TINY ME

“You’re so tiny!”

I have heard those words in different forms and paraphrases all my life. As a kid, I used to protest vehemently, telling whoever said them I was not that little and that (s)he was just a few inches taller than me. I remember a classmate in JSS3 (Junior Secondary School Three), she would look at me, mischief lacing her eyes and would exclaim, “Ayo, you should be in Primary Two” followed with a peal of naughty laughter. I would flick my fingers and forbid it. Ayobola!

This informed why when I went for my medicals in my pre-degree days and I stepped on the balance the doctor was surprised. He said, “Is this your weight?! You should be eating ten times a day!”

A lot of times I have had to trim clothes to my size (to be fair, I still get my size in the market, just that I will have to walk around a lot to get it) and I would always pout and ask why some designers do not consider people like me when they are designing their products. Thank God for my younger sister who learnt to sew, she had made a lot of fitting wears for me. I think that’s actually the best for me, having someone to design my wears for me. I still shop for clothes and every time I see a wee size that I love, I grab it with immediate alacrity.

And I don’t think my size is because I don’t eat. I will not say I eat a lot, but my appetites are better now compared to the way they were earlier this year and a few years back.  I used to eat a lot on campus and it never showed. My friend, Tope, would tease me and ask if the food was going to my head. Someone even suggested deworming. (I do not regularly deworm. The last time I actively dewormed was before mom died. But I do not have worms, I know.) So, I heeded the advice and used the drugs, well, there were no worms. I guess that’s just me, delicate and dainty.

When I was at the NYSC orientation camp, people would ask if the hairstyle I had on was all my hair—I had single twists on. I would reply yes and they would say, “It’s what you should use to add weight that your hair is using.”

However, I have noticed a trend in my life. I have always found myself doing/handling things ‘bigger’ and ‘stronger’ than me. I studied geology, a course ‘stronger’ than my frame. I was graphics coordinator in my fellowship back on campus. Being a graphics coordinator in my fellowship was not beans, it was very tasking and considering the fact that I am small, it appeared ‘bigger’ than me. As a Jesus Corper, I was State Chief Usher/Landlady. That was another tasking assignment. And eventually I became a rig worker. It is quite unusual to find a person of my size on the rig. Some guys had asked me before if my mama and papa knew if I was working on the rig. Poor guys, my size fooled them. There was a time on a rig when the company man remarked on seeing me and another female colleague that he wasn’t running a kindergarten on the rig (that was my fault though).
 
Sometimes last year at training, I was chatting with my colleagues and I mentioned something about when I was small. One of them looked at me, amused, and said, “You’re still small!” =D . Two hitches away while at the heliport, I already had my weight taken, but I was called back again after a while to confirm my weight which was 90 pounds then. And this last hitch, I was weighing 92. The woman that took my weight lowered her voice in a whisper and told me she weighed 92 pounds twenty years ago when she got married. She was trying to get back to that size, she said, as she had lost about 90 pounds (if I remember correctly).

But this size was instrumental in getting me my job. I went to gatecrash with some other brethren from the NCCF family house and it was my size that made the security guard who allowed me in to my company base to write the test notice me. Sometimes last year though, I was supposed to work in Canada for six months on a short term assignment, but the assignment ended up being a vacation of one month and five days. Why? Because in Canada, they fly on choppers with flight suits and not life jackets, but there was no flight jacket small enough for me and the process of getting a customized one would take more than six months. Anyway, I never saw my weight/size as a disadvantage still, even though it wasn’t easy on me at that time. I will always know that my size is not a disadvantage and that God uses the weak things of this world to shame the strong.

I am adding little by little, but I must not over-add. I am not tall, so I do not want to become a bottle. I have a target weight which I told God I don’t want to exceed, except if I get to that point and I realize I could do with a few more pounds. I still want to be able to jump and skip around, I love doing those.  I am Ayobami Temitope with a high metabolism rate and I love being me. I am beautiful, delicately and intricately made by the Greatest Artist.

“For You created my inmost being;

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.” Psalm 139:13-15

PROPHECIES

In December 2010, I was at a weeklong convention with a dear friend. We were divided into groups for a specific session of the convention and my friend and I joined the singles’ group. During one of our singles’ group meetings, the minister asked us to write down by faith our wedding dates on a sheet of paper each. He stated that he understood some people did that before but they shouldn’t give up, they should write it again. So, I wrote and my friend wrote. If I can remember very well, I filled in July 2011. I did this because I frown at short courtships, for me a courtship should not be less than six months at least. I met some other ladies there and they wrote down their wedding dates too. We were all excited because we were cocksure 2011 was our year, we knew the Lord would honour our faith. None of us was engaged then, but we were sure the Lord would settle us somehow.
Fast forward to now, I am not yet married neither is my friend. I lost contact with the other ladies we were together at the camp except for one and she got married in 2012 or sometimes last year. What am I driving at? It is the fact that a prophecy spoken by a servant of God at a particular point in time is not meant for everybody under him at that time. It might be for just one person. Shout and jump all you can, if it is not for you, it is not for you. I’m sure that wedding-date-writing exercise was meant for some people that day and they would have been married on the exact dates they specified in their papers. Does that mean my friend and I did not have enough faith? Yes, we did have faith; we didn’t doubt that we would be married in 2011. I’m certain it wasn’t just our time (as much as we didn’t want to see it that way).

Another thing I’ve learnt is that when you log on to a particular prophecy, if you are not careful, you might get a fake fulfilment before the real fulfilment comes. (Note that I do not claim all prophecies. If a prophecy doesn’t correlate with the soundness of the Scriptures, I ignore it and there are some prophecies I know are not for me.) I claimed a prophecy under a programme during my last few days on campus. It was about getting a marriage proposal before the month ended. I claimed it with so much faith and a few days later I had a very STUPID proposal from an acquaintance I was trying to lead to the Lord then. I would have fallen into the trap of a wrong relationship if I didn’t have the understanding that there are some men you don’t even pray about when it comes to marriage. For someone else, it would have been the ‘fulfilment’ of the prophecy, for me it was a manipulation from the pit of hell.

I never doubted the authenticity of those ministers because I understand that God has a time for everybody and prophecies spoken forth during a service or programme are not for everybody.  I was under another programme just after NYSC and there was a prophecy that someone would get a turnaround before the end of the first quarter of that year. I claimed that prophecy with the same enthusiastic faith I’d always used to claim prophecies. I finished my national service in February that year and I got a cream job before the end of March. But there were other people under the programme that evening that didn’t experience a ‘spectacular’ turnaround that season. God is still God and is yet for them. We only have to understand that no matter how many prophecies we key in to, God will do what He will do when it is beautiful in His eyes.

So, fellow yoke-bearers, I want to encourage you with the same encouragement I have been encouraged with. When you get a seeming answer to a prophecy you are holding on to, test it with the word of God and pray about it. Do not just rush for it as a fulfilment to the prophecy, it might not be. Of course, you have to pray prophecies forth into physical manifestation, but if after you have done all it doesn’t come at the expected time, hold on for His time. Rest on the Lord and trust Him. His plans and purposes will be realised in your life.

You should also know the Lord for yourself, as such, you can discern prophecies that are for you or not. Why, because prophecies are meant to confirm what you have received from the Lord yourself. And do not forget that all His beautiful promises are hinged on only one condition—pleasing Him. Is your life pleasing to Him? Are you sure He is pleased with you? I am writing to fellow yoke-bearers, to fellow little christs, to fellow Christians. Know that pleasing Him is not by power, He works in you to will and to do according to His good purpose. Tell Him to help you live a life that gives Him smiles. MARANATHA!

PS: You can join us to bear the yoke too. Sign up today through our Lord Jesus Christ. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. (Matthew 11:28). Jesus loves you, He came to save you from your sins, to give you eternal life (salvation from eternal damnation) and to help you live an abundant life through thick and thin while on earth.