Go through this short story with me, because it was an example that made me realize just how stupid I had been, was given to me by the Sweet Holy Spirit.

Chika joined the university at the age of 16, did her clearance and got into her room and as was the custom in the university, she had three other normal roommates, a second year, third year and a final year student all in their respective corners. Coming from a Christian home, she didn’t need to be preached to before she fully joined a fellowship and started working well for God, even in her first year.

Then in her second year something happened, she changed her room and got new roommates, up till this point everything was like paradise except the early morning lectures which made Chika wake earlier to do her devotions so as to meet up with classes but everything was about to change. That was when she met Cherry, the final year roommate for that session. Boy could she step on peoples nerves and really annoy anyone when she feels like it. She was always drinking, smoking clubbing and more often than not, she brings a large part of her hell to the room and Chika was already a candidate for heaven so she was not going to have any of it, but that was when it happened.
*…………..Now this came as a result of a time of serious heaviness, when I had questions and demanded answers, a time when I needed to know why the one who gives me life would also want to do anything He likes with the very Life He has given me, a time when the clay was telling the potter just how he wanted to be made………….let’s get back to the story.
On this cold night Cherry was set as usual, it was Friday and she was going to go clubbing and come back smelling like the hostel dustbin. Then that still small voice spoke to Chika,’’ just preach to your roommate about her habits’’ it was heavy on Chika and she was supposed to say it but then, it all came back to her; how many times she had tried talking to this same girl on this same issue, the insults, the one time she left the conversation nursing her swollen face, the slap was so hard she didn’t even need to turn the other cheek because she got a full dose on one cheek already. So she kicked against the silly idea, let her go and waste her life, after all everyone will sleep well this night and that was it, everything went on as usual.
After that session, they never saw each other again and everyone went their separate ways. Oh! And Cherry graduated with a second class upper division with a lovely package; do not even ask me how. Chika on the other hand graduated from the university at the age of 20, with a first class honors having served as the evangelism secretary and the sisters’ coordinator in the second and third year in the fellowship. She got married a year later and was blessed with 3 lovely kids, Peter, John and Mary in that order.
Quick as a flash…on that cold Saturday morning.. The biggest amongst them, super-S as he was called, supposedly the leader of the gang grabbed the 16 years old Mary and took her to the other room, John couldn’t take it and he was shot in the head,…well they were warned not to move……, Peter was hit on the head when the armed robbers first got into the house and he died before the robbery was over, bled out on the rug, cold as steel. The robbery was faster than you can imagine, faster than how I explained it and it all came crashing. Chika was devastated.
Chika, who was 42 years old at this point, has been serving God fervently all her life, why would He allow something like this to happen? Why will it happen to her? Why will all her children be murdered in one night? And then she wept and wondered, and really everyone blamed God with her, because no one can actually tell her anything about God knowing best, she was the preachers’ wife.
….but let’s go back… to the night she murdered her children….
Back to that cold night, ‘if’ Chika had spoken to Cherry, God would have intervened on her way to the club, she would have sprained her ankles and blamed it on her stupid heels, she would not have danced with Mike, she would not have gotten too drunk to go home, she would not have shared the bed with a criminal, she would not have given birth a year after graduation to a handsome boy called Steve, maybe with a good father figure Steve would not have mixed up with the wrong crowd, maybe he would not have risen in the ranks rapidly, maybe he would not have robbed that last house on the street, maybe, just maybe,….. Chika would have seen her lovely Mary do her matriculation on that faithful turned fateful Saturday morning. If only she had obeyed, if only she had spoken.
It then dawned on me, it is mercy for us to live, God has kept me from harms I cannot even begin to imagine, He is the only one who really showed me what true love is, of course I do not see the big picture for everything and every time, but Faith says God is there and He doesn’t need to explain anything to me.
…..and without FAITH, it is impossible to please God.
So I have decided to allow God be God, I am resting and hoping only on and in Him, I am done being stupid. Fully working in His Grace, if there is someone to blame, it would be the only one that is hiding, and that is the devil, and that would be because I allowed him, God please help us all.
God bless you.