Marked

Before he had a name he could pronounce, he was already marked.

Omokhai Imoukhuede was born in Lagos after three days of labor, carried into the world on his mother's broken, whispered "Our Father..." When she first held him, she found a greenish-black birthmark on his back, larger than most. "Just a birthmark," the doctor said. Looking back, Omokhai sees another kind of mark, one no doctor could see.

Part memoir, part devotional, Marked follows a boy raised in the oil city of Warri, Nigeria, through the moments that formed him: a grandmother who greeted him with "Oritsesan-the Lord is good!", a father's pretend mustache, a 9-1 football defeat, the day a principal held him back and the day a new one set him free, a revival on a school cricket pitch, and a word from God that sent him from Ekpoma to Madrid to Tampa to Chicago with no map.

Each chapter is anchored in Scripture and carries a truth worth keeping: small beginnings matter, delay is not denial, failure is not final, and the God who marks us also goes ahead of us.

Warm, funny, and honest, Marked traces the grace of God at work in every season, even the ones that made no sense at the time. It is an invitation to look back at your own story and recognize the grace that has been on it all along. Because you are marked too, and His grace is still in the making.