WHAT DECEPTION HAS JOINED......

By Femi Abulude

Brother Michael was a converted Christian. He gave his life to Christ during one of our outreach crusades. Since he joined our church he had not hidden his interest in me. He made it so obvious that people were already calling him my husband at my back. As a new convert he went through all the normal workers trainings and did baptism by emersion.

Everybody was impressed by his zeal and enthusiasm in the work of God. He eventually approached our pastor and disclosed his intention to marry me. This was the normal protocol in our church the pastor called and briefed me accordingly he said both of us should go and pray over it and sick God’s face. After these, we should come back to tell him because God must speak to us.

The pastor called me few weeks later and said brother Michael had intimated him that God had revealed to him that I was his wife. This came as a surprise because God had not spoken to me about this issue. I told our pastor this but he said it did not matter and that both of us should give it a trial. He later on called both of us together in a meeting and introduced us to the marriage counselors in our church. That was how we started our marriage counseling programme I did not find it difficult introducing him to my parents because they knew him already. He played the drums in the church and more over, they had been pressurizing me for marriage. He was good looking and had a respectable job. Within eight months of our courtship, we had our marriage ceremony. Neither of his parents took active part in the ceremony. It was his elder sister and her husband that represented his parents. I got curious and asked him why this was so, he said his parents were not in support of the marriage because they were against his conversion to Christianity.

The first bomb shell came after the exchange of marital vow. Right there on the altar, brother Michael did the abominable. He shouted ‘Allau – Akbar’ three times and same rough looking guys chorused “Allau-Akbar form the congregation. There was a confusion and pandemonium in the church. His followers left the church chanting their refrain. Brother Michael stayed put and completed the church ceremony. When we got to the reception hall, his Muslim friends had almost taken over all the seats. I have never been exposed to ridicule like that in my life.

          When we got to his house later on in the evening, brother Michael brought out his praying mat, Tesbil and kettle. I watched in horror as he did his abolition and prayed right there on the mat. Since, then it had become a regular occurrence. I was not against the Islam religion but this sudden transformation baffled me.

          Understandably, he had stopped attending the Church. When I queried him over his sudden actions, he answered in a rude voice that I was his attraction to the Church and since he had won me over, he was satisfied. He knew what he was talking about, because our Church forbids divorce, no matter the cause or challenges one is facing under that vow. It was the matter of “till death do us apart” once the marriage had been consummated.

          As if this deceit was not enough, another bomb shell was waiting for me when he did not extend any amorous feelings towards me, I thought it was because of what he did. Both of us were living together as strangers. When after several months, he failed to tamper with my virginity I went to our pastor and complained bitterly to him about my ordeal. He called his wife and told her what I had just said. The wife was enraged and blamed me for not reporting this in good time

“Ah! We thought it was the issue of his religion that you were copping with, this one is beyond me o! Pastor what shall we do now? That was the pastor’s wife lamenting.

          The pastor wrote a letter inviting him for a meeting he said I should go home and that he would find a way how the letter would get to him. When he got the letter, he refused to honor the invitation, he claimed that the pastor did not have authority over him because he was not a Christian.

I reported him to his sister and her husband. Surprisingly, this was not new to them; she said it was an open secret among his immediate family that Brother Michael was impotent. Her advice to me was to find a way of satisfying myself sexually and if it resulted it pregnancy, I should leave it the family would claim it. This would also make Michael happy.

I broke down and wept sorrowfully what have I led myself into? The church insisted “NO DIVORCE” his family said I should go on fornicating. “Ah this fake Michael had destroyed me. I am thinking of committing suicide as a way out of this shame and gang mire.

What do you think?