Tri­cia St John

Last Sat­ur­day night, I went to a con­cert. I in­tend­ed to sing, dance, and have a grand time. I paid great at­ten­tion to de­tail while get­ting dressed to en­sure I got the de­sired ef­fect. I ar­rived at ex­act­ly 8 pm but on­ly be­cause I can­not be late for any­thing un­less, of course, it’s a sit­u­a­tion be­yond my con­trol. Be­ing late makes me feel flus­tered, rushed, and ir­ri­ta­ble enough to ei­ther make me stay home or cut short my time at an event. I did not ex­pect, whilst at the con­cert, sur­round­ed by peo­ple, noise, con­ver­sa­tion, and laugh­ter, to be recog­nised as any­one oth­er than an­oth­er pa­tron out to re­lax, un­wind, and have fun.

It is al­ways ob­vi­ous to me when peo­ple are star­ing. And when I turned to see the two women di­rect­ly be­hind me whis­per­ing and star­ing, I thought that sure­ly, they were be­ing af­fect­ed by all the smoke be­ing puffed with wild aban­don by al­most every Tom, Dick, and Mary.

I de­cid­ed to go find the wash­room, and as I walked in that di­rec­tion, I re­alised they were fol­low­ing be­hind me, and their whis­per­ing seemed to have turned in­to a mi­ni-ar­gu­ment.

‘Yes, is she!’ One voice was ar­gu­ing, while the oth­er was say­ing in a su­pe­ri­or, con­fi­dent tone, ‘Dat is not she girl. What would she be do­ing here?’

I start­ed walk­ing a bit faster. I had no de­sire to be the ‘she’ they were pas­sion­ate­ly ar­gu­ing about, and I im­me­di­ate­ly re­gret­ted the fact that I hadn’t let my sis­ter walk with me.

I was grate­ful to be wear­ing com­fort­able shoes, and I made my way through the crowd as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. I got to the wash­room area, con­fi­dent that I’d lost them in the crowd. I hadn’t. They were both stand­ing out­side the stall when I ex­it­ed.

‘Ent you is Tri­cia?’ I looked from one to the oth­er, forced a smile, and took a breath. “It de­pends on who’s ask­ing,” I said. If I had en­e­mies, I didn’t know them, and I was sin­gle, so I was con­fi­dent that no­body’s an­gry wife or girl­friend was about to give me a beat­down.

‘Ms St John, ent you does write for de Guardian on a Sun­day?’ This came from the one who was in­sist­ing that the ‘she’ they were ar­gu­ing about was in fact me. ‘Yes,’ I said more con­fi­dent­ly now, ‘yes, I do.’

‘We read all your ar­ti­cles,’ the oth­er one said. ‘You’re re­al­ly good with your words; we does look for­ward.’

“Thank you,” I said humbly, smil­ing again. As un­ex­pect­ed as the en­counter was, it was al­so pleas­ing and up­lift­ing. One of them asked if she could hug me, and I agreed be­cause she looked so ex­pec­tant.

As I walked back through the crowd, try­ing to get back to where my sis­ter was, some­one tugged at my arm. I stopped and turned. ‘I have your book in my home,’ the woman shout­ed over the noise. ‘I’ve read it mul­ti­ple times.’ I smiled, nod­ded, mouthed a thank you, and found my way back to my sis­ter.

As I stood there, lis­ten­ing to the mu­sic, sway­ing my hips, and singing, I was think­ing about the fact that I have al­ways want­ed to write for a news­pa­per. My mom wrote for News­day years ago, and since then, the de­sire has awak­ened in me to write for any one of the lo­cal news­pa­pers. It was a de­sire I held on to be­cause, deep down, I be­lieved it would even­tu­al­ly hap­pen.

Last year, I worked up the courage to reach out to the News­day, Guardian, and Ex­press. Af­ter send­ing the re­spec­tive emails, I asked God to let the news­pa­pers that he want­ed me to write for re­spond be­cause he knew it was a great de­sire of my heart. When the per­son reached out to me from Guardian Me­dia, I re­mem­ber danc­ing all over the room and feel­ing ex­treme­ly elat­ed.

Some­times, we just have to keep be­liev­ing in some­thing. Be it a dream, a de­sire, or a need. Hold­ing on is key. My de­sire to write for one of our lo­cal news­pa­pers got pushed to the back­ground many times. It al­most got lost, but I held on to the dream.

If there is some­thing you have al­ways want­ed to do, even if it hasn’t hap­pened yet, don’t give up. Don’t stop be­liev­ing. God’s tim­ing is not ours, but he is al­ways on time. All you need is a lit­tle bit of faith and a great God to see great things.

Matthew 17:20

–Tru­ly, I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mus­tard seed, you can say to the moun­tain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Noth­ing will be im­pos­si­ble for you.