Do you know that Lego blocks can teach you a lot about life?
Have you ever assembled a jigsaw puzzle before? It was one of the things I loved doing when I was a child. Trying to recreate the picture piece by piece was exciting for me. In the same way, I loved assembling Lego pieces. Those were the best! My dad usually brought them back from his trips to London. Believe me, that same night he returns home and gives me my Lego toy, I’m already opening the box and assembling the pieces together. Most times, I would finish the whole thing that night.
My dad must have been tired of the Lego toy (he had to start buying more than one) that he bought us this massive aeroplane (not Lego) to assemble. I can never forget that aeroplane. The pieces were grey. The blueprint was complex. Days and weeks, I couldn’t re-build that aeroplane. Nobody could do it in the house actually. I remember my uncle sweating as he was trying to figure out what piece went where. Eventually, I got bored and the aeroplane found its way to the dustbin months after.
I cannot remember the last time I thought about my past love for Lego. It’s been years but a few days ago it all came pouring back.
Do you know that the things that happen to us can be compared to those Lego pieces? It suddenly hit me that sunny afternoon; the reason why certain things happened to me. He was simply building me up for such a time as this. I know without a doubt that if my dad did not go broke when he did, I would have taken a completely different course in life. There was a set plan; finish university, complete Masters, complete NYSC, get an MBA in Harvard, relocate to Nigeria and get married. Please who wouldn’t like that kind of plan? My dad called it ‘the programme’.
Little did we know that God had a different programme in mind! God changed my ‘programme’ again when I decided that I wasn’t going to move back to Nigeria. I just felt there was nothing for me back home. I had found joy in serving in the house of God and in the fellowship of his people in the church where He placed me. What was I going back to Nigeria for?
The plan was finish law school, complete Masters and start working. So the job search began. I applied to a few firms and got an interview with Ernst and Young. Yes! I was finally on my way to riches. The interview was great. I had passed the second stage of the recruitment process. On to the third stage; the point at which my dreams came crashing down. It was the assessment day. I did well in all the activities given but when it was time to do the aptitude test, my brain literally shut down.
I was tired. I had to leave Leeds at 4 a.m. to get to their London head office on time and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. we were engaged in different assessment activities.
Mehn…I shed tears! Justin Timberlake sang a song titled “Cry Me a River”. This was worse than that. It was an ocean. I didn’t have a Plan B. I thought to myself, “Why is God doing this to me?”
What even pained me more was that I borrowed money to go on the trip. So I was owing money and I didn’t get the job. I locked myself in my room for two days eating ice-cream, shedding tears and singing “It is well, it is well in the name of Jesus”.
I didn’t want to see or talk to anybody. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when I eventually had to come back home. Let’s not even go there.
It didn’t make any sense to me back then but it does now. I get it. I see what God was trying to do. Each experience was like a Lego piece. I thought that Leeds was the whole picture when it was just a part of it. I didn’t realise that it was not in God’s plan for me to work there. God had a mission for me in Nigeria. I didn’t have the box with the full picture of the Lego. I was working with what made sense and not with God’s plan.
You know, if David hadn’t learned how to kill the lion and the bear, he wouldn’t have been able to kill Goliath. It is the same kind of thing for me.
God wants to create something beautiful out of your life but beauty takes time to achieve. Ask women the time and effort it takes for them to look pretty.
The Lego pieces represent good and bad experiences in your life. They are stacked on top of each other, one piece at a time until something beautiful is created. You don’t have the blueprint with you. Only God does, but you just have to believe that everything He allows you to go through is simply to make your life better and beautiful. The beauty of Lego is not in when the pieces are scattered in the box. It is in when the pieces have been assembled and a beautiful masterpiece is created.
About the Writer: Adedoyin Jaiyesimi is a Writer, Media Content Creator and Brand Manager. The various publications she has written for include Y! Magazine (now Y! Africa), Discovery, Pride Magazine Nigeria, Butterscotch magazine amongst others. She currently holds the position of Brand Communications Manager at Victor Adeyemi Ministries and she is also the founder of LRouge Media, an editorial and brand consultancy company which provides content writing and editing services for business websites, magazines and blogs. When she is not creating content, you can find her in church doing the work of her Father. She tweets @msdoyeen and blogs at www.adedoyinjaiyesimi.wordpress.com
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This article was first published on 12th November 2015
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