Serenity in the Storm: Cultivating Stillness to Weather Life's Challenges.

It was the summer of 1997.

It seemed the clock had stopped.? I was in my penultimate year in dental school. We had issues with the scheduling? of our promotion examinations. Without notice, we no longer knew when we would eventually graduate. The attendant delay was truly depressing. I perceived it as a major crisis in my life at that time. I could neither go forward or backward. I took to reading to keep me sane.

For some reason I wanted an explanation of why I was going through this valley experience.? Amongst my readings was? Ola Rotimi's The Gods Are Not to Blame.

The book was about King Odewale who, at birth, is destined to kill his father, King Adetusa and marry his mother, Queen Ojuola. To avoid this unsavory incident, Odewale was ordered to be killed in a grove. But Gbonka, the palace messenger detailed with this instruction, fails, out of pity for the barren Ogundele and Mobike, his wife, to kill the child; rather he hands the baby over to the barren couple to foster. When Odewale is fully grown up, the message of the gods are delivered to him again at Ijekun Yemoja. Mistaking his foster parents for his biological ones, Odewale runs away from 'home' to avoid the fulfillment of the prediction, only to achieve fame and royal feats at Kutuye, where he lives to fully act out the wills of the gods by marrying his mother, having inadvertently killed his father over a piece of land at Ede.? The portion of the book that brought me great calm was when an epidemic breaks out in Kutuje, the townspeople gather at the palace to register their protest over their assumed non-caring attitude of? King Odewale.?

In his response he convinced the people about the role he plays, he engages proverbs to encourage them to administer herbs properly and patiently.? He said “

To get fully cured one needs patience. The moon moves slowly but by daybreak it crosses the sky.

Those words stood out in that season. I needed to be still.??

I got to learn the hard way. I learned that all birds when they are first caught and put into the cage fly wildly up and down, and beat themselves against their little prisons; but within two or three days sit quietly on their perch, and sing their usual notes with their usual melody. So it fares with us, when God first brings us into a strait; we wildly flutter up and down, and beat and tire ourselves with striving to get free; but at length custom and experience will make our narrow confinement spacious enough for us; and though our feet should be in the stocks, yet shall we, with the apostles, be able even there to sing praises to our God.

This? Scripture verse helped me: “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still” (Exod. 14:14 niv). These are the words Moses spoke to the Israelites when they had just escaped from slavery in Egypt and were being pursued by Pharaoh. They were discouraged and afraid.

I have practiced stillness when temptations and trials are engulfing my world. I remain still and calm while trusting God in the midst of stress-laden situations .“ Be still, and know that I am God,” the psalmist says (Ps. 46:10 ). When we remain still, we get to know God, “our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (v. 1). We see our weakness apart from God and recognize our need to surrender to Him. “When I am weak, then I am strong,” says the apostle Paul (2 Cor. 12:10 ).

We sometimes go through life not knowing how to navigate our way .

Tough times are part of life's journey. God is still in control of everything we go through and nothing, absolutely nothing catches Him by surprise. I believe in the mighty power of God and grace to save, heal and deliver. God loves you so much and is still in the business of doing awesome wonders today.