Ebony's Ink

A TEXT MESSAGE FROM MY FATHER

By: Joyce Otoyo Agyapong

On this faithful day, 12th December, 2013 my phone signals me of an incoming text message. I wasn't so much enthused to read it since I was not happy being bored with idleness with clumsy thinking which generated moody feelings within me. Reluctantly, I stretched out my hand to where my phone was and on picking it, I open to read the message.

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In my mind, I said: “Don’t disturb me” thinking (with the intension to delete it once read) that it was the usual promotional messages from service providers. My mood brightens as I read the first line of the text message and my joy and hope was restored with an unprecedented excitement. 

 

This special message came with a new name (IDARA OBONG) for me and the sender was no other person than my father whom I love from my heart. The message reads: “I, your father love you and your siblings so much than I do to anyone else on this earth. Try me!!! I have therefore given you a new name today: IDARA OBONG.” Oh! How joyous my heart felt that very moment. I, IDARA, the very one whom God sets up for greater height and had made me to be the one who opens up my mother’s womb as the first child. It is not an easy task to be the first born. 

 

Truly, it is a tall order for me to be the first child (and a girl-child for that matter) to my parents on this earth whose relationship has been challenged with distrust, unfaithfulness and nagging. I usually asked myself and said: “God, why did I have to be born into such great confusion as a child?” and the answer I always get from this vulnerable question has been: “BECAUSE YOU ARE SET FOR A GREATER HEIGHT”. 

 

On this earth, my dad is the only source of joy to my life. One may ask: “Why is it so?” “Why not your mum?” Actually, there is no wrong in asking such brooding question seeing that mothers, much more than the fathers naturally plays their roles in the house which draws them closer to their children than their fathers would. Their good morals, characters and behaviors as witness in friends families I visited are sources of emulation by, especially their girls children. 

 

As the matter of fact, in most cases, mothers are known to be the best media for their girl child/children but my situation was totally of the opposite and a different story all together. Why is it that my daddy is rather the source of my-joy, my-inspiration and my-role model? There must be a divine purpose to all these which human understanding may never be able to comprehend. 

 

I am proud to declare that I’m blessed to have and be connected to a personality like his type as a father. He genuinely cares for his family including my mother. His care for his children is without compromise and he always has his eyes on me as the big girl in the house and made sure I am okay at all time. 

 

He made sure I don’t have any need that will make me look outside for it. The day I will never forget is the day he was alone saddles with many troubles but he was able to think of me with a deep thought that made him gave me a new name: IDARA OBONG meaning the Joy of the Lord. 

 

This reminds me of the song he says that he sings on severally from the book of Nehemiah 8:10. He says that this kept him going whenever things were difficult during his Bible School days years before I came to this world and the song goes like this:

 

"The joy of the Lord is my strength

The joy of the Lord is my strength

The joy of the Lord is my strength

The joy of the Lord is my strength

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He gave me a living water and I taste no more

He gave me a living water and I taste no more

He gave me a living water and I taste no more

The joy of the Lord is my strength"

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He thought of me his daughter who now lives in a distance place and I could certainly believe that, at that moment, he sees me as a divine gift to him. 

 

He once told me that I am a beautiful and God sent gift to him thus his watchfulness over my steps in life. I certainly believe that this was the rational behind the new name “IDARA OBONG” that he now calls me. How great does it really feels like to be born into the mist of confusion and much trouble yet still have the joy of the Lord around you? I always thought of this within me.