When Good Turns "Bad"

Life is very interesting because there is hardly anything that does not have it's own share of twists, even the best of things. A major problem noticed however, is that some people try very hard to make the good works of others look bad because it is making their own lapses very obvious and they do anything just to achieve this. A failure as we all know will always want others to fail so they can have different excuses for failing, so when they see some that are not failing, there is a burden on them to ensure that the good works of such people are rubbished.
I have been a victim of this and i am definitely not the only person that has been affected with the activities of these people who have phobia for success. But when your good turns "bad", instead of being dejected and wearing the look of a loser, look up and tell yourself that I am working and that is why they are trying to bring me down. If I don't work, nobody will see me as a good enough threat to start digging a pit that only he can fall in. The attitude of victors when they face this kind of challenge is that they look up and tell themselves "I am a Work in Progress", not an abandoned work. Just like the popular gospel song by Donnie McClurkin, "We Fall Down, But We Get Up."

Adeniyi Adedayo (Dayo Nigeria)
December 20, 2008.

The Valley of the Shadows of Death

It was meant to be one of my trips, but the first official trip after being made the National Vice-President of my departmental association, but it turned out to be one that I can never forget because it afforded me the opportunity of seeing how I can fare when there is a very difficult situation.
The trip was to the Premier University, where I had a meeting with the President of English and Literature students in the school. I left U.I. around 3:45pm but the bus did not leave until around 5:30pm. The journey was just meant to be for around an hour, but about 25 kilometers to my destination (O.A.U.), the bus I was travelling in was stopped by Road Safety officials for overloading and we were taken to there office which was a bit farther.
We thought we were going to leave soon after they would have told the driver what to do, but we were very wrong. Instead of telling the driver the punishment for the offence committed, they were waiting for the driver to settle them so that it won't be recorded. Before we knew what was happening, they closed for the day and our bus was not allowed to leave the premises of their pffice and we were either advised to sleep i front of their office or find our way to our various destinations. The funny thing however, is that they assisted all the ladies in the bus but one, and left the guys at the mercy of God knows who.
At that point, I had to take a very difficult but necessary decision of walking ahead believing that my friend who is also a national officer would get a bus that will convey us to school. But we were wrong, we had to walk all the distance to school in the dead of the night and could have been attacked by anything. I just kept o praying in my heart, because my partner was very scared and I had to be the motivating and driving force for him. So, even if I was afraid , I could not show it in order not to cause my partner to panic.
Eventually, we got to school around some minutes to midnight, but all the glory for our safety on the dangerous express road goes to God. It is quite surprising that government officials have now become experts in defining irresponsibility to the citizens, even the Road Safety that people used to believe is good is now becoming rotten. We pray that God should heal our land so that many individuals will not be sent to their early graves because of the irresponsibility and non-challant attitude of some individuals.
Words alone can not express all what I saw and felt in the valley of the shadows of death, but the important thing is that i'm alive to recount my ordeals and without any problem whatsoever.