THANK YOU JESUS, THANK YOU PHCN FOR BREAKING THROUGH TEEN ANGST

My first son is definitely the personification of teenage angst. At almost sixteen, he is at that stage where nothing seems to excite him; except perharps watching reruns (he programs all the episodes when he goes away to boarding house) of The Aviators and Air Disaster Investigation all day on Discovery Channel and any other programme that has a mechanical/aeronautic theme. He wants to be a Pilot someday.

He is rather lucky because he has a younger sister who waits on him hand and foot and is always quick to jump to his defence whenever I complain of his laid back attitude. I know he would certainly outgrow all of these some day but it is a little bit tiring sometimes running round in circles to get him to see things my way. Of course his Sister has her fair share of angst but her naturally gregarious nature enables me cope with hers better and with a "new" teenager you can imagine that between them there is enough angst to go round. Thankfully our four year old dilutes the whole thing.

Back to my Okpara's angst; you can imagine therefore what an uphill task it is to get him interested in Church activities. Getting him to show any kind of enthusiasm for Church activities or anything remotely associated with spirituality always elicits a frown from him. Whenever he presides during morning devotion at home you have to urge him to speak louder; his Amens are usually so inaudible. So you can imagine my shock this past Monday evening at home when I heard him shouting "Thank You Jesus, Thank you Jesus"  in that almost Baritone voice of his as he ran outside; wondering what was amiss, I rushed out behind him; I guess when he saw me rush after him, he collected himself and I asked him what happened and he just simply said "There is Power".. You should have heard my "shuo so because they restored power you screamed like that, you scared me" and I accompanied it with a hiss. He apologised and walked off to swich of the generator.

As I entered back into the house I burst out laughing; laughing because at last I understood what all that spiritual reticence is- all part of teenage angst- Here I was thinking my son had absolutely no clue about knowing how to walk in Faith and something as "foolish" as crazy PHCN restoring power was used to "confound" me and bring me to the realisation that my Okpara really did understand that it is all about Jesus.

I can only pray for Grace and Mercy to root him in the faith.

At the end of the day, we all have to..

Stay Rooted

OSA