Favvy_Okwans🖤

So, Kingatha and I do this crazy thing where we talk about stories, books, and movies alike as though they are things we have experienced ourselves. You need to see us discussing Grey's Anatomy, talking about Derek's eyes, or discussing a book character we have never met and only know through the pages we've read. It's fun, and because of our active imaginations, we get to talk about these stories as though they are tangibly real. So today, in a bid to explain how sometimes you have an experience that feels like the best thing that could ever exist, only to experience something even better later and realise just how ordinary the first experience had been, Kingatha pulled out the "Ceiling Versus Insom" card. It was a beautiful reference, and I got the gist immediately. Now, for some background, Ceiling was the silly name Ifemelu called Obinze in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah. It was very cute, like an inside joke only the couple understood. Insom, o...

“Some love is so consistent that we mistake it for background noise.” ~ X There is just this kind of love that is constant, always there, and over time, we forget to appreciate it until the day it is no longer there. Suddenly, its absence is loud, hard, and heavy on us because it is the kind of love we have grown so accustomed to. For some people, it is a mother's nagging, the constant bickering of loved ones, or the annoying little habits of our friends. Oftentimes, the little kindnesses we experience over time begin to feel like home. We keep expecting them because we are used to them, and somewhere along the line, we stop seeing them for what they are: expressions of love. Perhaps it is because we have become so familiar with their presence that we no longer recognise their value. We forget that not everyone has someone who checks up on them, someone who notices when they go quiet, someone who remembers the little things, or someone who cares enough to be annoying. We mistake co...

I have basic axioms, and one of them is the popular, “Flee from the appearance of evil.” I have most definitely written on it in passing, but the thing about my axioms is that they keep evolving. So when my coach questioned this line I throw around in a conversation today, it was an opportunity to expand what I actually held. My interpretation of “flee from the appearance of evil” had been hinged on this: if it looks like evil, run. Don’t begin to investigate it, don’t try to discover how bad it really is, just go the other direction. Anyways, the initial Scripture this was picked from is 1 Thessalonians 5:22: “Stay away from every kind of evil.” So I decided to check out the Greek word used there. The Greek word often translated as “appearance” is εἴδους (eidous), from εἶδος (eidos). εἶδος literally means “form,” “kind,” “sort,” or “appearance.” So essentially, that verse of Scripture wasn't just telling us to bolt whenever something looks like evil. It is telling us to flee from ...

“There's always a way. Even when things look bad, there's always a way.” — X Those are the exact words of the most confidently optimistic yet realistic patient I've come across in this series. On today's episode of Grey's Anatomy, Derek Shepherd pulled off one of the most intriguing and riskiest surgeries I've seen so far. It was a beautiful tumour wrapped around a man's spine, so dangerously positioned that one wrong move could leave him paralysed for life. And yet, the tumour was so complex that there was barely any room for error. Initially, when Derek was shown the scan, his first reaction was intrigue. He called it a beautiful tumour, but eventually concluded that it was inoperable. But the patient wasn't hearing it, oga told him to find a way, that there was always a way. It almost felt like the patient had placed a bet on Derek, and Derek now had to find a way to win it. On his first attempt to remove the tumour, Derek stood in the OR for ten hour...

Guess who was very happy about 130 views on my YouTube channel! Background story: I run a mini YouTube channel where I post YouTube Shorts, and I remember when I started out, I was getting a lot of views. I literally got my first 1k views on the channel and I loved it. Anyways, along the line, the views began to plummet. From over 400 at times to 26, or 7, or 5. It was annoying. It’s the kind of thing that makes you want to say, “You know what? Maybe I’m not cut out for this shii.” But then I had to remind myself that I don’t run it for the people, I run it for me. So even on days when I get 2 views, which is usually my sister and a friend, I’m still going to make another video and upload it. That’s exactly why I was so happy when I got a notification that my last video did a solid 130 views. I hadn’t seen that number in a while, and it was really nice. 130 people who don’t know me watched me talk about something I really like. How cool is that? If you ask me? Super cool. Dearest reade...

Is it still loyalty when there are certain boundaries, certain lengths you simply would not go to, even for someone you love or deeply respect? I was having a conversation with someone recently, and their definition of loyalty and reverence sort of baffled me. I was of the opinion that you could be loyal to someone and still have meaningful boundaries. That you could love, respect and stand by someone without automatically agreeing with everything they do or following them everywhere they go. They, however, seemed to believe that loyalty meant jumping into the fire because the person you are loyal to jumped in first or said you should. That if you truly revered someone, questioning them, disagreeing with them, or refusing to follow them into certain places somehow made your loyalty questionable. And it got me thinking. Because where exactly does loyalty end and blind allegiance begin? Is loyalty doing whatever someone asks because you love them, or is it loving them enough to say, “I c...

“Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.” ~ Exodus 20:7 Remember how, in children’s session growing up, this was one of the verses they used to instill the fear of God in us? It was one of the scariest Bible verses, and at the time, it was interpreted to us as, “Saying God’s name anyhow is a sin,” one that God takes very seriously. It wasn’t until recently when I watched this YouTube that I began to understand the verse differently. Not that saying God’s name carelessly is completely unrelated to the commandment, but that the commandment goes deeper than simply saying “God” or “Jesus” in the wrong context. The Hebrew word translated as “take” is nasa, which carries the idea of lifting, carrying, bearing, or taking up. So there is something about carrying the name of God that this commandment addresses. And that got me thinking. By calling ourselves Christians, we take on an identity, we identify with Christ, we carry His name. Which means that perhaps taking His name ...

When the people we love are in pain, we often feel like there is something we have to do. Save them. Help them. Find a solution. Say the right thing that will make everything feel better. But more often than not, the greatest act of care we can offer is simply being there. Sit with them through the discomfort. Hold them when they cry, listen when they need to talk. And sometimes, just shut up and allow them to exist the best way they know how at that point in time. Not every pain needs a solution from us. Sometimes, people just need the comfort of knowing that they do not have to carry it alone. Like I would often say, letting people be is such a love language. There is something beautiful about loving people without constantly trying to fix them. About giving them room to feel, to process, to be quiet, to fall apart, and eventually find their way back to themselves. Sometimes, love is not pulling someone out of the dark, sometimes, it is simply sitting beside them until their eyes adj...

When I say Cristina Yang is my favourite character from Grey’s Anatomy and Derek and Meredith are my favourite couple from the show, I’m serious. Let’s talk about Derek and Meredith. They don’t have a perfect relationship, but there’s just this ease with them that I love. Take, for instance, the patient they once worked on together, a man who had killed five women and was on death row. The case was a lot for both of them. Derek’s dad had been killed by someone like him, so Derek wanted the man to live long enough to face his death sentence. Meredith, on the other hand, felt compassion for the man despite his crimes. She would rather he died in the hospital, as he wished. So yeah, on this particular case, they were completely at odds. But guess what? They were not unkind to each other. Meredith literally attended the man’s execution, she’s sentimental like that, and when she came out of the execution room, Derek was outside waiting for her in his car. Seeing that made me want to scream!...

I don't have any inspirational yada for you, nah. Just something that happened today in a group chat I'm part of. Well, today being Independence Day, there were wishes in the group, and then someone replied with, “What's really happy about this independence? I bet you're looking for network or light at your location, hence there's nothing to celebrate about the country.” But the person at the other end, who had made the wish in the group chat, replied with something that struck me. He said, “Not me, I have light and I have network.” So apparently, the fact that he's doing just fine somehow means all is well with the world. And maybe it wasn't even what he said, but the way he said it. There was this strange, almost off putting arrogance to it, like it doesn't really matter what everyone else is experiencing as long as it isn't his experience. Dearest reader, it got me thinking about how many of us are like this. As long as the system works for us, th...

How do you live with yourself? On today’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy, my guy killed a woman. Okay, maybe “killed” sounds a little harsh, but that’s exactly how Derek Shepherd saw it. Of all the surgeons in the series, Derek is the attending I absolutely love. Yes, he has a fine face and good hair, but aside from that, he is a badass surgeon. Literally a mini god in the OR, a world class neurosurgeon who seems to know exactly what he’s doing every single time. So there was this particular surgery. It wasn’t some impossible, never-before-seen procedure, it was a simple surgery, one of those procedures they do so often that, at some point, you probably could do it with your eyes closed. Derek was confident she would live, but surgery is surgery. Things can go wrong, even when you have done everything right, she developed complications and eventually died. And that broke him. It was painful and personal, and somehow Derek couldn’t separate the fact that she died from the feeling that he had...

“There’s a hole the size of God inside your heart, and if He doesn’t fill it, something else will instead.” ~ X I came across this quote recently, and it got me thinking about something rather fascinating about human beings. Long before the world became as connected as it is today, before people from completely different parts of the earth could communicate with one another, human beings were already trying to answer some of the biggest questions imaginable. Where did we come from? How did the world begin? Why are we here? Different cultures developed different explanations, they had their own creation stories, gods and beliefs about how the world came to be. Their answers were different, but the search was remarkably similar: there was a desire to understand where everything came from. And I think that says something about us. There has always been something in humanity that reaches beyond itself, a longing to know our Creator, to understand our existence, and to find meaning in the f...

You're more likely to answer that a good person is someone who does good. But have you ever considered that even bad people are capable of doing good? The most horrible of persons can still exhibit kindness, generosity and consideration every now and then. If that's the case, then what exactly makes a person good? What exactly makes something good? What exactly is good? If anybody can do good, and anything can appear to be good, then what defines good? What makes good, truly good? We all know the statement, "God is good." Which means that if God is the standard of good, then to understand what is good, we have to understand the will of God. Not performative good. Not pseudo good, not simply what looks good to us, but good as defined by the One who is good. Therefore, what is in God's will is good, and perhaps that's the distinction we've been missing. An action doesn't become good simply because it produces a good-looking result, neither do...

How far is too far? Where do we draw the line? On today’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy, there was an interesting twist, one that had me wondering just how serious the oath to “do no harm” is when it comes to saving a little boy’s life. So, here’s the full gist. There’s a psychopathic serial killer who murdered five women and was completely unapologetic about it. He’s also on death row and scheduled to die in the next five days. On top of all that, he has a serious surgical injury to his spine. Now, there’s also a little boy, around four years old, who needs an organ transplant. He’ll die within hours if the transplant isn’t done. Although he’s at the top of the transplant list, there’s no matching donor. And guess who is a match? The death row serial killer who murdered five women. Interestingly, the man is ready to die. He doesn’t want the surgery to fix his spine or the injury to his head. He wants to donate his organ to the little boy because, after all, he’s going to die in a few days...

We are so focused on what we want that we miss what's in front of us. Recently, I experienced a level of favour I didn't expect or deserve. I was so happy because it covered for something that had been troubling my mind for a while, but do you know the moment that was sorted, I didn't even take a break to appreciate it. I was already all over my head about the next big issue to fix. It was today as I sat down that it dawned on me that, damnn, what an ungrateful bunch have I been. Not intentionally, but we are all moving at the speed of light that we forget to enjoy the small wins. Just a few days ago, I had no idea how I would deal with that situation, and the moment I passed it, it was like, unto the next. "No congratulations Favour" Just small "thank You, Jesus," and boom, we resume worrying about the next thing. So how about we take a break? How about we actually sit with the things that worked out? How about we allow ourselves to be amazed by the pra...

Gbam!!! Special thanks to T30 family morning devotion. Going through the book of Genesis has been a really fun ride for me, and on today's devotion, something was said that struck me. You know the way we were told the story of Esau and Jacob in children’s church. Jacob, a conniving thief, steals Esau’s birthright and then his blessing, and Esau was left with nothing and he wept. I had somehow always felt bad for Esau and wondered why God would allow such great injustice to happen to him, but going through Genesis recently on T30, I’ve come to see this same story differently. Yes, Jacob and his mother were a conniving bunch, however, Esau was not cursed. He was blessed too, but not in the same way Jacob was. When Esau came crying to Isaac after Jacob had taken the blessing, Isaac still blessed him. He told him that he would live by the sword, that he would serve his brother, but then he said something interesting: “When you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck.”...

The thing with being disappointed by people is that it is often tied to our expectations of them. We expect that they know better, that they should do better, that they should somehow be better. We often place people on a pedestal that is unreasonably high, and in doing so, we set ourselves up to be hurt when they inevitably fall short of it. People are not one thing. If they were, perhaps it would be easier to make a verdict, to conclude that someone is either a this or that. It would be so much easier to validate our rage if there weren't sides to people that are utterly delightful. If the person who hurt us wasn't also the person who once made us laugh until our stomachs hurt. If the person who disappointed us wasn't also kind, thoughtful, generous, or loving in other moments. But that's the thing about being human. We are complicated. We are perfectly imperfect. We have flaws, shortcomings, bad days and baggage we are still learning how to carry, we get things wrong...

There’s this thing the older generation does that I find so annoying: they struggle to accept fault or apologize. I was talking to a friend about it the other day, and she said, “They would rather swallow a bottle than admit they were wrong.” And honestly, I find it crazy because the reality is that we don’t have forever with the people in our lives. So, ego aside, we have to make the effort. Apologize when you’re wrong. Compliment people. Check in. Say the things you sometimes assume they already know. People need to know that they are important to you. They shouldn’t have to keep guessing where they stand in your life or whether you care. Dearest reader, as adults, we should do better. We should learn to say “I’m sorry” instead of acting like the hurt never happened. We should tell people they matter while we still have the chance. Love should not always have to be inferred from our actions. Sometimes, say it. Sometimes, show it. Sometimes, just make it obvious. favvy_Okwans🖤.

“Maybe sometimes life rigs things in our favour.” ~ X It may not always look like it, but somehow, things often work themselves out one way or another. It may seem like you’ve reached the end, but at the end of the day, you may just find yourself exactly where you needed to be. Think about Jonah running away from his calling to Nineveh. In some strange way, even his running seemed to become part of the story. He fell from the ship, was swallowed by a great fish, stayed there for three days, and was eventually spat out. What the people of Nineveh saw was a prophet emerging from the belly of a fish, and there’s an interesting layer to that story because some historical accounts associate the worship of Dagon in Nineveh with fish imagery. Think about the odds of how timely that was. Dearest reader, there’s a quote I came across that I really love. It says, “It may seem like you’re drowning or buried, but really, you’re being planted.” And there’s something beautiful about that. A seed has...