"Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts - Unknown"
It happened around March 2010, I was still in secondary school. I came back home from school one Tuesday afternoon, hungry, tired and my uniforms looking all dirty. I never felt the hunger and tiredness because I needed to wash my uniforms so I could look clean the next day so as to avoid being flogged by Ma Bola, our principal, for wearing dirty uniforms to school.
It was few minutes past four, I had already soaked my uniforms inside the water when I realised that there was no soap, I had no money on me and I couldn't wait till evening when my parents got back from work because it'll be late by then and my uniforms might not dry.
I looked around the compound and saw my neighbor's soap dish with a soap on it, "ah! Thank God" I exclaimed, as I reached for the soap and quickly used it to was my uniforms. I was almost done when my neighbor, Mr Ola came out from his room about to take his bath and discovered that his soap was missing. I was terrified. I was waiting for Mr Ola to go inside the house so I could quickly return it but he didn't.
Mr Ola walked up to me - since I was the only one in the compound - and asked to see the soap I was using, I hesitated because I thoughthe was going to beat me up for stealing his soap.
I guess I was wrong because when Mr Ola saw the soap, he shook his head, and quietly went back to his room and brought another pack of soap for me to continue washing with.
I was so surprised.
Then he said to me "I wouldn't be wrong if I had beaten you for stealing my soap, but I chose to forgive and show you love instead, this is the kind of love Jesus was talking about"
I pondered on the words of Mr Ola for the rest the day and indeed, that is the greatest lesson I wouldn't forget in my life.
I'm very sure you enjoyed this one.
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