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.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
People Will Call You Crazy!
If you follow God, people will think you’re crazy. I don’t know how many of you out there are listening, but God is talking. All the time. Not only through flowers, trees, a child’s smile, the soft wind, but He is talking to you into your spirit, or with an audible voice you can hear. If you get still enough, you will hear Him talking. He has something to say about everything in your life. From what shoes you have on, to what you’re about to say now, to who you marry.
I heard God tell me to quit my job in March 2008, when jobs were hard to find. People thought I was crazy. That is humans’ greatest fear, I now believe – that people will think they are crazy. God told me not to job hunt but to write children’s stories. I did. People thought I was crazy. No money fell from heaven, God led me to no great money making venture and so I gave up my apartment, as the money dwindled. Then I gave up my car to the bank. I moved in with my younger sister and lived off of her. People thought I was crazy.
Now I am writing. I’m in my fourth friends’ home living off her. People are sure I’m crazy. God has spoken to me and I am obeying. Sometimes I try to run back to my comfort zone of a job and a pay check, longing for my own place and the ability to take care of myself. Even freelance jobs haven’t worked, or I do them and there’s no money to pay me.
Anyone else having this experience? Are you job-hunting frantically when all God has asked you to do is write and trust Him? People will think you’re crazy. Maybe you’re determined that people won’t think you’re stupid or a member of a cult.I’m researching this phenomenon:) – listening to God, following His instructions and people thinking you’re crazy.
My mother married a Nigerian she had only met three times. People thought she was crazy but she was convinced this was God’s will for her. I’ve watched her over the 53 years of their marriage, never waver from that, even through separations & rifts and joys & sickness. Whatever befell her in the marriage she stayed with, “God told me to marry this man”. People probably still think she’s crazy.
Then I looked in the Word. Jesus’ family openly called him crazy, so much so that it was recorded in the gospels. God asked Him to leave His glory in Heaven and come to Earth (imagine one day we’ll understand this). He could have been called crazy by some, especially Lucifer who had lost his glory and knew how horrible it was to be without it.I haven’t read about Jesus having any job or income generating work, once his ministry started. People must have called him crazy. We are told about his disciples’ jobs, (and even Paul being a tent maker) so I’m sure if Jesus had a job he was actively doing during his ministry, we would have been told. His ministry was his job, as is my writing. He had income or provision. We know that because he had a treasurer, Judas Iscariot. So how did He have an income or provision? His Father was providing for Him and for His disciples. It was really when Mary, his mother, heard he wasn’t eating (or that he and his disciples were too busy with the ministry to eat) that she gathered the family to go get Jesus and bring him home.
He was called crazy and even demon-possessed or under the Devil’s instruction. But He went on. The end result didn’t look good, as mine doesn’t. He kept going on to Jerusalem and there he knew he would die. Jesus wasn’t respected, as we can see the response to Him being the Messiah and God was, “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” not “Oh, that makes sense, isn’t this the wonderful boy from Nazereth?”
Interesting that one of the Gospels records that it was when Jesus had resolutely set his face to go all the way to the end – to Jerusalem, did his family rise up with “enough-is-enough” indignation and set out to bring him home. You’ve felt it before. You saw what God could do; you resolutely set your face like flint to do what He said and now here comes your best friend with doubts and your family with indignation.
Another Bible "crazy" was young David? What did he do to deserve being called “crazy”? He was sent to give his brother’s lunch and thought he could beat up the great warrior giant, Goliath. He was called nosey by his brother.
Here’s the thing about being called by God to do something and family call you crazy - they also accuse you. If I am listening to the devil or am crazy, shouldn’t you be praying for me about that rather than being angry with me? David’s brother should have been worried about him but they were angry with him.
If they are calling you crazy, but you know God has appointed you to do a job for Him, keep going. You're in good company. Probably when you completely die to self and the flesh and no longer care what they think, they, like Mary, Jesus' mother, they will come to your cross and watch.
I heard God tell me to quit my job in March 2008, when jobs were hard to find. People thought I was crazy. That is humans’ greatest fear, I now believe – that people will think they are crazy. God told me not to job hunt but to write children’s stories. I did. People thought I was crazy. No money fell from heaven, God led me to no great money making venture and so I gave up my apartment, as the money dwindled. Then I gave up my car to the bank. I moved in with my younger sister and lived off of her. People thought I was crazy.
Now I am writing. I’m in my fourth friends’ home living off her. People are sure I’m crazy. God has spoken to me and I am obeying. Sometimes I try to run back to my comfort zone of a job and a pay check, longing for my own place and the ability to take care of myself. Even freelance jobs haven’t worked, or I do them and there’s no money to pay me.
Anyone else having this experience? Are you job-hunting frantically when all God has asked you to do is write and trust Him? People will think you’re crazy. Maybe you’re determined that people won’t think you’re stupid or a member of a cult.I’m researching this phenomenon:) – listening to God, following His instructions and people thinking you’re crazy.
My mother married a Nigerian she had only met three times. People thought she was crazy but she was convinced this was God’s will for her. I’ve watched her over the 53 years of their marriage, never waver from that, even through separations & rifts and joys & sickness. Whatever befell her in the marriage she stayed with, “God told me to marry this man”. People probably still think she’s crazy.
Then I looked in the Word. Jesus’ family openly called him crazy, so much so that it was recorded in the gospels. God asked Him to leave His glory in Heaven and come to Earth (imagine one day we’ll understand this). He could have been called crazy by some, especially Lucifer who had lost his glory and knew how horrible it was to be without it.I haven’t read about Jesus having any job or income generating work, once his ministry started. People must have called him crazy. We are told about his disciples’ jobs, (and even Paul being a tent maker) so I’m sure if Jesus had a job he was actively doing during his ministry, we would have been told. His ministry was his job, as is my writing. He had income or provision. We know that because he had a treasurer, Judas Iscariot. So how did He have an income or provision? His Father was providing for Him and for His disciples. It was really when Mary, his mother, heard he wasn’t eating (or that he and his disciples were too busy with the ministry to eat) that she gathered the family to go get Jesus and bring him home.
He was called crazy and even demon-possessed or under the Devil’s instruction. But He went on. The end result didn’t look good, as mine doesn’t. He kept going on to Jerusalem and there he knew he would die. Jesus wasn’t respected, as we can see the response to Him being the Messiah and God was, “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” not “Oh, that makes sense, isn’t this the wonderful boy from Nazereth?”
Interesting that one of the Gospels records that it was when Jesus had resolutely set his face to go all the way to the end – to Jerusalem, did his family rise up with “enough-is-enough” indignation and set out to bring him home. You’ve felt it before. You saw what God could do; you resolutely set your face like flint to do what He said and now here comes your best friend with doubts and your family with indignation.
Another Bible "crazy" was young David? What did he do to deserve being called “crazy”? He was sent to give his brother’s lunch and thought he could beat up the great warrior giant, Goliath. He was called nosey by his brother.
Here’s the thing about being called by God to do something and family call you crazy - they also accuse you. If I am listening to the devil or am crazy, shouldn’t you be praying for me about that rather than being angry with me? David’s brother should have been worried about him but they were angry with him.
If they are calling you crazy, but you know God has appointed you to do a job for Him, keep going. You're in good company. Probably when you completely die to self and the flesh and no longer care what they think, they, like Mary, Jesus' mother, they will come to your cross and watch.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
What a man!
What a man, what a man, what a mighty good man!Daddy would say “Everything in mercy given” and that’s how we have to take this.
Dad lived a great full life. From his fathers’ farms around the town of Egbe, Nigeria, West Africa to the Christian Mission School, to having his father crowned king when Dad was a teenager, to finishing high school at Titcombe College, becoming a headmaster, journeying to America…he had already lived a lively life, but then he experienced America with her grandeur, opportunity and racism. He learned to barber his own hair when a barber shop in Greenville, Illinois refused to cut a negro’s hair. But it turned to his good as things do for those who are called by God, as his white classmates who admired him, marched down to the barber shop to protest. The barber changed his views that day when he saw all those white kids coming at him, but by the time Dad’s friends returned to take him back to the barber shop, he had already learned to cut his own hair using a two-mirror system. He often marveled in years to come at how much money he had saved over the years, cutting his own hair, and then his son’s hair, and he even did his grandson’s hair.
His exciting life was destined to continue as he met the enthralling, Lillian Winbush, my mother. (O.K. I’m going to brag on my mother for a minute because looking up this word in the Thesaurus, as she had taught me to do, to make sure it was right, there she was! Beguiling, action-packed, riveting, absorbing, engrossing, enchanting, alluring, gripping, fascinating.) Life would never be the same again and there would never be a dull moment. Their marriage produced us four – excitement all by itself. Then he went back home with all of us, to his beloved Nigeria and received a roaring welcome from his people of the town of Egbe; the journey of being a doctor in Nigeria began. He became a well-known and an often requested surgeon, studied to be an oncologist and used native herbs to research cures for cancer; being noticed internationally and getting a World Health Organization grant, brought him to the US again. (we all got to come and stay two years. And that was fun). Now at the top of his game as a doctor, scholar and researcher, with a PhD in medicine and with his research being studied around the world, all that was left, was for him to be head of something. So he was appointed the Director of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Research and Training (PIMRAT) at the University College Hospital (UCH), University of Ibadan, Nigeria. So badly did dad not want to be on show and the head of anything, that he would write on his letterhead, where it said Director of PIMRAT, Acting Director.
How could someone with this much work to do have time to be a missionary for the Lord, but he and my mother did it. Our home was often like Grand Central Station as university students walked in and out for bible studies, counseling and some of mother’s fresh baked cookies. University staff came for bible studies – one night for ladies, another for men, a third for everybody; bible study, bible study, bible study. Then he was the chairman of the UCH chapel. No real church building, just the nurses assembly hall, but he ran it like the Chairman of the Board he was. Mother, just like a church’s first lady, ran the Sunday School, sometimes 300 kids strong.
Daddy was not the type of Christian to go door to door to tell people about Christ; he instead walked with the Lord very closely and people learned about his Savior by watching his life. Whenever asked he would tell it all and loved leading another person to salvation. I can only imagine the throng that greeted him up there. That gentle man could be pushy at times and I’ve seen him push through a crowd to get something he or his family needed, so when he got to heaven, last week, he probably pushed through the crowd in heaven, because the only person he wanted to see was his Jesus.
It has been our great joy to share our dad & husband with all of you, here and in Nigeria. We hope you enjoyed him, because we did.
God bless you. If we don’t meet you again down here, may we see you in Heaven.
MY REMARKS AT DADDY’S FUNERAL ON BEHALF OF THE FAMILY
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Thank you to all those interested in more about my late dad, Dr. James Iyetunde Durodola.
OBITUARY
Dr. James Iyetunde Durodola, was born on November 14th 1922 in Egbe, Kogi State, Nigeria, West Africa, the second son of Oba Owojaiye, king of Egbe. His early education was received in his home state and later at Wesley College, Ibadan, Nigeria. His professional education was culminated at Greenville College, Illinois; Bellevue Medical Center, New York; the University of Saarbrucken, Germany and the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
He was the first medical doctor from Egbe. He contributed immensely to the growing body of knowledge in public and community medicine as a senior consultant in oncology at the University of Ibadan. He was research fellow at Harvard Medical School and the Sydney Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts.
‘Dr. Jim’ as he was affectionately called, was a Bible study teacher at Lake Anne Fellowship House, Reston, Virginia, for many years.
Dr. James Durodola departed this life on July 2nd 2009 and leaves to gratefully celebrate his long life and his witness for his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, his wife, Minister Lillian I. Durodola, daughters, Carroll Ayo Durodola, Rosemarie Ebun Onwukwe, Lorraine Ireti Durodola-Alston and son, James Iyetunde Durodola II, Esq.; son-in-law John Alston and daughter-in-law Christina Durodola. Another son-in-law Emmanuel Onwukwe is deceased. He is also survived by eight grandchildren, two great grand children; four sisters-in-law, Lorraine Brame, Elvera Williams, Vivian Winbush, Marion Winbush and one brother-in-law, Robert Winbush and many other relatives and friends in Nigeria, West Africa and the United States of America.
Dr. James Iyetunde Durodola, was born on November 14th 1922 in Egbe, Kogi State, Nigeria, West Africa, the second son of Oba Owojaiye, king of Egbe. His early education was received in his home state and later at Wesley College, Ibadan, Nigeria. His professional education was culminated at Greenville College, Illinois; Bellevue Medical Center, New York; the University of Saarbrucken, Germany and the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
He was the first medical doctor from Egbe. He contributed immensely to the growing body of knowledge in public and community medicine as a senior consultant in oncology at the University of Ibadan. He was research fellow at Harvard Medical School and the Sydney Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts.
‘Dr. Jim’ as he was affectionately called, was a Bible study teacher at Lake Anne Fellowship House, Reston, Virginia, for many years.
Dr. James Durodola departed this life on July 2nd 2009 and leaves to gratefully celebrate his long life and his witness for his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, his wife, Minister Lillian I. Durodola, daughters, Carroll Ayo Durodola, Rosemarie Ebun Onwukwe, Lorraine Ireti Durodola-Alston and son, James Iyetunde Durodola II, Esq.; son-in-law John Alston and daughter-in-law Christina Durodola. Another son-in-law Emmanuel Onwukwe is deceased. He is also survived by eight grandchildren, two great grand children; four sisters-in-law, Lorraine Brame, Elvera Williams, Vivian Winbush, Marion Winbush and one brother-in-law, Robert Winbush and many other relatives and friends in Nigeria, West Africa and the United States of America.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
My dad passes over!
To say I’ve been on a wild ride would be an understatement. But all gets quiet when someone you love passes over into Heaven. It’s beautiful and sad at the same time. On July 2nd 2009, at about 6 a.m. my dad stepped into Heaven to stay. He was 86 years old. Talk about Independence Day! He loved the Lord Jesus with all his heart and had a wonderful intimate relationship with Him. For a large portion of his life he was a Bible study teacher. And he was a prayer warrior. If you had him on your side praying for you, you had great back up.My children’s book Tunde, the Little Nigerian Prince is based on his life in Egbe, Nigeria, where he was the son of the king, my granddad. Of course I will go on writing about him. I plan on seven children’s books in the series and the next one Tunde, the Little Nigerian Prince and the Soldier Ants, his favorite, has gone on to the publisher, Sweeties Books. I may even write some adult books about him. His full name and title was Prince (Dr.) James Iyetunde Durodola. He was a surgeon who became an oncologist, studying how native herbs in Nigeria could cure cancer. His writings are extensive and are still being used around the world. He loved his people of Egbe and helped in lots of improvements in the town and fought for their rights when he saw they were being overlooked by the government.
So, I miss my buddy already. He was my father and my pal and that is a very unique and wonderful combination and opportunity. I count myself blessed for having this relationship in my life, causing me to grow enormously over the last several decades.
Well folks, I just didn’t want the days to go by without blogging something about this great man and I will say more in coming blogs. Check out the book’s blog, http://tundethelittlenigerianprince.blogspot.com/ and see how I tell the children about his passing over.
Bless you all!
Princess Ayo
Princess Ayo
Monday, May 25, 2009
I HAVE ABUNDANCE
I have abundance. Every thing I need is available to me. Lest I've used words against my prosperity and victory, I cancel them now by these new words.
I have plenty and am abundantly provided for.
I believe God has provided for me, abundant prosperity,
for I have obeyed.
Deuteronomy 28:1, 2, 11
1 If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. 2 All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:
11 The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground—in the land he swore to your forefathers to give you.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
WRITE IS RIGHT
Well it has been exactly one month since I arrived in Atlanta, Georgia, 4/20/09. It’s a good day to blog. How can I blog what is going on with me? It is so personal and yet the Lord is saying let me use you to tell testimonies to those around you. Four weeks into my stay here in Atlanta and I’m getting more clarity about this new location.
First, if anyone has been listening to the prophecies, God is calling many of us to new locations and new assignments.
Secondly, I had to get clear about what God told me to do. He told me to write for Him. That’s the call write (oops) right now. For today it’s writing. I’ve been writing but He says do more and blog more regularly because people want and need it. (As I type this I see that I really wrote it on 5/11/09. If I had entered it online then, it might have done me good. So this is not just for you, but me the writer). Don’t be ashamed of the call of God on your life.
Thirdly, I had to learn new things about my biological family to understand and see some of the things about me that the Father was trying to correct so that they would no longer be a hindrance. This is a big thing to moving forward. You’ve got to understand what basic youth conflicts you have to resolve so that they don’t trip you up. Often, they are family lies and misconceptions that you can’t keep and have the Belt of Truth on you at the same time.
When you aren’t settled with the call of God on your life, someone – ANYONE, can come in and suggest something else to you and you’ll go for it. Especially if you’re in my shoes, with no money, no income and God keeps saying, “Write”. You see moneymaking jobs & work and apply for them but you haven’t got one of them yet and still no money. Strangely, though God makes sure you have just enough for storage, cell phone, a dollar menu burger. Your main problem is that these suggestions of jobs send you off expending your energy applying and mailing. However, if I stick with God and now that I’m doing that, He reminds me to hunt down writing jobs. There’s money there. If you trust Him, He will raise you up and give you wisdom.
I can be assured that His word is true and this is the Spring of opportunity and the time when He’s going to blow my mind. Because I am obeying, the favor of the Lord is upon me, even with this “famine” in the land. Here it comes. Just stick with writing. You, dear reader, stick with whatever He has told you.
So what do you do when a great deal comes up to be a nanny? You have to really be glued to Jesus. What if a job comes up from a family member to be an office executive? You have to stay with God’s instructions to you. What is He saying about it? Is, He saying Yes, be a nanny and in your off hours or when the baby’s sleeping, write or go ahead with the executive position and I’ll give you time to write? Or is He saying wait, I’ve got something better for you, where you’ll be able to write all day! Or wait, I’ll have you do what I called you to, so it better benefits the Kingdom of Heaven and the Family of God
Remember God wants to do this big thing so NO ONE else gets the glory. Only Him. Not by your hard work or brilliant networking. Better you do what He says, His way and rest your self.
Zechariah 4:6 So he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty.
First, if anyone has been listening to the prophecies, God is calling many of us to new locations and new assignments.
Secondly, I had to get clear about what God told me to do. He told me to write for Him. That’s the call write (oops) right now. For today it’s writing. I’ve been writing but He says do more and blog more regularly because people want and need it. (As I type this I see that I really wrote it on 5/11/09. If I had entered it online then, it might have done me good. So this is not just for you, but me the writer). Don’t be ashamed of the call of God on your life.
Thirdly, I had to learn new things about my biological family to understand and see some of the things about me that the Father was trying to correct so that they would no longer be a hindrance. This is a big thing to moving forward. You’ve got to understand what basic youth conflicts you have to resolve so that they don’t trip you up. Often, they are family lies and misconceptions that you can’t keep and have the Belt of Truth on you at the same time.
When you aren’t settled with the call of God on your life, someone – ANYONE, can come in and suggest something else to you and you’ll go for it. Especially if you’re in my shoes, with no money, no income and God keeps saying, “Write”. You see moneymaking jobs & work and apply for them but you haven’t got one of them yet and still no money. Strangely, though God makes sure you have just enough for storage, cell phone, a dollar menu burger. Your main problem is that these suggestions of jobs send you off expending your energy applying and mailing. However, if I stick with God and now that I’m doing that, He reminds me to hunt down writing jobs. There’s money there. If you trust Him, He will raise you up and give you wisdom.
I can be assured that His word is true and this is the Spring of opportunity and the time when He’s going to blow my mind. Because I am obeying, the favor of the Lord is upon me, even with this “famine” in the land. Here it comes. Just stick with writing. You, dear reader, stick with whatever He has told you.
So what do you do when a great deal comes up to be a nanny? You have to really be glued to Jesus. What if a job comes up from a family member to be an office executive? You have to stay with God’s instructions to you. What is He saying about it? Is, He saying Yes, be a nanny and in your off hours or when the baby’s sleeping, write or go ahead with the executive position and I’ll give you time to write? Or is He saying wait, I’ve got something better for you, where you’ll be able to write all day! Or wait, I’ll have you do what I called you to, so it better benefits the Kingdom of Heaven and the Family of God
Remember God wants to do this big thing so NO ONE else gets the glory. Only Him. Not by your hard work or brilliant networking. Better you do what He says, His way and rest your self.
Zechariah 4:6 So he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty.
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