Blessed Self-Assurance | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Blessed Self-Assurance | Previous Challenge Entry
By Robert Rutaagi
01/18/18
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Blessed Self-Assurance

In 2004, I boarded a tourist bus from Toronto to Niagara Falls. I sat with a lady called Anne. She was quite a gorgeous beauty and smartly dressed. She spoke well and smiled amiably. Soon we developed a good conversation throughout the entire journey.

“What do you do in Canada?” I asked Anne.
“I work for a telecommunication company as a Sales Executive,” she replied.

She went on to narrate to me, in graphic detail, how she works hard from Monday to Friday. She lives some distance from her workplace. Every day she wakes up at 5am, gets on a train and, at the end of the day, she takes the same train back home at 5pm. She lives alone in her apartment.

At work, there are six people in her Department. They are all busy people who hardly talk to each other much, if at all.

On Saturday, Anne wakes up at 8am, prepares and takes breakfast after which she does some cleaning and washing. At 10am she visits a friend who lives in another part of the country. For those two days, they do nothing else but talk. They cook as they talk. They clean as they talk. They sit and talk. They walk and talk. Instead of sleeping early, they talk, till late, about many things.

By Sunday evening, when she returns to her ‘prison home,’ as she termed it, both are complaining of headache.

Anne’s testimony prompted me to share mine which related to hers. One time I boarded an international flight plane to Lisbon on my way to Cuba. I arrived at Lisbon Airport in the morning. On checking with the Travel Agent about my connections, I was informed that there was no flight that could take me to Havana, Cuba for the next 18 hours. My problems were compounded by the 2nd class ticket I carried and having no Spanish visa. That condemned me to staying at the airport all those hours.

I walked around the airport, visited restaurants for meals but soon I ran out of activities to keep me busy. I sat on hard chairs, meditated but could not find sleep. I tried to find someone to talk to but could not get any.

Suddenly, in the middle of the night, I remembered that, in my hand luggage, was a little book of poetry I had authored many years back. I excitedly pulled it out and started reading loudly. Many hours of silence had haunted me so much that I had begun to think that, probably, I could have lost my power of speech. By reading loudly I was instinctively trying to re-assure myself that I was still able to speak.

The reading went on for about 10 minutes. Suddenly, someone behind me coughed and stood up. She was a white lady. She confronted me angrily and asked:

“Are you mad?”
“No, I am only reading a book,” I responded rather embarrassed.
“Do you have to read so loudly?” she continued.
“I am so sorry, madam,” I pleaded.

Subdued by guilt, boredom and sleeplessness, I moved to another quiet corner and continued reading my poetry in a much saner tone until sleep gunned me down.

I was awakened by a loud announcement. “Attention, please. Calling passengers on flight…to Havana to proceed to gate number seven ready for boarding.” I looked at my watch: 8:00am, in the morning. I had slept for over six hours. It was such a transcendent sleep that I felt wonderfully rested from the heavy burden I had carried for more than eighteen hours.

These two testimonies taught me a good lesson about God’s blessings many people take for granted – the gift of a spouse, children, relatives and friends to talk to and the gift of sleep to revitalize our bodies and even much more – when I received salvation, the LORD, through the agency of the Holy Spirit who indwells me, assures me that peace that transcends all understanding and that ineffable assurance of eternal life, ruling with Christ. John 3:16.

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