JOY IS BITTER

    "Family is strength! Family is comfort!! Family is everything!!!" She was jerked to reality by mother’s screams of helplessness and her father’s merciless blows on her crystal skin. 

      She longed to be her heroine, after all Dada ọ lè já, sugbon ọ lẹni tó gbójú lé. But she was scared; fear grips her when she hears father’s voice and her breath is seized when father calls her name. Alas! Mother’s heroine has no superpowers.

     The clock ticked; seasons changed; weather changed but not in Joy’s house. Father got angrier at the slightest issue; mother pleaded more for help, and Joy, she grew in silence and bitterness. 

     This very day, father got back from work hungry, but, mother, plagued by pains and fatigue from untreated wounds couldn’t cook for him but I did. Despite what I felt for him, I cooked for him, cooked his favourite meal just so he could leave mother alone. 

      He didn’t want my meal but hers and he landed a fist of punch on her already aching wound. Like an helpless criminal, mother fell at his feet, pleading for mercy until she pleaded her last.

     Mother was gone. I knew she was but I pleaded for her to come back. For me, at least. She promised to be her heroine even though she had no superpowers. She promised to take father’s beatings for her. But mother never came back. She was gone. And father, he had absconded, leaving behind mother’s cold body with a daughter’s wounded soul.

      Joy grew; in excellence, she grew; in affluence and wealth, she grew; but her girl child was trapped beside mother’s cold body, a decade ago. The mask she wore fitted well until she met Him. He was different from the others she had given cold shoulders. 

The first day their paths crossed, He read her as she read atonement child by Francine Rivers. She was scared to open up to Him but she gave in eventually. He listened, and listened, and listened without interrupting.

      The next day, she was with Him, then the next, and the next. A conversation began; He didn't just listen, He spoke to her. He told her the meaning of her name, Joy. He showed her the depth of her name - despite mother’s bitterness, she still named her Joy. He revealed Himself to her and she was ready to accept Him. 

She was ready to know this man who filled her heart with the joy father deprived her of. She was ready to release her mask to Him, expose the bitterness beneath and accept the joy El-Simchah Giyli (God, my exceeding joy) offered her. 

ÌYÉTIDÉ