{"id":261,"date":"2008-10-23T16:32:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-23T16:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/verastic.com.s96953.gridserver.com\/site\/?p=261"},"modified":"2008-10-23T16:32:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-23T16:32:00","slug":"have-you-heard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/have-you-heard.html","title":{"rendered":"Have You Heard?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>That on Sunday, October 19th 2008, I rededicated my life to Christ? I went to <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.houseofpraisebaltimore.org\/\"><span style=\"font-size:130%;color:#33cc00;\">House of Praise&#8217;s<\/span><\/a><\/strong> dedication of their new church, and their General Overseer, Pastor Adeboye was there. Boy, am I glad I went! Pastor Adeboye preached about uncommon favor and uncommon success, and he talked about how one will flourish and succeed extraordinarily when God is with him. On the flip side, when God isn&#8217;t with you&#8230;well, you know the rest. One passage from the bible resonated with me. Ps 127:1-2 <strong><em><span style=\"color:#000099;\">&#8220;Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat &#8211; for He grants sleep to those He loves.&#8221;<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Now, let me explain why I said I rededicated my life to Christ (instead of just saying I <em><strong>dedicated<\/strong><\/em> it). It is because I don dedicate my life tire!! Honestly, almost each chance I get, I rededicate my life to Christ. Sometimes, it&#8217;s face to face (in church, or @ a revival\/vigil type thing), sometimes it&#8217;s while watching a pastor (like Pastor Joel Osteen preaching), sometimes, it&#8217;s on the radio while listening to 95.1. I think I have even considered doing it after reading a letter from Franklin Graham!! One thing has been constant in all my attempts: I keep going back to the same ol&#8217; me.<\/p>\n<p>So why do I keep trying? Twice in my life, I was very serious with God, and honestly, those were the best times of my life. When I was about 13, I gave my life to Christ. I used to attend revivals and everything with my cousin. It was great! I even used to sing some solo songs for them, and they used to praise my voice. By the way, my cousin was in the university then, so this Christian community was pretty much her fellow students, but they were on fire for God. They loved the Man passionately. Anyway, looking back on it now, I see they lied to me! I cannot carry a note to save my life, yet every Friday night, they let me belch out those lyrics with beautiful smiles plastered across their faces. They even talked of me releasing an album. Kai. Those uni students no do me well @ all. I remember one guy (can&#8217;t remember his name now) who told me God wanted to use me in my generation. I never forgot that. I have often wondered when, where, how, and WHY God will wanna use me.<\/p>\n<p>But then I fell off the wagon. And when I was about 16, I became close to Him again. It was great. I used to read my Bible, pray every night and morning, and it was just great. I don&#8217;t know what happened, when it happened, or why it happened, but I was right back to square one. Since then, I have been playing catch-me-if-you-can with God, deceiving myself really. I keep going back because I am never truly happy or complete or satisfied when I am not where He is. So I am back again, but this time, with more determination. A lady in church said a good place to start reading the Bible is in the book of John. Phew! I wish someone woulda told me that sooner!! No offense to you, oh dear Father, but that book of Genesis ehn, e get as e be oh. I have read from the book of Genesis to the book of Deuteronomy, and so far, all I remember is that God made the world in seven days, Adam was the first man, Eve was the first woman, and they ate the forbidden fruit. Ko easy @ all to read it.<\/p>\n<p>I started reading the book of John, and the feeling has been different. It was a pleasure reading it. I&#8217;m not gonna overwhelm myself. I&#8217;m gonna take it one day @ a time. I&#8217;m making this public, because when you make such public comittments, it usually makes you less likely or more afraid of breaking them off. Of course, as we have come to find out, this does not apply to marriage. People are usually happier at the time of their divorce than they are at their wedding. On a side note: how come no1 gets cold feet for divorces?? Anyway&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I shouted so many &#8216;Amens&#8217; in church that my voice is now suffering a little. Naija people sabi claim blessing oh. Na so so blessing Pastor Adeboye take dey slap our face that day. The thing nyafu nyafu everywhere, but I was not complaining. I kuku claimed them all in Jesus&#8217; name. Why shall I shy? I thought Pastor Adeboye would say, <strong><em>&#8220;There is a girl in this room who has been dreaming of a black, semi tinted 2010 range rover. The Lord wants you to know that when you go home today, that range rover will be parked outside, waiting for you &#8211; all expenses paid!&#8221; <\/em><\/strong>I for just run go dance naked outside. Ah, I am serving a living God&#8230;the God that answereth by black, semi tinted 2010 Range Rovers!!<\/p>\n<p>Needless to say, I didn&#8217;t get my range rover. My corolla was not mysteriously replaced by a range rover. And no disturbingly handsome man was sitting on my hood waiting for me. However, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.verastic.com\/2008\/10\/oops-i-did-it-again.html\"><span style=\"font-size:130%;color:#ff6600;\">Ireti<\/span><\/a><\/strong> did blatantly refuse to follow her family home; she wanted to follow me instead. Could this have been part of the uncommon favor? I said thank you, Jesus, but how I fit manage this kin favor&#8230;especially in this time of austerity? Mba o. Na so I just package the girl go give am back to her people. She cried her cute, little eyes out. On a serious note, I really did rededicate my life back to Christ, and I have begged Him to not let me go. I have begged Him to hold me tight because I really, really, really wanna walk this walk with Him.<\/p>\n<p>Now that you&#8217;re done reading this and congratulating and encouraging me (<em><strong>aka commenting<\/strong><\/em>), go over to <a href=\"http:\/\/genderandme.blogspot.com\/2008\/10\/interview-thursday-welcome-vera.html\"><strong><span style=\"font-size:180%;color:#cc33cc;\">Standtall&#8217;s blog<\/span><\/strong><\/a>, and read my interview. Happy reading!!! And thanks again for the interview, Babe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That on Sunday, October 19th 2008, I rededicated my life to Christ? I went to House of Praise&#8217;s dedication of their new church, and their General Overseer, Pastor Adeboye was there. Boy, am I glad I went! Pastor Adeboye preached about uncommon favor and uncommon success, and he talked about how one will flourish and<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/have-you-heard.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_14738191_14738191":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","tag-god","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Have You Heard? - Verastic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/have-you-heard.html\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Vera Ezimora\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/have-you-heard.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/have-you-heard.html\",\"name\":\"Have You Heard? - Verastic\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-10-23T16:32:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/2c1b7969fbea03a45b97d54a5228cc1a\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/have-you-heard.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/have-you-heard.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/have-you-heard.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Have You Heard?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/\",\"name\":\"Verastic\",\"description\":\"Recklessly authentic.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/2c1b7969fbea03a45b97d54a5228cc1a\",\"name\":\"Vera Ezimora\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f6c1e19c23a08351aab97f35d3ca650f0b87e7e96937f85baf0faf6e0834bc51?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f6c1e19c23a08351aab97f35d3ca650f0b87e7e96937f85baf0faf6e0834bc51?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Vera Ezimora\"},\"description\":\"I mean, I'm a lot of things - a Writer, Blogger, Speaker, Vlogger, Content Creator, Storyteller, Truth-Sayer, Milk-Lover, Yogurt-Addict, Entrepreneur, Daughter, Wife, Mom, &amp; Nwa Jesu. 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