I lived at home like I was living in the gutters. Home felt like a place filled with people who cannot be of any help. Little by little I died inside. It was like I was having a piece of my heart cut off with a knife every day. The pain felt like that of a sword piercing through the flesh, to the bones and marrow. Quiet physical huh? But that’s how it felt.

And I can assure you the people who were standing at the door and the gate of my life helped me neglect myself. Perhaps that’s the price I had to pay for being the poorest in their rich world. And maybe for eating out of their garbage also. For too long I was feeling pity for myself and that did not bring or do me any good. But it sustained me somehow. It helped avoid heartaches from people of a higher class than I, who perceived me as worthless. Dirty and hungry me.

Did I deserve that kind of a life? A life of pain because of poverty as if I chose to be poor? No! I did not. Like everybody who was created by God out of love, I deserved to be happy. After all I did not choose to be poor. I, at some point, thought that I was perhaps being punished with that kind of life. A life in which everything was upside down.

But what exactly would the punishment be about? I did nothing wrong. And neither can I be punished on behalf of somebody, my parents’ included. That’s perhaps how life chose to treat me. With rough hands, leaving a scar everywhere it touched. Or maybe I am just confused. Or maybe I deserve everything life throws at me.

Who could be worthy of a rich friend when they are dirty and poor? That’s how I perceived it and I am this resilient because certain things I just brushed off. Not advisable though. But I am this resilient because what happened had to happen, teaching the greatest lesson of them all.

And in my life that I perceived as miserable, some of the people stayed though when conditions were favouring them. It was hard. My years as a teenager were the toughest. I remember when I was nearly raped by the people I loved and trusted as friends. Who could have thought? Thank God for the car that came rushing, causing them to run away.

The God I serve is a covenant keeping God. He is so awesome and faithful. Imagine forcefully losing my virginity. I was going to die on the spot. Perhaps they were going to kill me when they were done with me. Who knows? You can never know what people are thinking.

Truth is, after I met Christ, I thought that would be the end of my problems. Finally, one will taste peace and joy. But I was lying to myself. And it was not I who lied to myself but the people who introduced Christ to me. They forgot to tell me that peace is not the absence of war and neither does faith take away problems.

They forgot to tell me that accepting Christ as my Lord and saviour will start an unending struggle/war in my life. That believing in Him will not make mountains disappear but will make it possible for me to climb. What a point forgotten. I was so sure that I finally found a peaceful life. A world of no sorrow or pain. Meanwhile that was the beginning of a life full of challenges. More challenges than before. I hit walls, fell, got up and moved on.

In the process, still I felt days of my life fade away. They were slipping and drifting away like a fish caught with bare hands in water. It was like I was losing everything, especially my mind and life. All I could see and smell was pain. I even thought that I was used to it. Well, maybe I was.

And maybe it was just what I thought. But I was born in it and in it I also grew up. I remember my first day at school. Kids were wearing new uniforms and were so excited. Though I was excited also to be in the class for the first time, I was wearing handmade uniforms. Visualise that and hold the thought. Not only was I wearing a handmade uniform but I was also barefooted. All my days in primary school, I wore no uniform. It was either handmade or second hand.

But I endured knowing what I wanted, and that was getting an education. I was bothered at times by the fact that I looked like a homeless person at school. I made my studies my first priority with poverty eradication and making my parents proud in mind. At least being smart in class got me glued to my books.

I’m just glad that in my quest to eradicate poverty, my body was never compromised. Studying hard was the only way I could think of to eliminate poverty in my family. And did I eliminate it? No. Instead we got poorer. But in time, things got better. They say time heals all wounds.

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Tell us: Do you think that education is the way out of poverty?