When People Rub In Your Agonising Pains…
Have you ever been so unlucky as to have friends, and perhaps even people you look to for help rub-in your most agonizing pains? We all have.
And if you are going through such a situation right now, you may have had to wonder times without number where God is in such desperate moments as this. For instance, Does He see? Does He Know? Would He ever show up? Would He ever judge the unjust and wicked?
This story is an account of how one lady handled such pains in one of her life’s most distressing moments. Enjoy it. You will be blessed!
* * * * *
Rev 2:26, 28 (KJV) And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations… And I will give him the morning star.
Angela caught another glimpse of her growing waistline in the mirror and smiled. She hadn’t overeaten for sure. (She was even certain she saw the excited “business-around-the-corner” look on her gym instructor’s face when they exchanged greetings in church last Sunday). But serious- it wasn’t gluten this time!
Well, she was pregnant for real.
P-R-E-G-N-A-N-T – with her twins!
After waiting for five full years save some few months – isn’t the Lord faithful!
God answered her humble, heartfelt, vulnerable, desperate and steadfast prayers just on time! Her miracle occurred at a time when she was beginning to feel like her condition was no more complementary to her depth with God but was beginning to stand her out from the bunch like a very sore thumb…
A time when she felt like she was fast becoming a by-word to friends, family, colleagues and neighbours…
A time when several Peninnahs, it seemed, were being ‘anointed’ by the evil one to rub in her condition and make her life hellish…
A time when she was beginning to feel like her shame was out in the open, and her public disgrace seemed imminent…
A time when she was fretting and her soul was fainting and getting really weary…
A time when she, in fact, had died within and resurrected many times over… Sincerely, those were the most trying days of her entire life!
“… Some finance institutions … do offer Maternal Health Support (MHS) packages which every average working-class couple can exploit… Why don’t we liaise with our doctors and bankers for our best options, to forestall just waiting doing nothing…”
Thank God the wait was over now. She was twelve full weeks gone already; and apart from an inch or two added to her waist line and hips, which only very prying eyes could pick, she wasn’t even showing at all. Pregnancy for her came with no single symptom- no morning sickness, no dizzy spells, no breathlessness, no heart burn, no inconsistency- not one single symptom. And if anything, she was even stronger than usual!
That explains the other reason behind the recent very powerful twists to her ministrations, unction apart. The songs just flowed from deep within as she was grateful indeed to Yahweh…
The Supreme Deity…
The Lord God Almighty…
The King of all earthly kings…
The Lord of Hosts…
One Who was, Who is and is to come…
Jehovah- the Covenant Keeping God.
… she was too matured a Christian to quit doing the right things for such wrong and petty reasons
Those Torturous Moments…
She was dressing up to attend House Fellowship at Deaconess Esther’s residence few streets away; and how she dreaded attending those meetings in her waiting days for the trauma and torture some happenings in such gatherings brought to her already weary soul.
Nevertheless, she dared not stop attending for she understood perfectly the purpose of small group meetings and would go any length to ensure every such group of which she was part functioned as should.
Besides, she was too matured a Christian to quit doing the right things for such wrong and petty reasons: The Captain of her soul doesn’t raise quitters, but overcomers – whom He loves and handsomely rewards eventually.
However, she found some of those experiences more fracturing than words could express, but for His grace. And it wasn’t paranoia as might be expected of someone with her condition: some people and her just never seemed to get on so well no matter how hard she tried. Her House Cell leader, Deaconess Esther inclusive. Out of sheer envy of her social and financial status? In all honesty, she couldn’t tell.
A knowing smile parted her succulent lips as she visualized this particular meeting she was preparing to attend. As usual, she knew the outline for the evening’s fellowship would not be complete without the deaconess finding a way to chip in that God never delays. Or she might ask one of those her questions which ‘only a mother could answer‘…
She might also likely read some scriptures which link delays and hardship in life to some shady sins leading to God’s disapproval…
Afterwards she might as well go on to lead a long and loud prayer for those experiencing embarrassing delays, including those who have everything one could wish for but still lacked where it mattered most…
The Captain of her soul doesn’t raise quitters, but ‘overcomers’ – whom He loves and handsomely rewards eventually.
How she used to cry secretly upon returning from such meetings. Secretly because hers was one of those grievances which can’t be expressed without seeming paranoid; those pains which only those who have experienced same could know.
Hard as she tried to conceal them however, Teddy had caught the tears down her cheeks on several occasions. “Jehovah be praised for such a strong, patient and understanding husband …” She thought…who never despised nor got weary of her vulnerabilities, but was always apt to comfort her through it all…
“But Why Lord…?”
And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? Luk 18:7-8 (ESV)
“But why must we have to wait and keep praying so long and hard?” She had wondered aloud on one of those occasions.
“The proof of desire is pursuit.” Ted had replied.
“When God wants to give to you a special brand of something you desire, He often creates a vacuum so that your pursuit can justify how badly you want it…
“God never fails. His word doesn’t say so.”
And each time she was tempted to think that God had abandoned her, Teddy would say,
“God never abandons His chosen ones. Searching through the scriptures, even when His children incurred His wrath and warranted His punishment before there ever was a Saviour to atone for their sins, God never made a total end still. He always left a remnant- a seed of their restoration that is, in the seeming abandonment.”
“So we have to keep holding on because the proof of our faith is to keep asking and not give up.”
Therefore, hard as it was, Angela never quitted but kept hanging on in prayers with high hopes and expectations.
Through her deep sorrows, she never stopped rejoicing.
She cried her eyes sore, but she also never stopped laughing.
Through her weariness, heaviness and discouragement, she never for once stopped hoping and praying.
Through torture and torment, she never quitted church and never even considered not serving as an option.
She never for once found in her problems an excuse to opt out of life…
And that is the spirit which receives from God, the spirit of the over comer which God rewards.
Therefore, she received her miracle, having never quited one day till the very end!
she dared not stop attending for she understood perfectly the purpose of small group meetings and would go any length to ensure every such group of which she was part functioned as should.
Thinking Outside-The-Box…
In all, she would remain eternally grateful for such an enlightened Spiritual Father like Reverend Tunde, who stood by them in every capacity through it all!
She smiled as she recalled that day when the Reverend had invited Teddy and her to his home for a dinner about six months earlier.
She had never considered any …
Want the full gist? It’s just a click away! The story above is an excerpt from The Sweet Temptation… an exciting novel by Funmi Adebayo.
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Funmi Adebayo © 2015
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