Spoilt at the church –
EPISODE 7
With the past behind them, though some happenings still remind them of a past that wouldn’t erase totally from peoples’ minds, the Aboderins moved on with life. The peace and harmony that was earlier lost came back into being.
One day, one time, Martha sat close to her Mum in the living room. They were having a mother- daughter conversation. Prof. Aboderin sat at a few meters away. He was keen on a football match replay.
Martha cleared her throat and said, “Dad, Mum, I have something to tell you.”
“Hun-Hun,” Prof. murmured. He was deeply engrossed in what he was watching.
“Okay,” his wife responded.
“God is leading me towards starting a ministry for young ladies, especially rape victims, pregnant teenagers, single mothers and women that are generally neglected, ostracized and seen as the worst sinners.”
“Beautiful,” Mrs. Aboderin replied enthusiastically. “That’s a good one.
“Ministry?” Prof. said absentmindedly. He wasn’t still concentrating.
Mrs. Aboderin stood up, picked the TV remote and pressed a button. Phew! The TV went off. Prof. stood up and shook his head saying, “I’m at the mercy of the two of you now. Let my boys come back. We will deal with you.”
“We are also ready for you,” his wife replied jokingly and drew Martha close. “I think we should listen to Martha. She’s making a good point.”
Martha repeated herself and spoke passionately. She said she was fully convinced that God wanted her to work with the downtrodden and ostracized women in the society. “With what I experienced and see in the Church and the society at large,” she said. “We have a long way to go in relating and reaching out to people who found themselves in one fault or the other, especially when it has to do with sexual sins. It’s not a crime to preach against sexual sins. It’s not a crime to discipline people who fall at one time or the other. But, it is a great crime to throw sinners away without offering any support.”
“That’s what we do,” Mrs. Aboderin cut in. “We throw them to a world that doesn’t care a hoot for them. I know better now.”
“We often forget that, Christ came not for the healthy, but for sinners. He also mandated us to love everyone equally. I want to create a platform where we will show genuine love and help the lost and confused to find their feet again.”
“That’s a good initiative, “Prof. said. “As your parents, we will partner with you and give needed support, for you to fulfil God’s purpose for your life.”
“Yes!” Mrs. Aboderin added, “I will also give added support on my knees.”
Prof. suddenly went silent then whispered, ‘Martha.”
“Yes Dad,” she responded and focused on him.
“There’s something I have always wanted to ask. I don’t know how you will take it.”
“Fire on Dad.”
“About Jide. Even after many years, I’m yet to come to terms that you could do all…were you really r@ped or…?”
Martha took a long time in answering. When she was ready, two big tears dropped from her eyeballs. She wiped them with the back of her right palm, while her Mum drew her into a warm embrace saying, “We’ve always wanted to know. If you are not ready to…” she shrugged.
“I am ready,” Martha replied and sat up straight, “Yes! Jide r@ped me. After the encounter I had at the revival, I decided to cut off the unholy relationship between us.”
“Unholy relationship?”
“Yes. We were dating in secret. We were doing diverse filthy acts unworthy of Christians, apart from v@ginal s*x. The reason why we were not having v@ginal s*x was because, I wanted to preserve my virginity at all cost. We were fornicating but technically, I was a virgin.”
“Hun!” the Prof. sighed deeply.
“Jide had me where he wanted. I shouldn’t have gone to his house in the first place. I should just have left it at quitting the relationship. I think one part of me still harbored the hope that Jide would change, promise that he would wait for me and then, marry me in the future. Many young people still fall into the same kind of trap. They feel they have the future in their hands and can structure it in any way they want. Many have lost out because they lack intimacy with the owner of the future. Parents, the Church and the society have a lot to do because, things are already out of hand. I fell for Jide’s lies and manipulations, just as many gullible and vulnerable girls are falling. I have found my feet because Grace found me. It’s unfortunate that, it might not be so for others. They might not get the help they need on time.”
“Jide is a devil incarnate,” Mrs. Aboderin stood and screamed. “See the way he concocted the lies to the extent that, even we couldn’t believe our daughter.”
“He has to pay for his crime,” Prof vowed. “I will definitely resurrect the matter.”
“No Dad please,” Martha begged on her knees. “I also thought that way until the Holy Spirit ministered to me that I should leave it. He said every secret thing will be made open at the due time.”
“At the due time?”
“Yes Dad. At the due time.”
At the mention of the word ‘time’, a knock sounded at the door and Prof. asked if Martha was expecting a visitor.
“Oh! She exclaimed and placed a palm on her chest. “I invited a friend to meet you today.”
“A friend?”
Martha nodded.
The friend was Pastor Kayode. He came in with his usual tension-relieving smile. Greeting the parents, he whispered to Martha. “Hope am not late.”
Martha shook her head and blushed.
Both parents were surprised and felt the wave passing between the two. It was physically glaring that there was something going on. They listened attentively to what Martha had to say.
“Dad! Mum!” she began. “I invited Pastor K. here. About a month ago, he proposed marriage to me. I told him to give me time to pray. After getting the confirmation that he’s God’s choice for me, I accepted his proposal last week and invited him to the house today, knowing that you both will be around.”
After Martha was done speaking, Pastor Kayode stood up and prostrated flat in front of the Prof. who quickly stood and raised him up. “Don’t do that Pastor,” he begged.
“It is necessary Sir,” Pastor Kayode said. “The Bible says we should give honor to whom it is due. More so, Martha is worth more, and I will give more than this, if only to be allowed to court my beloved.” He looked at Martha affectionately and said, “I love her Sir. I am 100% sure she’s God’s choice for me. I seek for your permission to court her. I am ready to wed her in the most nearest future.”
“I thought Pastors were trained to hide their emotions,” Mrs. Aboderin joked.
“Some emotions cannot be hidden ma,” Pastor Kayode replied. “Moreover, Pastors are also human, with the ability to love and to hate. Because we are children of God, his love is shed abroad in our hearts. So, we have a large capacity to love. God helping us to become man and wife, I will ensure that I love, cherish and care for her with the totality of my being. Not even our children will get the kind of love I’d show to her.”
“Oh Martha! You got the best,” Mrs. Aboderin cried and wiped tears from her face.
“Yes daughter,” Prof also said. “Your man has thrown a challenge to me. I think your Mama deserves more love than I give to her.” He embraced Pastor Kayode, moved back and placed his hands on his shoulders. He also looked at him eyeball to eyeball. “That girl,” pointing to Martha, “is very precious. She had gone through a lot and deserves to be happy. I want you to promise that you will make her happy.”
“I promise Dad. I will.”
“You are welcome to the family Son,” he said, beating Pastor Kayode lightly on the shoulder.
Afterwards, the two men sat and discussed on politics. The women moved to the kitchen to prepare something for the house. Martha glowed with a new shine to her face, and Mrs. Aboderin walked with added springs to her steps. God is not man.
There were two weddings at Beulah between the months of October and December, in the year the weddings took place. The first was a societal wedding of the children of two big wigs in the Church. It attracted people from all walks of life. The Johnsons and the Williams outdid themselves in ensuring that, their children had the kind of wedding which would be the ‘talk of the town’ for years to come. Where money was spent with no thought for tomorrow.
The couple, Kike and Jide stepped into marriage like two sleep walkers. They were already bored of each other and were only fulfilling the desires of their parents, and the need to ‘just get married’ like the others were getting married.
There was no new thing to look forward to, except that both would legitimately bear the title of Mr. & Mrs. Although, they will now have s*x with no restriction, that had become stale with years of secret copulation.
Kike felt danger looming over her soon to be home, like a sky that is pregnant with heavy rain. She felt like running away and never returning. She actually tried running away when it remained a week to the set date, but she had nowhere to run to.
To make matters worse, she became privy to the information that Martha would be wedding Pastor Kayode in December. How and when they met she couldn’t say. She learnt that they had already done the family introduction. Revd. Alhassan had briefly mentioned in one of his sermons that the most eligible bachelor in the Church- Pastor Kayode, will soon be getting married’. Jokingly he said hence forth, no sister should disturb him again.
Kike felt a heavy pang of envy and a gnawing emptiness within her. Her feelings became ambivalent. And though she was jealous, she at times wished she could be happy for Martha. She had the desire to go seek for forgiveness for the lies of years ago. She wished they could be friends again.
—————-
“How soon people forget things,” Mrs. Johnson said on a Sunday afternoon after getting back from Church. “That stupid girl has suddenly become a celebrity because she’s getting married to a Pastor. Parents are now taking their children to her to be counseled. I even heard she’s running a program for ‘after ones’ like herself. Imagine! Revd. Bamiro even instructed me to incorporate her as a resource person into the program of the virgins’ club.”
Kike raptly listened to her mother. Her words made Kike more vexed against Martha, and she prayed something would stop the wedding. Something like Martha dying, or the Pastor changing his mind and leaving Martha stranded at the altar.
“And the senior Pastor is insisting on wedding them at the altar,” Kike heard her mother say. “They will do a normal wedding with all the paraphernalia, despite the fact that the girl already has a child. Have you ever heard of such sacrilege? They want to defile the altar of God. Who does that?
“Madam!” her husband called. “Which is better? To join a repented and spirit filled single mother with her groom on the altar, or to join an unrepentant fornicator and a hypocrite, to an equally hypocritical groom like herself, at the altar?”
Kike looked sharply at her father and rushed into her room.
Those words kept ringing in her ears even at the altar where she would be joined to Jide. They exchanged vows.
The Pastor asked the groom to kiss his wife. A guest minister preached on the sanctity of marriage. The choir sang. The virgins club presented an award of chastity to Kike.
After wards, they went through the reception ceremony; smiling for the camera, giving fake testimonies of chastity, and dancing like there was no tomorrow.
The couple had their first fight the morning after the wedding, on the day of their thanksgiving.
—————-
Mrs. Johnson had called Jide on phone to remind him to call the Pastor, to tell him that he met his wife at home.
Jide responded by cutting the phone on her.
Surprised, Kike intervened, reminding him of their agreement.
Jide replied that he was tired of her mother’s manipulations and henceforth refused to be her puppet. He said Mrs. Johnson must be a witch for all her evil antics.
Kike retaliated and called her husband a fool for insulting her mother, who had all along covered his misdeeds. She said if her mother was a witch, Jides’s Mum must also be a witch, since both were friends.
The statement earned Kike a star-producing slap and a red eye.
—————–
They were late for the thanksgiving service and received tongue-lashing from Revd. Alhassan. He said, marriage shouldn’t make them draw back from being fervent in the Church. The new couple sat in the front row, flanked on both sides by their parents.
In the course of the same service, the banns of marriage for a wedding that would take place in the next two months was read for the first time. Martha and Pastor Kayode stood facing the Church, as the senior Pastor proclaimed their intention to become man and wife. He said that anyone that had a reason why they shouldn’t be, to contact the Church authority.
Both would eventually get married in December, in a beautiful and Spirit-filled ceremony. The Pastor would prophesy into their lives, that their coming together would be a terror to the kingdom of darkness, and produce Godly seeds. They would end up becoming renowned ministers, with their ministry spanning across several countries in the world. They would later move to Australia with their children: Testimony, Timothy and Titus, from where the tentacles of their ministry would extend to the entire globe.
But before then, on the day of the Williams’ thanksgiving, as the Pastor announced their intention to become man and wife, Pastor Kayode stood confidently beside his intended.
Jide looked lost. He was scared to look up. At the same time, he sought for an eye contact with Martha, as she stood facing the Church. She looked beautiful, with a kind of glow he couldn’t explain. He wished she was his bride, and not the young but old cargo seated beside him. Since the incident of years back, there had been no much as one word between them.
Martha looked at a point above his head into the congregation. The look said many things; that she had moved on, and he had no hold on her.
When Jide managed to look up, he caught Pastor Kayode looking straight at him. The look was so intent that Jide knew; that he knew. His wife to be had told him of Jide’s complicity in her predicament of years back.
Jide felt a nauseating sensation rise from within him. An internal heat that resulted in sweat breaking out all over him. Noticing his discomfiture, Kike fixed her palm into his for calm, but he pushed her away.
And then, he started hearing the Voice, which would not allow him to rest or take a breadth. In his head, in his ears, from within; the voice would always command him on what to do. At times it would be lone, while in some instances there would be multiple voices. All they do is, remind him of his guilt and past.
Jide left the Church, hating his wife and his new marriage.
It is always beautiful and glorious when couples discover themselves not before, but after marriage. When they deny themselves of bodily pleasures and the desire to be intimate, until when they are spiritually and legally joined before God and man, as man and wife.
S*x is good and beautiful, but is better enjoyed within the confines of matrimony. Even though the devil and his agents have filled the world with lies and immorality, that make people lust abnormally and sometimes behave like lower animals without well-developed thinking faculty, the standard of God remains that the marriage bed should be undefiled.
A man that values a woman will do everything to help her keep her virtue and remain pure. A lady that sees herself as a princess will not allow any ‘uncircumcised son of the philistines’ to misuse her body. No matter the temptation, she wouldn’t throw her pearl to be trampled by pigs.
Though their courtship period was short, Pastor Kayode and his wife entered into matrimony with a mindset to make it work. Starting from their wedding night, they began to erect a formidable structure on an already solid foundation. Despite the urge to know his wife, Pastor Kayode sensed that she needed a little more time to get used to him and feel relaxed with him. He wouldn’t rush her. Whereas, she had become his for life.
It wasn’t easy controlling himself especially with the beautiful parcel that was waiting to be opened. Nevertheless, he waited until their third night together, when she was really ‘ready’ for him.
For a man that has never gone down with a woman and a lady whose sexual experience was that of teenage exuberance and then a rape, their joining was beautiful. All they needed to know they learnt together. A kind of tighter bond developed between them from their first time of copulation and they became inseparable.
True to his words, Pastor Kayode loved his wife like life itself. Martha reciprocated by loving her husband in return. She was submissive to him and both respected each other. They had no problem in settling their differences.
————————————–
The Williams also settled in their new home. Jide discovered that they had too many differences. He would use every opportunity to castigate his wife. He became excessively hostile, critical and vindictive. That slap on the Thanksgiving Day became a daily routine.
Jide often question if he had ever loved Kike, or if the love had just disappeared with the realization that they were now married.
Kike never enjoyed her marriage for a day because, Jide turned out to be a monster. Nevertheless, she suffered in silence, being too proud to seek for help. She continually prayed for God to give her husband a new heart. The fasting she wouldn’t do before their wedding became a norm. Her prayer point was always that God should touch the heart of her husband. She became an overnight prayer warrior.
Jide and his wife still presented as a united and happy family to the outside world. They made it look as if they were enjoying the peace of matrimony. Often in anko, they post pictures of their happy family on the social media. Many young people would look at them enviously, and pray for a home like theirs. It was only Kike that knew of the fire that was burning under her clothe.
Discovering that Marriage is not only about s*x after all, Kike’s insatiable desire for s*x disappeared with the birth of her first child. She craved for love and companionship, but all she had was a bed partner. A giver, who would drop any amount needed at home without batting an eyelid, but money cannot buy peace of mind. Kike had the good things of life, but had no peace.
She questioned God on why he had refused to answer her prayer. She sought his face for divine intervention but, it looked as if her heaven had been locked with a padlock and the key thrown into a turbulent ocean. Kike was desperate to do anything to have a happy home.
————–
After Bible study on a Monday evening, she waited outside intentionally to see someone. She had vowed to go to any length to redeem her home. She would start by seeking for forgiveness from Martha.
Martha padded out of the Church, bearing a heavily pregnant tummy before her. They met, greeted and Kike cleared her throat to speak. Suddenly, her courage failed her and she stuttered.
“Mrs. Williams are you okay?” Martha asked with genuine concern written all over her.
“I am okay,” Kike replied in a subdued voice.
She saw Pastor Kayode coming from behind and quickly turned her back to walk away.
Martha felt that Kike had wanted to tell her something. She stood starring after her as if she should follow her and make her to say her mind. Her husband met her in that position and whispered into her ear. “Are we okay?”
“It’s Kike.”
“What about her?”
“She was here a while ago. It seemed she wanted to say something, but changed her mind. She looked troubled. I just hope all is well with her.”
“Hun! Mother in Israel,” he teased.
“Always concerned about everyone. I have told you to be worrying less, especially with your condition. We will put her family in our prayers.”
“Is anything wrong with them?”
Martha asked, looking up at her husband.
“I don’t think all is well,” he responded and took his wife by the hand. “We will pray for them.”
——————–
Kike went home without bearing her mind. She started dodging Martha who was doing all she could to get close to her.
Months later, she noticed that her husband had started talking to himself, and God help her if she dare ask him of what he’s brooding about. He would curse her and curse her entire generation. She had no inkling that Jide was fighting a demon.
To be continued
