Loving God Vol 1: Childlike Faith

I’ve had writer’s block for a while now, and every time I ask God what should I write about next, I feel Him leading me to write about Him. And so I will obey.

This is one of the many stories I have about the love of my life and best friend and how He came to be all of these things to me:

I met God I will say when I was 8 years old. That’s when I became aware of Him outside this mythical creature that everyone explained Him to be. I was 8 and like most households in Lagos, Nigeria, there was no electricity and the generator had stopped working, probably because it was exhausted from being the primary source of electricity. So I said a simple but desperate prayer – “God please bring back the light so I can watch cartoons” and he answered 💡.

It sounds like nothing, but to me, at the time it was everything. I asked God for something and He answered me. Instantly. And even though logic might prove that it was just a coincidence, I think the real gift of that situation was that it planted the seeds which have now become the tree that is my faith.

And as these faith seeds begun to sprout, I would lean on them whenever my back was against the wall. It was as if I had discovered a life hack. I called God into EVERY situation and He came through every single time.

I remember calling Him when my teachers would tell me all about how bleek my future was going to be because I was constantly getting bad grades. After every parent-teacher conference I would cry to God in agony, begging him to turn things around for me. I now know that I was building my prayer cloud because I’m here standing in the future, surrounded by all my answered prayers.

But I think I experienced my first PROPER miracle at age 16. I had just finished my IGCSEs and my WAEC exams with crappy grades as always and the next and only step was for me to go to England for my A Levels. I had written the entrance exams to three schools and only passed 1, so I flew into that school for what we believed was the final interview. There was so much riding on this one interview, it really was all or nothing at this point. I was shaking the entire time but I prayed and believed that God would come through. I didn’t know how and it wasn’t my job to work out the semantics, it was my job to believe that he could and he would. And he did.

After sitting with the school and meeting people for what felt like 10000 hours, I waited for them to ask for my grades. They never did. I printed my transcript waiting to hand them over but for some reason, they just never asked. Instead, they gave me a welcome pack and said “see you in September”.

Come to think of it, the school never saw my crappy grades until I had to present them for my University applications. I will never forget the look of HORROR on their faces when they saw my AWFUL grades. I’m certain I tainted their pristine record and they were all wondering, how on EARTH I got in. The guidance counsellor couldn’t hide his horror and asked who conducted my interview – with a furrowed brow 😂😂😂.

But God came through for me with my university applications. You see me and crappy grades were like peas in a pod. I couldn’t hack writing exams and getting good grades. Such things just never happened to me.

I learned later on that I had undiagnosed learning constraints and little perks such as extra time, made a WORLD of difference.

So with crappy grades came crappy mocks and crappy grade predictions. But my crappy grades didn’t stop me from applying to the best schools I could think of, despite all my guidance counsellor’s “guidance” – “aim for more realistic schools Fey, you’re aiming wayyy too high”. I told them not to worry that God will do it. They turned pink.

And God did it. The dates are etched in my brain. I applied to Nottingham, Manchester, Surrey, Reading & Oxford Brookes. We sent off our UCAS forms in September and I had gotten and got into all 5 schools before half term in October. My school had never seen offers come in that quickly before. I even got a headmistress’s mention and was called to get a badge in assembly. I think I thanked God then, and some of my friends weren’t too pleased. “Give yourself more credit” they said. “You’ve worked so hard”. I did work hard, but God did this and I wasn’t going to allow even myself share His glory.

When the offers came, my required grades were (AAB and ABB) so tell me HOW I was able to finesse (A*AB) a level grades from (BDE) in my AS levels and (ABC) as my predicted grades. Then I got into my first choice, and the rest is history.

I know I be telling you all my business. A lot of the time my openness is for my healing. But today I really really really just want to shout out God and not hold back.

The Bible says it was good for me that I was afflicted.

I write this all the time even when I’m not talking about God because I’ve never experienced affliction that doesn’t come with a silver lining. My journey through education with undiagnosed learning difficulties was the place where I built my faith muscles and now my faith muscles are HUGE.

When I imagine how heaven sees my faith, I’m like a heavyweight champion, bodybuilder, flexing my shiny oily muscles in front of the enemy.

Another miracle God and I journeyed through is the story of how I met and married my husband. I had just ended a relationship that God was very vocal about. He didn’t care for the relationship. It wasn’t in his plan or his vision but I did, and when it ended I was bummed but also relieved because I was no longer living in the burden of disappointing God.

If you feel me put your hands up. I know I’m not alone. You know the ones where you have no peace 🤣🤣🤣 because God said no and when the time comes to break up, your reason is that God said no 😭😭😭.

So I finally found a way out of that relationship and I looked God in the face and said, you see this boyfriend thing, I clearly suck at it. So what I’m going to do, is step aside, and let you do your thing. PLEASE DO NOT TAKE ME THROUGH ANOTHER RELATIONSHIP THAT YOU HAVE NOT ORDAINED. Send me the person you have sent to me or let’s just forget about it.

When my husband and I started dating I don’t think a day went by where I didn’t look to the heavens for their usual sigh of disapproval. One week, one month, one year in and I heard nothing. 2 years passed then 3 then in the 4th year he asked me to marry him. That day he proposed I looked heaven dead in the eye. I was like, you’re not going to speak on this Lord? Like you’re just going to let me say yes to this man without knowing if you’re on board?

Then I felt a confirmation.

I’ll explain.

I felt something bigger than me, agree with a desire I had. I felt something approve a decision I was going to make. How this feels physically is that you have a thought or voice in your head, a thought you didn’t put there but a thought you identify as superior and by faith, I knew who’s voice or thought it was. And in this case, that voice said, “Go, I’m here with you”.

And so I said YES.

I can write about all the wonderful ways God has come through for me. I’ll write about my wedding dress one day. I’ll write about my journey to motherhood with God one day.

But the moral of the story is this – childlike faith.

Faith like a child.

That’s what I have. I’m still that kid that waits on God when the power goes out because I trust that He can bring it back in an instant. But God is not a genie in a lamp. He decides times and seasons. Some prayers are answered instantly and others take time. But I know that God’s time is not only the best but the sweetest.

Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus

Loving God and being loved by God has saved my life.

It has enriched my life.

It makes everything so beautiful.

It truly is the greatest honour and privilege of my life.

I really hope you let him be God over your life today.