive answer. But that was my deepest desire. It still is. A couple of years later, God gave me a job that allowed me to be there for my children in all their milestones. There were a few strands of grumbling since money was tight, but my heart was complete, and my kids were happy.

I’m now focusing on being grateful, praying over everything every time, and remembering ,“The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it…” That includes landlords. And KRA.

I quit grumbling and focused on what was going well. Recently, I saw God literally walk ahead of us as a family, opening impossible doors and allowing people to bless us in ways they didn’t know we were desperate for.

I have been broke, more broke than an unlucky gambler. We have had to downscale as a family and move to a smaller house because the bills list was longer than a graduation booklet. I have a sickness that looks like I’ll live with forever. My lymphatic system gave up on me a while ago, and I now live with lymphedema on my left foot. I have tried everything short of planting a seed in some fake pastor’s church for healing. Nothing.

Despite all these, I have seen a surreal provision; I’m reeling from God’s goodness. Life is hard; life looks bleak sometimes, especially at the end of the month. Your bills may be giving you palpitations like mine are, but none of these have taken God by surprise. He’s not seated on the golden throne reading Tuko News and asking Gabriel, “Kwani, what’s happening in Kenya?”

He’s not a malicious or sadistic God. The focus is not on me. I’m not the star of this show that is my life. God is. And HE is good. Full stop. You can trust Him.

I’m now focusing on being grateful, praying over everything every time, and remembering ,“The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it…” That includes landlords. And KRA.