Girls Like Us.

“Hey”
Is it just me or there’s just something about that word when a new guy or an old crush slides into your DM? Especially if you just posted a killer photo or just updated your profile picture. Is there an entire sentence embedded in that one word for us to decipher or could you tell a person’s name and intention for contacting you from three letters?

Funny thing is, the answers to these questions usually do not matter if they are the latter but as for the former, it greatly varies and depends on a lot of female factors, Lol.

Well in Fatima’s case on this fateful day, it was the latter and like any young female dying from excitement but still wanting to appear calm and dignified, she gave an expected three-worded reply “Hey! Long time” then waited. Maybe it was because he added her name to those annoying three letters and it was now a two-worded sentence but she was staring at her screen with so much joy and excitement you’d have thought she won the lottery.

Unfortunately, this excitement was short-lived as the conversation went on; this was simply because he found out she was going to be involved in a church program that week.
“Shit! I was hoping you were not still so much into that whole Jesus thing”.
Staring at this statement for quite a while, she got thrown into a turbulence of emotions. Johnny noticing the awkward long pause in the now interesting conversation sent another “Hello” which jolted her back to reality.

Now, like any girl currently disappointed in a “potential” she just laughed it off and continued the conversation but she knew in her heart that unless this “brother” had a change of heart, the relationship would definitely never go in the direction she had hoped.
Despite the disappointment she was so glad because she remembered that there was a time she would have bent over backwards to please him and responded in the negative. Maybe she would have just lied that she was being pressured to go and cancelled it for his plans on that same date. “Wow! I’ve actually come a long way”. She started to reminisce on how the Holy Spirit had now changed her heart and life.

“But He is a Christian”, she thought. She had started to lose track of the number of times she found herself here; having to cover these things up. Of course, it was the norm to “speak in parables”, divert the conversation or speak in “diluted English” concerning matters of her faith to most people on the outside that she was not helping in ministry. What of people who intended to get very close to her?
“I see visions”
“I speak in new tongues”
“The Lord told me to tell you”
“Please could you excuse me? I feel the urgent need to pray”
“I cast out demons”
“I have the power by the Holy Spirit to cause change in that situation”
“No, I don’t know where I’m going. God just gave me certain descriptions and said to move.”
“I’m a new man in Christ; a being that has never existed before.”
“I just received a gift of the Spirit and I’m so excited…”
“God said not to go ahead with our plan.”
Uttering any of these statements or similar when you’re not the pastor or a spiritual leader but just a member in the congregation, usually sets an unease in the atmosphere. Perhaps that’s to be expected since it’s out of the norm.

When not outrightly rejected, she was seen as strange. Jesus did say the world would not understand us but what of her brethren in Christ? Did any of this seem strange in the early church? Maybe it was because she wore jeans and let her knee-length colored braids down but then she sometimes heard the same stories from her sisters who didn’t do the same.
Wasn’t it ok for her to heal the sick and raise the dead as she was, without a title? Sometimes she felt like shouting these things from the rooftops.

It’s not like it was compulsory to walk in these things but she did not just see it fair to discourage those with the desire to do so. No need to feel intimidated either. After all, these things were placed there for the benefit of the entire church.
She started to recall her younger years, she always found it fascinating when she heard people talk about this stuff especially in the most unconventional ways, like it was a tale of how they woke up that morning. Of course, then she concealed the excitement because she didn’t want to lose face. “Look at me now” she thought aloud, laughing.

She then recalled with so much laughter, a time she detected by the Spirit that a guy who was pursuing her at the time was also doing the same with another girl. He was so shocked and later thought a friend had told her but of course she couldn’t tell him “God told me”. She remembered him saying things like she would never find a husband that would accept her as she was, that she was being overly religious etc At least God had now delivered her from all those fears.
She was grateful for the very few friends who accepted her as she was. They always understood when she seemed uneasy for no obvious reason at all and just bowed her head to pray even when with them… the blessing! At least she now realized she was always looking for acceptance and usually in the wrong places.

Finally, exhausted from the exaggerated mind sport for the night, she started to drift to sleep and just as she finally closed her eyes, the last thought on her mind was “Girls like us”.

Written by ‘A girl like us.’