Hoping Against Hope In Dire Situations

What do we do in dire circumstances when we are too helpless to rescue ourselves, not to mention loved ones or anyone? Gun Boat diplomacy for Rare Earth, terrorists, bandits and kidnappers is trending. So are innocent farmers, mothers and kids without immediate relief. Nobody wants to be in a situation where some of us get picked up at the bus stops, locked up at the police stations without immediate or available relatives and friends with money to bail us out.

The resolve when we are looking for saviors and no one shows up must come from within. But looking for relief in places out of sight, when we found strength to overcome right in our heart. A kidnapped victim may be held at gunpoint in a moving vehicle until he could give a sign, alert or yell out if the mouth is not stuffed with material. Many of us have found ourselves in similar situations as we all need somebody to lean on.

Religious practices also offer a sense of purpose to life and offer solace during hard times. Even when there is help out there unknown to you, it is still a personal battle until we find a solution. We call on our saviors, god of Amadia, Sango or Magazawa. But where do our Pastors and Imams go for treatment overseas when we need them at home?

Experienced parents naturally pull and prevent their loved ones from danger. Humans have the same instinct animals have when they pull and protect their curbs from danger. When children and wives get raped in front of their fathers and husbands, you wonder what type of warped mentality derive pleasure from such aberrations. If you are not helpless and as strong as thunder; it takes seconds to strike abusers dead.

Just as we complain that there are too many problems, some of them we bring upon ourselves. Relatives as close as adult children, brothers and sisters set up their parents for extortions. One claimed his father was too stingy. Another got himself kidnapped to share money with strangers. If anything goes wrong or the victim is not as rich as expected, desperadoes are unpredictable and can take a life without remorse.

A son was arrested by police while driving Black in America, with his parents. Any reasonable son would have known that many times Police see a Black driving an expensive car in America, they are always checking to see what he could be charged for or invent a crime. The Police stopped the car and put their son in handcuffs. Both parents, upset, were protesting their son's innocence. Until the son pointed to a camera recording the ugly scene as a prank!

Another may be funny to some. One high school student claimed he got his girlfriend pregnant. His father was so mad, he got out a stick to beat the heck out of his son that could report him to Police for the criminal offense of abusing your own wayward son. As usual, the father blamed his mother for leaving him at home alone with the girlfriend. When he threatened to send him back to Africa, he showed the father a camera recording it, as a prank!

There are two viral videos pertinent to these situations that caught this writer's attention because these are pranks by grown children, they naively considered funny. But enough to give their parents heart attacks. Especially in a hostile environment at home or abroad depending on the circumstances and cases.

Daily occupational hazards do happen. Those in such cases are the ones that can relate their experiences better than the rest of us. We can only put ourselves in other people’s shoes to imagine where it hurts. No matter how bad a situation gets, if it does not kill people, more of us must get stronger! We all wrestle with our individual albatross that may not be visible to others. Since people may see us differently from our actual reality.

During Covid-19 some middle-class families with children packed beautiful cars a mile away online looking for food handouts in the richest country in the world! Many of us could not believe that people live from paycheck to paycheck and when there was Covid-19, recession or change of ideology. Painful situations change depending on time and who. We also take solace praying and hoping, no matter how dreadful, nothing lasts forever.

Though very serious, embezzlement, sexual harassment or corruption can devastate an innocent man. Each can also become a workplace hazard, even if it is just based on suspicion. The worst part is that after investigation and being found innocent of any allegation, the smell never goes away. In most cases, one has to step down from the position and lose most of the trust and accolades that go with the position.

Promising careers have been destroyed based on envy, greed and competition. Hardworking and innocent people that refuse to cooperate have been blackmailed or hoodwinked into compromise positions. It is so hurtful because those in a lower or less desirable position cannot believe these hazards happen in high places. It takes an “accident” or someone closer to us to realize such ugly pains do happen.

However, it is also true that problems that can’t kill you may be just an irritant that can be easily shaken off by someone else. Physical pain like torture kill people outright, but stress without physical contact can turn others into mental case or kill them as much as dropping a bomb. While so many die during earthquakes, floods and wildfire; we wonder how some still survive. There are pains that can bring immediate death. Some of us prefer that to a slow pain to our death.

It has been said that if you think you have the worst problem, wait until each of us write problems on our foreheads. Those of us with problems will thank our maker knowing there are many more people with greater problems.