Edited: Forgiveness

On the Onerous act of Forgiveness...

                                                                                The weak can never forgive.      

        Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong. 

      - Mahatma Gandhi

God spoke to me in church last Sunday. At about the time, the priest preached a Homily I have since forgotten. HIS voice came into my heart with an alarming request.  HE asked me to reach out to the fathers of my children. This is probably the toughest thing I will have to do this year.  I am a child that obeys God, so I set forth doing this task the way I begin any task, by thinking excessively about it. 

I concluded that since my older son is 11 years old and has his own phone and e-mail address, all I had to do was talk to him about it. The decision to proceed and communicate his dad would be up to him.  I gave him his dad’s e-mail address should he choose to proceed.  He sent the e-mail, got a reply with a phone number, which he will probably call.  Done!

The thinking phase for my younger son continued until last night when I resolved to send an e-mail to his dad.  I have been reading Dale Carnegie’s How to win Friends & Influence People and I thought it would be a good way to practice some of my learning.  Even with all the great tips from Dale Carnegie, it was hard to find the right words to get across to someone who seemed to disagree with me in every way imaginable.  Drafting my e-mail was an arduous task. Even more daunting is the wait for a response.  Have I opened an old wound to have salt drizzled on it? Now I wait….

I have tears in my eyes this morning over an event years past. I cry as I read hurtful e-mails a ‘friend’ sent to me. I have decided to send a reconciliatory e-mail. To forgive someone is one of the hardest things to do.  Even if the person repents and pleads your forgiveness, it will still be difficult if the person offended you. But to forgive a person who hurt you without them asking for forgiveness is an immense feat.

Why are human beings so hurtful?  What did I ever do to deserve such affront?  Do I have to be the one to reach out considering ‘he/she’ was the one that hurt me?  They should beg for my forgiveness.  Why is being a Christian so difficult? They hurt me, why can’t God make them come to their senses and ask me for forgiveness?  Do I deserve the humiliation of reaching out to them?  My questions become more existential.  Why did God make me a woman?  A distressed, unappreciated, emotional woman. Silent tears become a noiseless wail as emotions get the best of me.

This year’s Easter has brought forgiveness into my heart in all sorts of ways.  For instance, a friendship that ended two years ago in a very bitter argument and separation—far worse than anything I experienced in my teenage dramatic years—was recently regenerated due to no deed of mine.  I got a message from my friend on LinkedIn, not an “I am sorry” message unfortunately J, but a simple message asking to reconnect.  After thanking God, I responded and in a few days I may be seeing a good old friend for the first time a long time. And meeting I get to ‘his/her’ their one year old daughter for the first time. 

NB:  If you have an old friend or a family member who greatly hurt you and you would like to make peace with, even if it is not for your own sake but for God’s sake or the sake of something besides you like your child, your family, etc.  Please contact me and I would be happy to share my e-mail and some of the great things I have learned along the way.

Cheers!

God Bless

Love & Marriage: Why Men Need More Relationship Advice

Love and faithfulness keep a king safe; through love his throne is made secure. Proverbs 20:28 

Last month I went to Baton Rouge, Louisiana and spent time with some good friends I hadn’t seen in a while.  I inquired about mutual friends and acquaintances; you know how these reunions go.  I was quite saddened by the news that a couple I admired got divorced.  “A nasty divorce”, is the way my friend put it. She went on to narrate that “the wife turned the kids against him” in a bitter separation and custody battle. 

This story connected in my brain with something another friend told me about his ex-wife.  He said they didn’t have a good relationship because she is so antagonistic and even tried to get full custody of the kids during their divorce with all sorts of claims on how he physically abused the kids. 

One thing is certain; divorce hurts both men and women.  A divorced man shrinks his disposable income, sometimes pretty drastically, and whether he believes it or not, being divorced carry a scar that could reduce or eliminate his chances of marrying a girl he meets down the line.  Lastly, the emotional scars of a bungled marriage also lodges in the heart of men as it does women.

Considering these reasons, men need more marriage and relationship advice if we are to improve the quality of today’s marriages and lower divorce rates.  Women are an over advised group.  Every corner you turn, on the Internet, in church, in magazines on radio, or TV women are assailed with advice.  This has made for a generation of women who are much better prepared for marriage relationships than their male counterparts and as we all know it takes two.

I have two sons, three brothers, and lots of male cousins, friends and even ex-boyfriends that could benefit from relationship advice so here goes….

On the issue that women never forgets.  I agree that women hold unto hurts more than men just as I agree that men are more childlike than women and I don’t say this in a supercilious way.  This art of being artless is one that is wordy of emulation as a Christian, and one that my mother insists will see more cheating husbands in heaven than their unforgiving pious wives.  That is a story for another day. 

Dearest men folk, women never forget because men never apologize.   Hurting a woman’s feelings and saying let us get past this is not a good way to preserve a healthy relationship.  Women need to hear “I am sorry”, we may even need to see “I am sorry”.  It is easier to truly forgive someone and forget the hurt they caused you when you believe they are sorry for hurting you.  Believe it or not this is also applicable to our relationships with our fellow women.

I have heard a lot of men say, “I didn’t mean to hurt you”, not the same as “I am sorry for hurting you”.  It doesn’t matter if there was intent to hurt or not.  What matters is that the one you love and made your wife is hurt and you should apologize sincerely and truly try to do better in that sphere.

I hope that you guys find this piece of advice useful.  I would love to hear your comments.

Cheers

God Bless!

Do Men Cheat more than women? Or do they just get caught more?

Driving home from a boxing party with the bf last Saturday, my mind wandered to a million and one things as it habitually does, and I turned to him and asked, “do you think men cheat more than women in relationships, or do they just get caught more?”  Thankfully his eyes did not have a culpable look as he fleetingly glanced at me, before putting his eyes back on the road and answering very carefully.  “I don’t know, I will have to think about it for a while”.  He still thinks every question I ask seemingly from nowhere is a trick question. Sometimes they are, but this time I was just plain curious.

 My curiosity led me to my dearest friend Google and I found out that The Huffington post thinks that  women may be bigger cheaters and the Daily Mail in one article say that research found out Most women cheaters never get caught.   What do you think?  Looking forward to reading some thoughts on this one.

Extrapolating from my direct knowledge thousand of children, if not millions are being raised by fathers who are not their real fathers.  As a Nigerian American connected to a large immigrant community, I hear a lot of stories of children denied immigrant visas because DNA tests proved that they were not fathered by the US citizen they have called “daddy” all their lives.  Recently, I learned about a man who found out at almost fifty that his father was not his biological father.  His mom was dead by the time this information was related to him by the US embassy as a reason for denying his sick old father a US immigrant visa.  The I-485 he filed for his dad was based on the fact that his dad is the father of a US citizen but DNA proved otherwise.   That guy and a lot of children born out of a woman’s infidelity will never know who their real fathers are.

There is an Igbo adage that says “nani nwanyi ma onye nna nwa ya bu” which translates to “only a woman knows who the real father of her child is”.  I am sure this adage was made up before DNA tests but its still applicable today as most children especially those born within a marriage do not undergo a DNA test.  I had a friend once who insisted that all his children must undergo a DNA test but that was before he got married.  Before I digress too much on these evidence that cheating women have existed for years, this question for me stem from the fact that if women get asked out and men do the asking, then it is only common sense that women have more opportunities to cheat than men are.

I won’t disclose how many times in a week or month that I am faced with a proposition that could lead to sex as a woman but I will express the fact that I believe that every woman married or not gets these propositions albeit at different rates.  Men on the other hand, even the play boys I know very well, need to make a move to get sex from the most willing of females.  Hence a man needs to ask to cheat but a woman really only needs to say “yes” or even just be too weak to resist.  It is much easier to say, “yes” than to ask even the shortest question, hence my peripatetic thoughts on whether men really cheat more?

Please do share your thoughts….

Like Always

Cheers! God Bless

10 Reasons, Why Life is Worth Living

Romans 8:28 

And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Lately I have been sad and blue

Sickly sweet melancholy, a winter so bleak

Turbulently suffocating my spring desire – Judith Adaobi Udeke

If you are one of very few lucky people on earth, your life is perfect right now.  You are physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy.  Your parents are healthy; they don’t saddle you with unwanted chores and they are not even the least bit annoying. Your children are perfect little angels all the time, or better yet, you have no children J!  Of course, I am assuming you are not one of those praying fervently or paying thousands of dollars to be blessed with the financial and physical onus of raising a child.

You also have a perfect job where you are adequately praised by the boss and respected by all your colleagues, and if you happen to be a student, school is going great, no stress at all there.  Your friends are fun, uplifting, loving and everything you want them to be.  No one you know came to untimely death at the hands of sickness or violence.

Your bank account makes you smile stars every time you remember all that leading zeros…  If this is you, then you have never asked yourself why you should not just quit.  Why you should continue to go to school, to dream big, go to work, plan for the future, care for your kids and your parents….  Why Life is Worth Living?

If you have never asked yourself this question, never considered quitting, even for a second, you can stop right here.  But if you have pondered just why you should go on living and pursuing happiness, whatever that may be for you, then this list is for you.

So, Why is Life Worth Living?  I asked this question to myself and to friends and family and this is what I got.

1.     Life is worth living because there is always hope that the world will become a little better because you are living in it. 

2.    Life is worth living because life is a gift, we didn’t have to work to get life, it was given to us and we should make the most of the most precious gift of all.

3.     Life is worth living because, no matter how bad things are, there are some parts of being alive that feel great. If you disagree, spend some time with nature.

4.   Life is worth living because your life has a potential to influence others.  John Donne, an English poet once wrote “No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main… Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”

5.    Life is worth living so that you can fulfill the purpose set forth by God/ your maker/the one that gave you life.  When you don’t like your life, this becomes kinda like putting on that ugly sweater your grandma gave you so you can make her happy.

6.    Life is worth living so that you can live out those big plans you have made. 

7.    Life is worth living because tomorrow may bring your greatest desires with it.  What if tomorrow is the day you finally win that lottery, land that dream job, get pregnant, find happiness, the list goes on.

8.    Life is worth living because everything work together for our good, even hardship.  How many hardships have you looked back on and been thankful for?  I know that I am very thankful, I made two very difficult decisions to have my babies under very challenging circumstances because if I didn’t, I would have less to live for.

9.    Life is worth living because of the people you put a smile on their faces, those who get their will to live from you, and those who work hard to put a smile on your face.

10.  Life is worth living because according to Mommy dearest “God gave life and said it is good”, God is Truth and mommy is always right so you should believe it!  Don’t let the devil tell you otherwise, we all know he is a liar!!

11.   Lagniappe – as we Louisianans like to give. Life is worth living Because HE Lives.  My Faith is strong enough to carry me on when everything fails.  Because God Lives, I can face tomorrow...  Oh how I love that song!

Big thanks to all my Facebook friends and family that contributed to this list.  This is by no means an exhaustive list but it is a good start and if you don’t find any reason here that makes life worthwhile, please drop me a line on the comment box or send me an e-mail judith.udeke@gmail.com and we can talk about your specific situation and why your life is worth living.

Stay Strong!

God Bless.