At the Scent of Water

Kojo did not always seem like someone who had given up.

Once, everything made sense. His work had purpose, his name carried weight in rooms, and he had plans he could almost touch, confidently sharing them as though victory was just around the corner.

But time did not move as he expected.

One disappointment followed another. Then came silence where responses used to be. Waiting stretched on longer than he could explain, and gradually, without realizing it, he stopped speaking of the future and eventually stopped expecting one.

It was a quiet decline: less hope, less energy, less of himself.

By the time he recognized it, he felt like a stump of who he once was, still present but no longer growing. People moved on. Life went on. But he stayed.

And honestly, he grew used to it.

Some days, he did not even pray properly, only thoughts in his mind that never turned into words. It was not anger exactly, but deep exhaustion. Yet there is something about God: He does not forget people like that. Not the old Kojo, nor the new one he had become. Just... him.

There is a line in Job about a tree that has been cut down. Even if it has dried up, it begins to bud again at the scent of water.

Kojo did not really understand that until much later, because the verse speaks only of the scent, not a flood of water. And somehow, that is enough.

It started small for him: an unnoticed conversation, a door that did not seem like much at first, nothing dramatic or obviously restorative. But something in him responded, as if buried deep, he remembered how to live.

He did not rush or suddenly become who he used to be. But he began again, slowly, carefully, hesitant to hope.

Then things started to change, not all at once, but enough to show him that what he thought was over was not.

Sometimes, that is how God restores: silently, without spectacle, like a scent in dry places. And somehow, that is enough to bring life back.