BIG Things Can Come In Most Unexpected and Often Small Packages

There are days you feel so out of sorts that all you want to do is lie in bed and try to clear the 'cobwebs' in your head and on your mind. Today was shaping to be like one such day with a down in the dumps feeling until my peace was stirred by a long distance call from a client who needed my intervention with his situation. I dragged my frame out of bed and turned my laptop out of it's sleeper mode and my inbox had its fair dose of unwanted emails which I promptly deleted.
There was a forwarded email from one of my sisters back home that I am thankful I saw because it is turning out to be one of the most profound pieces I have read in a while and I do read quite a lot - from the humdrum to the inspiring, from the ordinary to the magnificent, I read all that I can find.
It was a story by Mac Anderson, Founder -Simple Truths about a young man who was born with physical limitations of sight and mobility but who transcended those limitations and had become a musical virtuoso.
It wasn't just that he overcame his difference of ability but his attitude was simple yet infectious. In his moment of eternal adversity, the young man did not dissipate energy bemoaning his fate but elected instead to see the glass as half full instead of half empty and counted his blessings.
Part of the moral lesson from this story is that "Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass...it's about learning how to dance in the rain!"
In a very capitalist world, this becomes even more topical. In the rush of everyday life, we often fail to stop and smell the roses. If we are not complaining about how cold it gets in the winter (as if we did not know it was going to get cold), we are complaining about how hot and humid the summer feels. We remark that the traffic was heavy instead of being grateful that we have vehicles and that we got home safely.
It was Sarah Breathnach who is reported as saying that "when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's present....we experience heaven on earth."
Life is a journey not a destination and at whatever spot of that journey you are on, there are tons of people who would give anything to be in your place.
So as I step out to dance in the rain, I am grateful in the realization that life changing insights can come from the most unexpected of places and in this case, an innocuous email from my sister.

IT'S A BOY!!

Before you start wondering what's up with me, the above caption was exactly the message posted on the door of my office in Colgate Palmolive Africa -Middle East Division some twelve years ago.
My young family at that time (Siya, Sampi and Danju) was staying in Dallas and old ranger was in Nigeria working hard to bring home the ham. Talk of challenges we sometimes go through in trying to provide for our families.
So as I walked through the front office that eventful morning in Lagos, I was greeted with a lot more smiles than was the usual - a sign that something great was ahead of me. The lady in charge of the front office and the mail delivery personnel (cell phones were a status symbol at that time in Nigeria and a lot of official communication was delivered by hand by these delivery personnel, God bless their kind hearts) did well to hold back from breaking the news to me.

I matched briskly to my door and there it was posted in black ink on a white sheet of paper " It's a boy!". The pleasant surprise mixed with some other emotions that words can hardly describe enveloped me and when I regained my composure, Jacqueline (Atul's PA at that time) confirmed getting the call from my sister Flo.
Fast forward 12 years and that baby whom God blessed us with is now a young man with so much potential. That young man is Papa, the youngest of my three angels about whom a lot has been written in earlier notes in the Diary of a Loving Daddy.
We are staying awake to usher in July 28 with a special family prayer of thanksgiving for our many blessings.
For all you who will get to read today's blog, we request that you say a prayer for Papa and all other kids the world over that they grow up in the light of God to be good citizens of their respective communities.
Happy Birthday Papa.

NEW BEGINNINGS IN WILD ROSE COUNTY

I woke up this morning to the preaching of Joel Osteen (the well liked and widely listened-to pastor of lake wood church in Houston Texas) and today’s message was about dreams and opportunities and it seemed appropriate for the caption of today’s blog.
So much has happened since the last posting on the Diary – arguably the greatest music entertainer of our generation MJ passed on and left in his wake a lot of controversies which seem like a mirror image of the excitement that his life on the stage and out of it was; the world celebrated the 40th anniversary of humans landing on the moon, a small step for man and a giant leap for mankind; my son Papa played his last game in a Renegades jersey as an atom running back; my family stopped calling Oakville home and much more.
Last week my family and I began a new life in Wild Rose county, some four hours away by air from Oakville, a beautiful suburb that had been our home for the past 5+ years and one we had thought was our final place of reside. Such is life. Man proposes and God disposes. So it’s a new beginning for us. We therefore claim the message in Joel Osteen’s sermon of today and will rise and shine.
Expect more from the Diary.