LOVE…Because Everything Worthwhile Begins With Love.

Hey, welcome back, let’s get right into it, shall we…

I did mention earlier that I started in the spirit but I didn’t necessarily end there haha! As such, on a beautiful Saturday morning on the 12th of August 1994, a baby girl was born to my first-time married couple and first-time parents, Lawrence and Tsungi. This baby, me, was to be known as Delsha Rufaro Lydia Mangava, after much deliberation. Knowing the little that I know about my parents, particularly my dad who loved to find an excuse to celebrate, I always visualize this day as one of the happiest, most jovial of days in my family. I chiefly visualize it as a day filled with love, love for me, hence the title today is focused on love.

This is, for obvious reasons, a stage in my life that I was too much of a baby to know much about much, let alone recall much, so a lot of what I will say about my parents will be strongly based on what people around me have told me about my parents.

The only vivid memory of my dad I have is when I was at his funeral as a 4-year-old toddler, crying my heart out because smoke in a particular hut back in our rural home was affecting my eyes. PS: I don’t even know if that qualifies as a memory of him. As for my mom, I have two, the first one was at this very same funeral as she was crying inconsolably sitting on a reed mat with swollen feet that people kept rubbing with salt, probably to stop them from swelling up further. The second one is when she was terribly sick and probably requested to see me and I was brought to her and as she lay on that sickbed, she looked at me and sang this Shona Christian song that had the words;

Dai asiri Jesu akandisunungura, ndiyani aizondiona, hapana aizondiona

Loosely translated, the lyrics mean that

Had it not been for Jesus who redeemed me, who would see/recognize me? No one would.

These are really not typically happy memories or memories worthwhile but they are my only memories still. Thankfully, my mom, dad, & I did not live on a secluded island so countless people have given me their versions of my late parents and they are much happier ones that I have had to slowly embrace as part of my own. They have significantly shaped how I see myself, my late parents, and my life in general.

It is indeed very heartbreaking to lose parents, especially at a young age of 4 years or 5, but in this blog post, we said from the onset we would give glory to God and that we shall do! I praise God for my late parents who not only had such a short lifespan with me but lived them out so well in their capacity as my parents. Everyone who has told me about my dad has almost without fail mentioned how much he loved me, not even to console me but a genuine ‘gosh that man loved his daughter, he absolutely loved you!’ I used to hate hearing that, but in retrospect, I am glad people told me that, it truly makes all the difference. As for my mom, I have hardly heard much about her but I am confident beyond doubt in the fact that she too loved me. That love from my parents to me is a love God made sure I got to experience even though I was ignorant of what it was all about at the time, and for that I give Him all the glory.

Jeremiah 31:3-The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying:

“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
  *  I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.*

Oh, how loving is our God! This can be seen in literally everything!!! He ensures that as helpless babies we are born to parent(s) or families so that we can lovingly be well taken care of until we can take care of ourselves, and pretty much beyond that. I also do want to go ahead and say that I am cognizant of the fact that not all of us have had the privilege to be born into loving families or families in general, due to varying degrees of circumstances, and if, for any reason, that was your case, I am sorry you had to go through that and I sympathize with you. This was, however, not my case. Although I only had a total of roughly five years with my parents (which I am absolutely grateful for by the way), one thing I have had to learn is that they loved me dearly.

Romans 8:35-38

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I want to leave you with this assurance, nothing that happens in our lives is that big for God to work through, He is ever so constant in ensuring our lives turn out the best way possible. I don’t know what you might be going through that could cause you to despair, experience heartbreak or pain…God has your back, He is on your side, nothing can stand against you and succeed against His plan for your life, His plan to prosper you and bring you to an expected end. Don’t give up on Him and don’t give up on yourself, this too shall pass, and if it doesn’t, it will eventually bear good fruit in your life, even if all it does is become just a testimony of how far you have come as an individual, or family, or business, or whatever else there is to be.

God bless you.