SAVED ON THE CLIFF SIDE
As I drove along George Washington Parkway on my way to work in Virginia, I heard SCREEEEECH! The blue taxi cab next to me jammed on his brakes, smoke came up from his tires and the car swerved towards me! BAM. He got me! And…BANG. My car hit the stone wall of the parkway and flipped over the wall. Careening down the wooded cliffs like a rocket, towards the Potomac River, thousands of feet below, I thought, “Well this is it. This must be the way I’m going to die.”
The trees and bushes hit the sides of the car as it crashed through the woods.
“I’m ready for heaven” I thought “if it’s ready for me!”
All of a sudden the car stopped. Looking up through my open sun roof towards the road and seeing a man walking along, I yelled, “HELP!” Half a dozen men spilled over the crest of the hill.
They pulled me out through the sun roof, helped me to the top of the hill where I laid back on the stone wall. The shouting crowds were praising God and I joined them.
© 2006 Carroll Ayo Durodola
Monday, September 28, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
I Survived
O.K. I survived the hysteria of my website & princessayo e-mails crashing. As you can see from the side margin my e-mail has changed. I had to do something quickly so if anyone wanted to get in touch with me the e-mail wouldn’t bounce. So I got on Google mail and signed up for a new e-mail. I have uiteIbadan@yahoo.com, and cdurodola@msn.com but I wanted something almost as great as cdurodola@princessayo.com . Something exciting. Something unique to me. When it was time to put in my address of choice this wonderful one came to my mind as I asked God what do you want me to be – children’s writer. Now that one was taken and so I know to add some number and I added 100. There it was childrenswriter100@gmail.com. It seems so right and I love it. No one has to wonder how to spell my name, did I really say princess and why is Ayo (pronounced I-yo not spelt with an “I”). Some words in the SnapVine voice blog have to be changed, so bear with me. No matter when I ask the Lord over these last 8 months of travels, what do you want me to do; His answer always involves "write those children's stories".
These changes go along with the movement of the wind the Father seems to have me on. (John 3:8 "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.") God is moving me from one place in my life to another. I’m not exactly sure where, but I know He’s asking me to be ready to leave my comfort zone. (I thought I had! But there must be more). Be ready for the Glory to fall. Get ready for Him to fulfill His promises made to me over the last few years. All this takes adjustments and just when you think you’ve made all the adjustments you can make for one wilderness experience, He stretches you some more, just like a great coach.
Whew! Well, I’ve survived it. As expected. All is well - you can get information about me from this blog and can e-mail and call! Check out the Snap Vine voice blog and the nifty Book Buzzr to preview the book. This is even better because you can be nosey about what’s going on in my life and then switch over to http://tundethelittlenigerianprince.blogspot.com and see what’s going on with the book.
It looks like I’ll be moving again folks. I’m not sure where, but moving looks like it’s in the works. Stay tuned.
These changes go along with the movement of the wind the Father seems to have me on. (John 3:8 "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.") God is moving me from one place in my life to another. I’m not exactly sure where, but I know He’s asking me to be ready to leave my comfort zone. (I thought I had! But there must be more). Be ready for the Glory to fall. Get ready for Him to fulfill His promises made to me over the last few years. All this takes adjustments and just when you think you’ve made all the adjustments you can make for one wilderness experience, He stretches you some more, just like a great coach.
Whew! Well, I’ve survived it. As expected. All is well - you can get information about me from this blog and can e-mail and call! Check out the Snap Vine voice blog and the nifty Book Buzzr to preview the book. This is even better because you can be nosey about what’s going on in my life and then switch over to http://tundethelittlenigerianprince.blogspot.com and see what’s going on with the book.
It looks like I’ll be moving again folks. I’m not sure where, but moving looks like it’s in the works. Stay tuned.
I sit here watching Whitney Houston on Oprah and my greatest shock is that she is older. Funny how we are, when we haven’t seen someone for some years. As if we don’t expect that person to grow up like we have.
I see a beauty in her. Do any of you know what it is?
She was an idol to so many of us around the world. American young people probably don’t know how we admired her all the way over in Nigeria, and how she made my afro I had to have, after a perm went bad, O.K. How validated we felt by having Whitney on the cover of magazines. She was younger than me, but close enough for this model wannabe teenager to live vicariously through her.
As I watched Whitney the thought came: We’re scared of our own light. That light is really part of the Lord God Most High. The light of the Lord in us and just like people could not look directly at Moses’ face when he came down from the mountain, so as we go through horrors and have time with God we are scared to look at ourselves. For that short time we’ve spent with Him and the little cleaning up that has taken place, causes a bright light to shine through the cracks.
Some of us may have noticed that Whitney isn’t finished being cleaned up. I cried like many of us who have prayed for her and are seeing the Hand of God do what we asked. That she might not go the way of other drug addicts. But we hear with the wise ears of 50+ years God has given us, that this chil’ ain’t there yet. And still we see The Light shining through her cracks. The same is shining through all of us.
Praise Him!
I see a beauty in her. Do any of you know what it is?
She was an idol to so many of us around the world. American young people probably don’t know how we admired her all the way over in Nigeria, and how she made my afro I had to have, after a perm went bad, O.K. How validated we felt by having Whitney on the cover of magazines. She was younger than me, but close enough for this model wannabe teenager to live vicariously through her.
As I watched Whitney the thought came: We’re scared of our own light. That light is really part of the Lord God Most High. The light of the Lord in us and just like people could not look directly at Moses’ face when he came down from the mountain, so as we go through horrors and have time with God we are scared to look at ourselves. For that short time we’ve spent with Him and the little cleaning up that has taken place, causes a bright light to shine through the cracks.
Some of us may have noticed that Whitney isn’t finished being cleaned up. I cried like many of us who have prayed for her and are seeing the Hand of God do what we asked. That she might not go the way of other drug addicts. But we hear with the wise ears of 50+ years God has given us, that this chil’ ain’t there yet. And still we see The Light shining through her cracks. The same is shining through all of us.
Praise Him!
On 9/14/09 I met Yoda. Her real name will be kept anonymous because she wants it that way. Yes, Yoda, like in Star Wars. I was sitting in Panera Bread and she came in with her stuff, just like me and plopped it down on a table in front of me. She was like we are when we come into a different space; looking around, fiddling, trying to get her spirit to come into the place with her body.
Finally she settled down and got her lunch, covered it and oddly enough brought out paperwork, pencil cases, highlighters and got to work…Who was this person? Someone just like me, her manner, not her look – protecting herself, careful, watchful. I smiled at her and she smiled back – especially after I noticed two senior citizen Caucasian women starring at her set up. I don’t know what it was about, but they weren’t being friendly. Was it her long graying dreadlocks?
After quite some time I went and got lunch. As I sat down, pushed my laptop away and concentrated on my lunch, Yoda said, “What are you studying over there?” All of a sudden, out-of-the-blue, without a please ma’am or thank you, with no hello (as a Nigerian would say). Used to the blunt manner of Americans and without missing a beat, I answered “I’m a writer”.
And that was the beginning of our intense, amazing, magical, conversation.I got a lot from her and it tickles me what she said she got from me and how she kept pulling out paper to write it down.
• That’s what you need to blog, she would say – a stranger at a party giving me $100; strangers who were pastor and his wife, letting me live with them in Georgia; Gloria feeding and taking care of me and then taking me to Virginia Beach;
• You need to blog! And I know I do. Some guy she read about, sad about his high powered job, quit and started writing and then started blogging, only his mother and wife as readers, but eventually had 7,000 followers. I told her about Stanice Anderson who wrote e-mails to people for 2 years and Walk Worthy gave her a contract to turn that into a book.
• God wants me not to look down on anyone. Everyone is loved by him, whether they are New Age or Buddhist or anything else. And God talks to everyone.
• Why don’t we like our names? Why do we have so many problems with these given names from parents or husbands? She wants to be called Yoda. I don’t know what I should be known as.
• People are acting like her and I and many of the friends I have and opting out of the ‘normal’ 9-5 work, for a salary the regular way, for pension and health insurance. Someone has studied this and put it together in a course about living your life thriving, letting go. What these courses miss is the spirit, the Holy Spirit, the supernatural, the magic… that which cannot be explained. Her and I began to talk and complained about the coldness of the air in the restaurant. As we talked it got warmer. When it was time to go, the cold air blew in again. This, cannot be taught in college. This is the supernatural that can only come from the Father.
• Yoda found a wonderful place in busy New York called Zen, run by a woman who charges $50. Can you believe it? And all she asks is that you leave her property nice and she has plenty of rules so you know what she’s talking about.
• Yoda also found communes of the kind I was thinking would be good for me. She said you write to them and tell them what you can do to contribute to the commune and you need to live there for 3 months or whatever. That’s what I was thinking about and as I was telling her that, I realized and said that God really wanted me to go through this time without relying on anyone but Him. He would put me in the home he had ordained and it would be obvious and other doors would be closed except the ‘door’ to the place He wanted me.
We talked about stepping out on faith and what was the reason that so many of us are doing that and that many of us are over 45, and could be thinking retirement plans. I talked about being in my third widow’s home, after stepping out in faith from my job in March 2008. Yoda asked, looking under the restaurant table, are you walking on the ground or on air. “You really are walking by faith.”
The importance of the walk I’m on is to see that I’m not writing to bring people to me so that I can eat, I am writing because God asked me to do it, so that I could show people Him.
It’s not about me. It’s about Him.
Yoda asked what is happening that we are all choosing this way. I said I thought it was because things are coming to an end. That was disingenuous. I know very well that things are coming to an end. Time is drawing to a close. The Bible has shown us and we can see it. I said things are getting wrapped up and cleaned up. So we have to shed all weights and things that encumber us.
Finally she settled down and got her lunch, covered it and oddly enough brought out paperwork, pencil cases, highlighters and got to work…Who was this person? Someone just like me, her manner, not her look – protecting herself, careful, watchful. I smiled at her and she smiled back – especially after I noticed two senior citizen Caucasian women starring at her set up. I don’t know what it was about, but they weren’t being friendly. Was it her long graying dreadlocks?
After quite some time I went and got lunch. As I sat down, pushed my laptop away and concentrated on my lunch, Yoda said, “What are you studying over there?” All of a sudden, out-of-the-blue, without a please ma’am or thank you, with no hello (as a Nigerian would say). Used to the blunt manner of Americans and without missing a beat, I answered “I’m a writer”.
And that was the beginning of our intense, amazing, magical, conversation.I got a lot from her and it tickles me what she said she got from me and how she kept pulling out paper to write it down.
• That’s what you need to blog, she would say – a stranger at a party giving me $100; strangers who were pastor and his wife, letting me live with them in Georgia; Gloria feeding and taking care of me and then taking me to Virginia Beach;
• You need to blog! And I know I do. Some guy she read about, sad about his high powered job, quit and started writing and then started blogging, only his mother and wife as readers, but eventually had 7,000 followers. I told her about Stanice Anderson who wrote e-mails to people for 2 years and Walk Worthy gave her a contract to turn that into a book.
• God wants me not to look down on anyone. Everyone is loved by him, whether they are New Age or Buddhist or anything else. And God talks to everyone.
• Why don’t we like our names? Why do we have so many problems with these given names from parents or husbands? She wants to be called Yoda. I don’t know what I should be known as.
• People are acting like her and I and many of the friends I have and opting out of the ‘normal’ 9-5 work, for a salary the regular way, for pension and health insurance. Someone has studied this and put it together in a course about living your life thriving, letting go. What these courses miss is the spirit, the Holy Spirit, the supernatural, the magic… that which cannot be explained. Her and I began to talk and complained about the coldness of the air in the restaurant. As we talked it got warmer. When it was time to go, the cold air blew in again. This, cannot be taught in college. This is the supernatural that can only come from the Father.
• Yoda found a wonderful place in busy New York called Zen, run by a woman who charges $50. Can you believe it? And all she asks is that you leave her property nice and she has plenty of rules so you know what she’s talking about.
• Yoda also found communes of the kind I was thinking would be good for me. She said you write to them and tell them what you can do to contribute to the commune and you need to live there for 3 months or whatever. That’s what I was thinking about and as I was telling her that, I realized and said that God really wanted me to go through this time without relying on anyone but Him. He would put me in the home he had ordained and it would be obvious and other doors would be closed except the ‘door’ to the place He wanted me.
We talked about stepping out on faith and what was the reason that so many of us are doing that and that many of us are over 45, and could be thinking retirement plans. I talked about being in my third widow’s home, after stepping out in faith from my job in March 2008. Yoda asked, looking under the restaurant table, are you walking on the ground or on air. “You really are walking by faith.”
The importance of the walk I’m on is to see that I’m not writing to bring people to me so that I can eat, I am writing because God asked me to do it, so that I could show people Him.
It’s not about me. It’s about Him.
Yoda asked what is happening that we are all choosing this way. I said I thought it was because things are coming to an end. That was disingenuous. I know very well that things are coming to an end. Time is drawing to a close. The Bible has shown us and we can see it. I said things are getting wrapped up and cleaned up. So we have to shed all weights and things that encumber us.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Something New
Today, I have something new to say. Usually, I'm trying to think of what should be on my blog. Today, for sure this should be on - my website and e-mails associated with it are DOWN!!!
WHAT!? Should I not be hysterical? Are you all out there used to this? I'm not. It's got me all in a tizzy. That e-mail was connected to my Outlook. I like my Outlook. Oh well, let's see how I get through this and how it empowers my life:)
Love ya' all.
WHAT!? Should I not be hysterical? Are you all out there used to this? I'm not. It's got me all in a tizzy. That e-mail was connected to my Outlook. I like my Outlook. Oh well, let's see how I get through this and how it empowers my life:)
Love ya' all.
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