Everyone Is Fighting A Battle By Yinka Fadayomi
EVERYONE IS FIGHTING A BATTLE
This morning, I went to a pharmaceutical store to get Lucozade Boost and some drugs for a patient.
There were rows of chairs for customers to seat. I sat on the front row and left my bags on my seat when it was my turn to be attended to. While I stood at the counter to collect the items I have ordered for, a woman in her 50’s just showed up from no-where and sat on my bags. In annoyance, I told her, “Madam, you are sitting on my bags!”. Without waiting for her response, in annoyance, I left the counter to take my bags from under her and kept them on another chair behind her. I was angry still, and trust me I called her many names in my mind: illiterate, bush woman, this and that.
While they were still sorting the drugs I came to buy, I went to sit behind her, looking at her with suspicions. I noticed she wasn’t feeling fine. As the sales person called on me, I stood up to pay. I still kept my eyes on the woman with some anger boiling in me. But somehow, the bowels of mercy in me reached out to this woman against my will. And I asked her, “Madam, are you alright? She couldn’t speak up but I could read her lips. She said, “I’m asthmatic”. “What?”, I screamed. “Where is your inhaler?”. She bowed her head with eyes fixed on floor. Behold, her bag was on the floor and for over 10-20 minutes, she had been struggling to drag the bag close to herself so that she could pick her inhaler but all to no avail. Immediately, I picked her bag, brought out her inhaler and handed it to her. She used the inhaler and became fine a little bit. I shouted and called the attention of the pharmacist to the dying woman. I left what I came to buy and helped her get some drugs and inhaler from the store. She got everything on time and I assisted her to get a cab to take her home. If not for God, that woman could have died or something bad could have happened to her.
Unknown to me, she had an attack and couldn’t control herself. That was what made her to sit on my bags. While I was eyeing her and calling her names, she was fighting a battle between life and death. Thank God for the bowels of mercy.
I learnt a serious lesson from this: we should always be careful in judging or criticising other people no matter what happens or how hurt one feels. If that woman had died, I wouldn’t have forgiven myself.
By this encounter, I have also come to realise that everyone has a battle he or she fights within self. Therefore, before you judge, blame or fight that man or woman, take some time to study him/her. Find out if he or she has done that ‘wrong’ out of self-will. Forget what that man or woman has posted on the social media that makes you think he or she is talking ill about you. That may not even represent his or her true intentions or condition. Try to get close to him or her to identify his or her ‘battle’. Who knows, you may be the help he or she needs to overcome the battle! If you continue to hold grudges against that man or woman for the ‘minor offence or error’ he/she has committed, you may be contributing to his or her “asthmatic” condition unknowingly. You should learn to let go by taking another careful look at that man or woman that has hurt you. You never can tell, he or she might not be in a right state of mind that instance the offence was committed. In as much as we ask God for forgiveness and He does hear us by His mercy, you should kindly forgive everyone who has offended you. If you need to make a call to restore the needed peace, please do and make peace with everyone.
The hands of friendship that you extend will go a long way to restore the other person’s inner peace and quench his or her battles.
Always remember, everyone is fighting a serious battle! “No good war, no bad peace”. The more we live in peace, the more we overcome life battles together and remain happier.
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Thank you for your time.
– C.itp. Yinka Fadayomi
Writing from Akure, Ondo State.
