MEASURE UP
It was few minutes past noon. As I washed my vehicle, my neighbour’s children rushed out to greet and do their normal question and answer session. One I am never tired of because the answers are always easy even when I don’t understand the questions.
The eldest asked many questions supported by her immediate younger sister and the last born just assumed the role of an audience of one. She recalled a particular time I asked her about the beautiful single female teachers in her school and reminded me that she never delivered my message to the one we finally concluded as the most beautiful female teacher. I hadn’t forgotten so we laughed and played about it.
She asked me when I would wed and I
pretended like the question was erroneous. She emphasized it again and I asked her if a wedding was compulsory. She said she wanted to know who would be my page boy because her youngest sister was qualified given the low-cut she had on. Low cuts were significant details of the identity of boys as far as she was concerned. I was amazed at the level of thinking going on underneath the local weaving she had on her head.
She didn’t stop there, she asked if I was decided upon who to marry, the fine-faced Miss Teacher in her school or the lady that came to my house in a jean and clutching a black bag. I will be understating this article if I tell you I was not taken aback. She went on to say the teacher is beautiful but short. I just kept washing my car acting oblivious of the turmoil she was creating inside of me.
Then it told her I would marry her younger sister since she was a name-sake of the said beautiful teacher, the younger sister didn’t let me conclude before she shouted
“Uncle Charles, I am too small”
I then rephrased and told the elder sister that I would marry her instead and she also said she was…she didn’t want to say she was small since her younger sister had claimed the adjective already. She just muttered some words under her breath then came towards me. I was bent over as I tried to clean the dirt of my car wheels.
She touched my fourth or fifth rib and said “if I reach you here or here then I may agree but I am not up to this place then I will not agree”
I suppressed my laughter, supposedly created by her words and the tickling she was generating by touching my ribs. These children were really innocent, thinking like children and being very frank, nothing existing beyond the knowledge they have and not undermining it either.
That was when it dawned on me that if we all could check ourselves before we decided to AGREE to a relationship then this world would be a better place. The younger one knew and stood her ground that she was small and so wasn’t even eligible. The older one tried to give me conditions by which she would AGREE and her conditions were based on whether she MEASURED UP, not what she wanted or what she must get. It’s a classic case of being the right and not just hunting for the right.
Many of us are wont to desire what we do not deserve neither having worked for. It is wisdom to know how to blend-in in relationships and also what we carry, so we can know what match should be made or unmade.
It’s not the physical things, attributes and features that we see, the abstracts that we envy or the virtues that we covet that really counts. It’s the contents we embody, the persons we are, the focus we have, the purposes we pursue, the targets we aim, the goals we set and the end we daily forecast. If we aren’t standing firm yet, we have no right to help another stand and if we know where we stand, we ought to have wisdom to know how to sustain the stand hence, how to mingle.
Determine today to improve yourself and raise your value, internal and external. To work towards becoming a better person irrespective of your environment and circumstances, your past and present notwithstanding. No effort invested in grooming oneself to become better is ever wasted.
When one has grown to some point, one finds out that not everyone measures up to him. Life is in stages and growth in ages. Both of which never recede but daily advance.
While it is yet day, do yourself a permanent favour and to an established standard, measure up!
2Co 6:14
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?”
Gen 2:20
And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
11:33 am
lol @ level of thinking under her local weaving. if we all can think of what to offer our partners and not what to expect, marriages/ relationships will move from endurance level to enjoyment level.
11:37 am
Well said. Givers are the positive force for change, getters are the normal clogs in moving wheels