I wrote this on June 8, 2014 and feel it is retrospectively relevant today
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The time was 7pm on May 4, 2014. I was attempting to get my 5-year-old daughter, Anuoluwapopupolopolopo, ready for school for the next day. For some unknown reason, she was restless and wasn’t responding to all the instructions I was giving her.

BRING YOUR SCHOOL BAG!
HAVE YOU CLEANED YOUR SHOE?
IS YOUR UNIFORM CLEAN?

All my questions and requisitions seemed to be falling on deaf ears. I was getting upset and aggravated and proceeded to ask at the top of my voice: WHERE IS THE CANE? I had gotten a cain (popularly known as pankere) as a birthday gift on her 3rd birthday. I know, I know, I’m weird like that. I decided it was time for her to get a few “strokes” of the cane in order for her to calm down from her restless mood.

Flashback to 6:55pm that same evening. My mind was in a worried state. We had recently concluded the 2nd edition of the Nigeria Photography Expo & Conference. As much as almost everyone I knew was congratulating me for the “success” of the conference, I wasn’t a happy man because I was still in debt as a result of organizing the event that brought together the largest gathering of photographers in West Africa. I was in DEBT and was racking my brain as to how to get money to settle my creditors. Most of them thought that I had made millions and a few had started contacting me for their outstanding.

I was worried. I was concerned. And it was around that time that one little princess decided she was going to ignore my pleas and just sing and shout as she played around the house.

WHERE IS THE CANE? I asked a 2nd time since she was in a habit of playing with it as if it was a toy. And instead of giving me the location of the cane so I could swiftly cast out the “restless” spirit in her with a few strokes, she mumbled a sentence that left me speechless.

“For without faith it is impossible to please God Hebrews 11:6a”.

Surprised, I asked her to repeat what she just said. I was almost in tears when she proceed to recite what she said was the memory verse she learnt in church earlier that day.

It was at that moment I realized that God had spoken to me through this Angel. I was looking for a cane to scold her for her misbehavior but God decided to use her to SCOLD me for not trusting in HIM enough to sort me out of my financial mess. I thanked God for the encouragement he just sent my way through the mouth of the “Angel”. I proceeded to stop displeasing GOD and start having faith in HIM.

Needless to say, if that word of encouragement had not come that very moment, a princess would have been “caned” for misbehaving. At the end of the day, I was scolded in a creative way.

For without FAITH……..

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Today – June 8, 2019 – marks 5 years that I wrote that writeup and I can attest to the fact that if you don’t have faith that things will get better (& take the necessary steps towards the better future), things will not get better for you. As for me, I’m better off now and out of that mess because I was SCOLDED & changed my ways. I rest my briefcase.