Friday, 4 November 2016

AFTER DEATH : STRUGGLING IN FAITH

11
“Always ask the Holy Spirit to guide you as you read”, Phillip had advised her. “Faith cometh by hearing the word of God and for you to hear, you need the Holy Spirit otherwise, you are just reading another book”.

Lisa really didn’t believe this of course, but she tried it. She first made a little prayer, telling Jesus to come into her life and asking His spirit to give her understanding of His Word. Phillip had recited the prayer for her and she had repeated after him. She started reading from the gospel of Mark and then Matthew, Luke and John. She read the Bible everywhere she was even when she was less busy in the office. Everyone suddenly became extra nice to her and she in return. She was learning to love and she could see how much better it was to just love everyone. She had not started attending any church, she only visited Phillip and Osas whenever she needed an explanation to a particular passage and they were always willing to help.
Week after week Lisa studied the Bible. She finished the Gospels and then went into the Psalms and Proverbs. Things started to make more sense to her and she started to see God differently. She smiled so much more when she was in the office, and started rebuilding her friendship with Itohan. Dr Beatrice was the happiest as her daughter in law had become the complete package. It was unfortunate Ehimen was not alive to witness this dramatic change.




Four weeks after buying her Bible, she got a call from Judge Chinwe. Her former mentor was coming to town and she wanted to meet Lisa for the first time.
“I have been doing a lot more research”, Lisa told her over the phone.
“research on what?” Chinwe had asked.
“God”, Lisa replied. It wasn’t easy to tell her because this lady had been her idol for over 10 years. “I want to know the Christian God”.
“There is no God”, Chinwe said bluntly. “what is happening to you Lisa? And where is Victor? I haven’t heard from him in a while”.
“I fired Victor”, she replied. “He set an innocent man up. This led to his arrest and that was what made me president”.
“Why didn’t you tell all these?” Chinwe asked in shock. “And you sacked him? Why would you do that? You know we are trying to build something...”
“you are trying to build something. I am not with you now”.
Chinwe was dumb founded. Lisa was like her brightest student and she had very high hopes for the president of Clay World. “are you joking?”
“Chinwe we have closed our hearts to the truth”, she explained. “ we are a confused set of people. We dismiss all belief systems but  don’t even know what to believe. The mystery of our existence is one that has confused us for so long. What exactly do we believe? Christianity has a theory and we dismiss it because to our understanding it makes no sense. That is the mistake we make! Relying on our own understanding. Chinwe we are confused. We don’t know the truth but dismiss those trying to tell us. God is not the author of confusion which means the devil is”. She took a deep breath.  “ Atheists are being used by the devil to spread confusion”.
Judge Chinwe was silent and Lisa knew she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  “what have they done to  you?” She asked before hanging up.
But Lisa wasn’t worried. She was more than happy she was discovering the truth. She now prayed with Daniel every morning before she took him to school and her son was more than happy to do the same thing his friends did in school. For a long time they had mocked him because he just stood during prayers in school having absolutely no idea what was going on but now he joined them and Lisa could see he was happy about it.
She also spent time listening to messages especially pastors from Revelations ministries. There was a particular pastor that caught her attention one Saturday as she watched him on TV. Phillip had told her about him and he confessed this Pastor was one if his mentors and one of the biggest pillars in the Ministry. His name was Pastor Nadi Ofezie and he was well into his 50s.
“People are quick to judge Christianity through the rise of false prophets and charlatans who perform their devilish acts in the guise of preaching the gospel”. He said as Lisa listened intently. “But even the rise of false prophets strengthens the case for our faith because it was predicted in the Bible that on the last days these false prophets shall rise. We hear news of supposed men of God dragging the name of the Lord in dirt through their unscriptural acts. People are quick to judge Christianity through these people and hold it as proof that our faith is a fraud. But these people lack understanding because they fail to realise that you can’t judge our faith through the teachings or the actions of any prophet or pastor. You can’t judge Christianity through the teachings and acts of our general overseer in Revelations ministries or through me Nadi Ofezie. Jesus is the poster boy for Christianity, not me. That’s why we are called Christians, Christ-like or else we should be called Ofezians.” The congregation burst into laughter and so did Lisa. “if you go through the scriptures and you cannot fault any of the teachings or actions of Jesus then you do not have the moral ground to fault Christianity. But that doesn’t give us an excuse to drag our faith in the dirt. Jesus wants us to be postal boys and postal girls for our faith. That was one of the reasons he came, to show us what we ought to be like. The word Christian is not a title, we must live by that name. We must be like Christ and that is His wish for us. Yes there will be false prophets here and there but true saints should stand for our faith”.
Lisa could see the error she made all these years. Judging Christianity through error prone Christians and she recalled every teaching of Jesus and none went against her moral beliefs. This was unlike the religion of Islam where the prophet Mohammad clearly instructed his followers to kill the unbelievers. Many Muslims claim this was done in self defence, but this was unlike Jesus who gave himself up to die. Even when His followers were Martyred, they never fought back one day. That was love! And that was when she fully understood what it meant to hate the sin and not the sinner.
News of her new found faith had reached everyone in their atheist circle and they had started to cut ties with her, including Gloria who had started to act very cold. She had visited the Job Agent in her office one day and had attempted to tell her about Christ.
“You shouldn’t shut your eyes to the truth Gloria”, she had said. “we are supposed to be open minded so I implore you don’t just listen to what Godwin or Judge Chinwe says. You need to make your own research”.
“So this Pastor finally got to you?” she said disgusted.
“Jesus finally got to me”, she replied.
“Just look at you.” Gloria spat. “you have suddenly become a fool like the rest of them. I can’t believe the smartest girl I Know is talking like this. Christianity can really make you delusional...”
“Exactly!” Lisa said. “Christianity, Christianity, Christianity, ever wonder why that’s the faith all atheists love to attack? Despite the controversies surrounding Islam like terrorism and child marriage all that negativity and yet atheists always attack Christianity. Judge Chinwe has over 50 debates on her YouTube channel and only two has been with Islam clerics. Why are atheists always after Christianity? Have you even wondered Gloria? Because that is where the power is. The devil doesn’t care about the others because they are lost already”.
Gloria gave her friend a deep look. “i am a bit busy now Lisa”, she said. “ I think you need to leave”.
Lisa didn’t want to believe she was fighting a loosing battle but she had to try to tell her friends the truth. She thought of Victor and she wished she could reach him. All his lines had stopped going through, he had stopped replying his email and he had closed his Facebook account. She wondered where he was. This was for his own good because Dr Beatrice was definitely after him. She had submitted his picture and information to the commissioner of police who was very loyal to her. Dr Beatrice found it very hard to forgive and that made her scared.
Lisa had also started spending a lot of time with Itohan. During her spare time, she would help her sister In-law with her cooking because apparently, she had started a catering service. Dr Beatrice didn’t like it, but this was the best and happiest Itohan had been since she left school. She had used her mother and aunty's connections to get huge weddings and birthdays and Lisa could testify she was making a lot of money from it.
It had been over two months since Lisa had decided to try a new faith and it seemed like everything had suddenly become perfect. She smiled a lot more and had a lot more friends. One Sunday Osas drove to her house to take her to church. Lisa had refused when the secretary suggested it the previous night but Osas was very stubborn.
“My family died in a church Osas” Lisa had reminded her.
“my husband died in a car”, Osas said bluntly. “it doesn’t mean I will fear cars all my life”.
“I will feel really weird”, Lisa protested.
“You will feel right at home”, Osas insisted.
And it seemed that way. Lisa sat in front with her son beside her as they listened to Bishop Cyrus Imade, the general overseer of revelations ministries admonish the congregation. He talked about giving and insisted that God blesses Christians to bless others.
“You wonder why there are starving children everywhere?” He asked. He talked very slowly and his intimidating stature made all of them look like his children. “that is because we haven’t done our jobs as Christians. People tend to shift the blame to God for mass suffering but they should blame us because we aren’t doing our duty as Christians”.
The service was an interesting one. She wasn’t sure that was how her church was back in Maiduguri but this was an interesting place to be even though she struggled with most of the songs they sang. She needed to renew her song bank. After the service she met pastor Phillip and he introduced her to many other pastors including Pastor Nadi Ofezie who looked younger in person than on TV.
“I watched your message sir”, she informed him. “the one you spoke about how people see Christianity? I really enjoyed it”.
“Thank you very much”, he smiled. “so are you a Christian or an Ofezian?”
“I am a Christian”, she laughed and that was when it hit her. She had just confessed to being a Christian and it was wonder how she got to that point. Was she doing the right thing? She wondered, but that was just the devil speaking because her life had been so much better since the change.
Days went by and Lisa got happier and happier with friends and family. One Monday night she helped Itohan cook over night for a birthday party that was scheduled for the next day despite having to work that very day. Itohan argued that she could handle the cooking on her own but Lisa insisted on helping. The next day, she took her son to school and warned him as she did every day not to take the bus before heading to work. She felt very light headed and tired and had to leave early, handling all her other responsibilities to Hawa. They were all happy to help the changed Lisa Agbaje after all. She got home and decided to take a nap before going to pick her son from school. She had a dream and in that dream she saw her two late brothers playing football. She used to have that dream every single day but she had not had it for over 10 years. She watched them as they played happily and then all of a sudden they stopped. That was when she noticed they were playing on the main road outside her house. Lisa got scared and called for them to leave the road so they don’t get hit by a moving car but Michael and Stephen were two very stubborn boys. All of a sudden she saw their faces change and they both looked like Ehimen. Or was it Daniel? She couldn’t tell! She had never seen that part in the dream before!  She looked across the road and saw a visibly angry Dr Beatrice staring at her and beside her was a smiling Itohan with a plate of potato porridge. Lisa had always loved Itohan’s potato porridge better than any of her other delicacies. Then gradually, Itohan’s smile faded and she looked like she had seen something behind Lisa. Lisa turned back and what was supposed to be her house was the church her family died in. Then she heard the sound of a school bus approaching and when she turned she saw her two younger brothers with the faces of her husband or her son running out of the road laughing. The bus suddenly stopped and blew it’s very loud horn. The horn was so sharp it woke her up. She was sweating on the bed now and started wondering what that dream meant. Then she heard the sound of the horn again and that was when she knew that part of the dream was real. She rushed to check her time and it was past four! She had overslept! She was supposed to go and pick Daniel by 3. Had he taken the bus? She quickly ran out of the house and out of her gate and saw a big yellow bus across the road. She couldn’t see her son because the door was at the other side but when it moved she saw her cute baby boy standing with a smile on his face.
“mummy I tool the bus”, he smiled. He was so handsome and Lisa wondered how she could love another human being like she loved that boy.
Then he took a step attempting to cross the road to her.
“No!” she screamed. But it was too late! The white truck had crushed her only son and Lisa stood at the other side of the road in despair as she attempted to shout “Jesus”, but the name stuck in her throat.



This chapter was edited by Glory Uwanna Kenneth.
Note: Chapter 12 titled Reality will be out next week Friday. Stay with us!!!























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