I have a friend who lived in the East but got a job in Lagos two years ago.

Her mum is late but her father is alive, living in the East. She was very happy when she got an email that she has been selected, out of hundreds of people that applied for the job.

She called her uncle who lives in Lagos and informed him about her appointment. She pleaded with him to allow her to stay with them till she raises funds for her own accommodation and her uncle obliged the request.

She arrived Lagos on a Friday, two days after she spoke with her uncle because she was to resume work the following Monday.

Her uncle’s home is a family of five, and they live in a three-bedroom apartment somewhere on the mainland, which is about an hour’s drive to her office.

The following week after my friend moved in with them, she noticed her uncle’s children (her cousins) started giving her some kind of funny attitude but she chose not to be bothered about it. She knew it was a temporary address, so she related with them as usual.

But she was forced to react when she noticed they left only her to do the house chores which they ought to do together.  She spoke to her uncle’s eldest child about it but got no reasonable response, and still did the same with the younger ones without result. She had to finally open up to her uncle’s wife.

Her uncle’s wife promised to speak with them about it and urged her to do whatever she can do within the house and leave the rest.

The matter became worse, two months after she had called the attention of everyone involved.

At this time, they’ve graduated from being irresponsible with regard to home chores to stealing their parents’ money. They sometimes steal my friend’s money and wear her perfumes without her consent.

When all this started, she informed their parents about it, but it was so unfortunate that most times, their parents chose to believe their children over her. 

In fact, there was a day two hundred thousand was missing in the house and they accused my friend who had gone to work since morning to have stolen the money.

That was the height of it for her. It was all like a nightmare to her.

I could remember she called me that night of the incident and cried over the phone.

She explained to me how her uncle’s children frustrated her effort and made living in the house after a long day at work, miserable for her.

She told me, sometimes the children eat her portion of food before she returns from work.

I asked if her uncle was aware of this whole drama, and she told me that he and his wife are very much aware, but refused to address it properly, for reasons best known to them. 

She wept profusely that night but I had to pacify her and assure her that,  because she has not done anything wrong to them, I believe God knows why he allowed that to happen to her.

I encouraged her to be prudent with her finance, so she could save up for her own accommodation and rescue herself from the embarrassment.

She told me she was saving already but will do it with more tenacity because she couldn’t stand the humiliation and embarrassment she gets every day.

Four months later, I was in transit when her call came in. At first, I didn’t pick up because the environment was noisy but she kept calling so I had to pick up the call and listen to what she had to say.

As I picked up her call, she screamed with joy and said to me, “Olumide, I got a new job”. “New job? “ I asked and she replied, “Yes”

“When did you leave your current job to start another one that I am not aware of?” I asked, then she replied, “I didn’t leave my current job”. So I asked how she secured the new job. She told me it was the man she met when she went to inspect one of the available apartments, that connected her with his brother who works in the company where she got her new offer.

She told me that the man’s brother had informed him, they will be recruiting soon at his workplace. So if there’s anyone he trusted and knows very well, he can recommend when they start the recruitment.

That’s how this man recommended my friend whom he met once and barely knew, for the job.

She told me of the lovely benefits that came with the offer; free accommodation and an official car (though they will be deducting a percentage of the car cost price from her monthly earnings).

I thought to myself in the bus, “Indeed what God can not do doesn’t exist.”

This is a lady that was crying a few months back for being humiliated by her uncle’s children for no reason.

However, I see a lot of people go through what my friend went through when she moved into her uncle’s place, which is not fair because you didn’t plan to live there forever. 

I’ll like to encourage you not to give up. You rather make lemonade out of the lemon that life is throwing at you. Your own demerit could be family, race, background and what society throws at you.

Finally, God can put/keep you where you don’t like or never wanted to be just to bring the best out of you and to fulfill his promises for you, just like he did for my friend. My friend might not have gotten the job if she was not bullied by her uncle’s children. But God allowed that to happen to her to bring the best out of her and also give her the best.

So whatever you’re going through right now, it could be God stretching you to bring the best out of you. 

written by Olumide Abimbola.