Favvy_Okwans🖤

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...

 Today my half blind screen phone fell and well, didn’t make it. I’ve had a crappy day to start with and I didn’t have the strength to deal , I just picked it up and went home.  On my way home, I really oddly enjoyed the wind on my hair while on bike, it was really refreshing. I felt I’d be angry enough to cry or throw a fit but I was too exhausted, exhausted from everything I had to carry recently , I didn’t have the strength. So I just enjoyed my ride home, had a cold bath, and crawled up in bed thinking about some fantasy yada before I remembered, I had to write my so called content of the day. The point is, you can be so exhausted that your response to tragedy is calm, because you’ve lost it so many times that it doesn’t make sense to anymore. Like you’ve cried so much you realize on your own that crying doesn’t cut it, you just are, tired. KingAtha was like , “you should be falling apart being phoneless and all” and what came to mind was this particular patient from grey’...

On today’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy, there’s this particular patient who genuinely believes the world is against him. He says things always crash and burn around him, his expectations are at zero, so whenever something unfortunate happens, he is neither pissed nor surprised. It’s almost like he expects disaster to find him. For instance, on his way to X-ray, the wheelchair suddenly broke. While he was advised to sit still and wait for his doctor to get him another one, he insisted he could walk. A few steps later, he fell and hit his head. As if that wasn’t enough, during his MRI, there was a leak from the roof that caused a mini explosion. And then, to top it all off, during his surgery, with his body open on the operating table, the ceiling collapsed and debris fell into his body. It was horrible. At this point, you’d probably think, “Okay, the universe really does hate this man.” But maybe not. After the collapse, the doctors had to thoroughly clean his body to make sure they remov...

A friend reached out today and reminded me of a piece I wrote on October 15th, 2024, titled “Not Admitted.” It was a very emotional piece for me because I could vividly remember the day I wrote it, where I was, what I was doing, and exactly how I was feeling. It was one rainy afternoon. I was at the Moniepoint office, waiting to be attended to, I had to wait for a while, and I had already had a crazily stressful morning. I remember sitting there, exhausted and tired of all the congratulatory messages on the aspirant group chat, so I checked my JAMB CAPS for the umpteenth time, and the words “Not Admitted” staring back at me broke my tiny heart. I remember crying there while it rained outside, not minding that I was in a public space. I remember how suffocated I felt, how much of a failure I felt, how hurt I was, and how badly I wished I could just will my admission into reality. It was one of the few times I have felt such deep despair. Looking back now, it has been two years, and I di...

“Your will to live can sustain you when you are sick, but if you lose it, your last hope is gone.” ~ Proverbs 18:14 In watching Grey’s Anatomy for the past few weeks, one thing that has really struck me is those moments when the surgeons get to a point where they have done all they can, and what is left is the patient’s will to survive and, of course, God’s intervention. I notice it especially during heart transplant surgeries. They replace the failing heart with a new one, and then there’s this momentary struggle, this tense silence where everyone waits for the patient’s body to accept the new heart and for it to beat on its own. It’s crazy because at that point, there’s seemingly nothing more the surgeons can do. They just wait for the body to fight for itself, and that fight, that desperate attempt to keep going, is what we call the will to live. Another instance was when they had done all they could for a patient and were simply waiting to see if the patient would wake up. The fami...

Actions reveal who a person is, regardless of what is said. Oftentimes, people show us exactly who they are, but we tend to make excuses for them, whereas sometimes, that is just them. You know that thing where you feel someone is a certain way at first, and then later convince yourself that it’s just a front? That they are probably good people deep down and are only pretending to be jerks? Most times, they are actually just jerks, and we want so badly to see the good in people that we explain away everything that tells us otherwise. Somebody is exhibiting toxic behaviour and you’re like, “He’s a good guy at heart, he’s just putting up a front.” Oga, he may not be putting up a front. In fact, most of the time, the people we are making excuses for are exactly what they seem to be. We just don’t want to believe it. That’s why my friend Jnie always says that whenever she has an off feeling about someone and brushes it off as her overthinking or reading too much meaning into something that...

“Do unto others what you want others to do to you.” ~ X I was watching a commentary on a chapter of the Bible I’ve read before, and something stood out to me in a way I had never seen before. We all remember the story in Genesis 27, where Jacob, with the help of his mother, plays a fast one on his father and brother, right? He deceives Isaac and takes the blessing meant for Esau. Afterwards, he has to flee to his mother’s family for safety because Esau wants to kill him. Now, here’s the interesting part: one of the first major things that happens to Jacob after leaving home is that he gets deceived too. He meets Laban, falls in love with Rachel, and agrees to work for him for seven years so he can marry her. Seven whole years. Only to wake up after the wedding and realise he had been given Leah instead. Laban had cheated him. And honestly, it’s giving, “What goes around comes around.” Jacob had deceived his brother, and now he was on the receiving end of deception himself. The irony is...

There’s such a thing as speaking up and not being heard. I had never really thought about it before, but now I get it. Speaking and being heard are completely different things. To speak up is one thing, the one thing we are told we are free to do, the one thing we are encouraged to share, the one thing that is somehow our fundamental human right. But to be heard, actually heard, not just listened to, but intentionally understood in the way you mean to be understood, that is something entirely different. Because you can pour out the entirety of your heart and people would still hear what they want to hear. You could try diplomacy, and somehow rudeness would be picked out from between words you never said, you could explain yourself until you run out of ways to explain, and still walk away knowing nothing you said actually reached them. You learn quickly that talking about it doesn’t necessarily help it. Talking about it doesn’t solve it, talking about it doesn’t make it disappear, talki...

If you survive a near death experience and afterwards, when you wake up, you feel this surge of courage, like you can do anything, like you've been so close to death that you no longer care what comes next, you'd imagine that's how the rest of your life is going to be. But there's a thing about feelings; they pass. There's even a medical explanation for that sudden rush. When your body believes you're in danger, it activates the sympathetic nervous system, flooding you with stress hormones like adrenaline and noradrenaline. Your heart races, your senses sharpen, your body prepares to fight or flee, and your brain becomes intensely focused on survival. After an extreme experience, that heightened state can sometimes leave you feeling euphoric, fearless or strangely invincible. But the nervous system eventually settles, the chemicals wear off, the intensity fades, and you return to your usual emotional baseline. Essentially, that's the thing about feelings. Th...

On today's episode of Grey's Anatomy, something interesting happened that immediately stood out to me. I literally let out a scream because, God damn it!  So, there was this old intern who came to the hospital, Norman. He was a 63-year-old man who had gone to medical school and somehow chose surgery as his specialty. Now, as a surgical intern, the workload is crazy. The hours are long, the pressure is intense, and apparently, complaining doesn't exactly get you a day off, so imagine a 63-year-old man doing all of that. One day, Norman collapsed in the OR and suffered what could have been a devastating stroke. Thankfully, the best neurosurgeon was on call that day, they operated on him, and he survived. In our usual way of thinking, you would probably say, "Well, he's 63, he has no business being a surgical intern, the workload alone is enough to finish this man. He should have picked another specialty, maybe psychiatry or something less physically demanding." ...

Have you ever felt so powerless? Like you're in a situation you shouldn't be in, and you can't seem to do anything about it. Like a “my hands are tied” kind of scenario, but not physically. You're free, but you're not, you're indebted, you're going around carrying invisible chains of expectations and obligations around your neck. You want to leave, but you can't, you want to say no, but you feel like you owe them a yes, you want to make a decision for yourself, but then you remember everything they've done for you, everything they've sacrificed, and suddenly your freedom feels like something you have to earn. And the thing is, sometimes nobody is even holding you there. You're the one holding yourself there. Not because you don't know what you want, but because you know what choosing yourself might cost you. You know the disappointment it might bring. The questions, the “after all I've done for you?” The feeling that you're being ...

“If I love you enough, I’ll let you go.” ~ Burke Sometimes, we do not really love people. We love the idea of them. We love who they could become, or who we want them to be. On today’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy, a character said something that stood out to me. Lemme first give a little background story. Cristina is crazy, the kind of self driven, ambitious woman who doesn’t want marriage. But then she falls in love with another surgeon, Burke. He’s equally ambitious and driven, but he also wants marriage and all that stuff. Because Cristina loves Burke, she is willing to walk down that aisle, even though marriage isn’t really what she wants. And we are often told that love requires us to give up parts of ourselves. That we have to be flexible, bend, compromise, open ourselves up to new ideas. And maybe that’s true, maybe the marriage would have worked, maybe it would have been a disaster. But just before she walked down the aisle, Burke came to a realisation. Nah, she could walk down t...

I was having a conversation today. It was partly ragebait, I know. I was being ragebaited, and he was playing devil’s advocate. It was about people who are hurting and end up bleeding on innocent people simply because they are hurting. He was of the opinion that it wasn't fair, but it happens. Life isn't fair, and how else is the hurting person supposed to pour out all that hurt and rage? I was so pissed, ehn. Because life is already hard, and when somebody refuses to grow up and heal, they can end up hurting good people who had absolutely nothing to do with what happened to them. Then those people get hurt, they carry that hurt somewhere else, and before you know it, we have the messy society we all complain about today. There is absolutely no excuse for trauma dumping on a real human being. Carry the heartbreak, carry the betrayal, carry the hurt or whatever it is you're going through to the gym. Put it into working on yourself, put it into making more money, put it into ...

“Your word is a lamp for my feet, and a light for my path.” ~ Psalm 119:105 I'm sure you most definitely know the above verse of Scripture. You must've even recited it during childhood in children's section. It's one of those verses we've quoted so much that we don't really pay attention to the poetry in it. Lol Let's take the verse apart, shall we? If it were translated more closely to the original Hebrew, it would read something like: “A lamp to my feet is Your word, and a light for my path.” Now, a lamp in the ancient world generally illuminated the immediate area around you. It wasn't necessarily a floodlight showing you everything that was ahead. It gave you enough light to see where you were and where to place your next step. And I was in service today when I was used to illustrate the above verse, and it completely changed my understanding of it. In the illustration, I had a goal. The goal was to find Uncle Ade, our protocol head. Now, I was asked...

“The way we love God should reflect in the way we love people.” ~ X You can't say you love God and not love people, because God is love. Our love for people should flow from our love for God. The more we understand how deeply God loves us, the more that love should begin to shape the way we treat the people around us. And no, I don't mean that loving people means you'll always like them, agree with them, or enjoy being around them. People can be difficult, they can hurt us, disappoint us, misunderstand us, and sometimes, they can make loving them feel like serious spiritual warfare.  But love isn't always a feeling, I like to say, love is a decision, we get to decide to love with intentions, It's giving people grace because you remember how much grace you've received. It's seeing someone else's humanity even when they're getting on your last nerve. Jesus didn't tell us to love only the people who love us back. He told us to love our neighbours, l...

Talking is easy when we feel comfortable and safe, words flow, sentences come with ease. There are people we can easily yap around, tell our random thoughts to, share our stories with, and somehow, talking to them never feels like work. Then there are people we don't share things with. Talking about our feelings feels difficult, and sometimes, we don't even know how to begin. But maybe instead of asking, "Why doesn't this person talk to me?" we should sometimes ask, "What kind of environment have I created for this person to feel safe enough to talk?" Because vulnerability isn't something you can demand from people, it is something you create room for. If every time someone opens up, we judge them, dismiss their feelings, interrupt them, or use what they told us against them later, why would they feel safe enough to come back? The funny thing is, most times, people don't need you to have the perfect response. They just need to know that their hon...