I Bi Dem: Woman, Wife, Mother

Waiting time was one of the topics in my communication class many years ago. I wondered then what the relevance was but I soon got to learn that waiting was extremely important and that failure at this stage could mar the end result of whatever was being waited for. So what is waiting time? It is the period between initiating an action or request and getting that action resolved or the request granted. Between the two ends of the continuum, a lot can happen. When you order for a meal in a restaurant, you often go sit down and wait, doing nothing but fiddling with our phones or engaging in small talks – nothing important. This is because we consider waiting a passive activity. We sit and do nothing – nothing. But the waiting time is not supposed to be a passive, unproductive time; it should not be wasted time. Waiting time is anticipatory time. It is time to anticipate; a time to plan for what is coming. We can’t afford to sit and doddle because we are waiting for someth...

One of the things that amazes me about Abraham is his willingness to go without having any idea where he was going. If you are like me, you would like to have an end destination in mind before embarking on a journey. Not so for Abraham; he goes without knowing and this becomes a pattern for him. Even when ordered to go sacrifice his son, he went without knowing which mountain he was going to. Like I said, I find it amazing and I really respect him for it.   When one engages with Abraham’s story, it becomes clear that he was able to behave in this manner because he trusted the one giving the instructions. He had complete confidence in the God directing him, so he followed not knowing the next step but believing he would not be led into a ditch. The word ‘trust’ seemed very abstract to me until I figured it out in my mother tongue – Yoruba. One of the beauties of the Yoruba language is that it is highly descriptive. You can deduce the meaning of a word by exploring the differ...