Ngozi – fair and petite, was a dazzling sight to behold. She seemed to stop hearts from beating and seize breathes each time she sauntered by. The smell of her rose and spice perfume could cling to your memory for weeks. And her smile, it could stop time itself.
For so long, the center of her life and worth was her beauty. But after everything life taught her, she was no longer the young, carefree university babe she used to be and this was a thing of joy to everyone who knew the old Ngozi. Yes, she was still as beautiful as ever, but she was different. So much so that you could taste it on the tip of your tongue.
“Back in the days,” Ngozi would always say anytime she saw signs of carefree attitude in her younger sister, “I was the prettiest, and it made me heady. But that’s half of the story.”
And she would sigh so loud you could hear it in the next room. A habit she had not lost from her endless days of sighing in sorrow and disdain.
For twenty years of her life, she had been consumed with vain things. Everything seemed physical, and that was her main focus. Her emotional life was covered in cobwebs that had formed from neglect. Her spiritual life was non existent.
She flew through life with the feather – like effect in the wind.
She was a lost cause, Mama always said to her anytime she went for an occasional visit to the deep, barely civilized village she’d come out from.
But things always happen, and hope always seems to shine like sun rays on even the worst of persons. And Ngozi was not exempted.
On a sunny day, the ones that come with so much heat that can drive a sane person to want to pull off their clothes, Ngozi walked into a church.
I’ll just enjoy the air conditioner for a while, she said to herself.
The pastor, led by the Spirit had spoken as if speaking to her directly. And she, consumed with the ache and sorrow of failed relationships and unemployment had listened.
She had blamed the air conditioner, but it was God that had led her there.
That day was the beginning of Ngozi’s glorious phase. Her beauty, which had been on the windshield, was now on the rearview. It was still there, but it was no longer the center of her life.
