EPISODE 5 – Forgiveness
“After he already had a son with the strange woman? He could have prevented it. I remember how mum used to cry a lot, and would ask herself where she went wrong many times. He is …” Kemi tried to control her words and breathed heavily.
Sade moved closer and touched Kemi’s shoulder with her right hand, to console her.
“It’s ok, Kemi. He did all these while he was in the world and didn’t know better. No matter how nice or good a man is, if he is without Jesus he is prone to make terrible decisions. Does he now support your mum being a principal?”
“Well, he does, in fact he advises her on matters relating to school since he travels less often now. Now, he wants Henry, the boy to come live with us. His mum has also found the Lord or so they said, and is now about to get married. Mum has agreed, but I don’t know how to agree to that”
“You have to. I understand but you have to pray and learn to forgive him. Your mum has already forgiven him and you can see her life radiating with joy. You led her to Christ, remember? She’s indeed thriving, you should be grateful, Kemi”
Kemi paused for a while
“Yes you’re right, I’m grateful to God for my mum. But do you think I was out of line with the way I spoke to my Dad at home?” Kemi, asked to be sure
“The truth? I think you were really out of line and allowed flesh to rule your spirit. The bible says in 1Timothy 5:1 that you should not rebuke an elder but you should intreat them as a father. In this case, he was really your father. But you said you apologized, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did out of compulsion by my mum, not from my within. I still felt my actions were justified even while on my knees before my Dad.” Kemi confessed
“Kemi, you know God looks at the heart and our intent, so make it right with God”
“Lord, I’m so sorry. Forgive me and give me the grace to totally let go and to honour my parents in any and every situation” Kemi held her hands together as she said the prayers
“Amen” Sade echoed
Kemi smiled
“Thank you Sade, but do you think Samuel will make a great husband? It’s really hard for me to trust any man, even though I have divine direction about Samuel,” Kemi expressed her worries about Samuel
“Of course you can trust again, every man is not the same. But you have to first allow God heal your heart. Until then, you will not be able to fully love and trust again. What is marriage if you are scared and hesitant to fully commit, love and trust?”
“Okay, I will work on it, please pray along. I just hope it works”
“Kemi, it will work, by His grace”
Sade checked the rice she was cooking. She liked cooking either fried or jollof rice. This time around, was on a Wednesday after the day’s lecture. They would usually buy a lot of vegetables like carrots, cucumber, and cabbage on weekends, just to take care of any emergence food craving. They both decided to eat fried rice that evening.
“Food is ready!” Sade announced. As she was about serving them both, Kemi reached out to the fridge to get water when they heard a knock on the door.
“Who is there, please?” They both chorused, as the person seemed to know the perfect timing…Food Time.
Rita walked into the room. As she saw they were about eating fried rice, she quickly settled on Kemi’s bed. She was very lively and jovial, this made her relate well with both friends. Rita and Kemi were course mates and would usually attend lectures together, but obviously they were not expecting her that evening.
“What are you doing in our room today, at least there are no night lectures” Sade jokingly queried Rita.
“Before I say anything, please serve me some rice, I cannot carry this over, abeg (a common statement among Nigerian students, meaning ‘she couldn’t miss the opportunity of eating a good meal’ in this context)” responded Rita
“En en, Na so your own be! FFO (For Food Only)”, said Kemi as Sade picked a plate to serve Rita as well.
“Sade, please I’m working on a topic called ‘pharmacovigilance’ and I need your help. I will not see food and forget my purpose of coming” Rita jokingly added
They all laughed
Kemi and Sade echoed “Pharmaco- what?”
“Pharmacovigilance is the act of monitoring medical drugs in patients to check for drugs’ side effect” said Rita, as she collected her plate of rice from Sade.
“Interesting! But, you’re mistaken in thinking I will be able to help, I’m a Computer Science student not a Pharmacy student” Sade clarified.
“Of course I know. What I’m not sure of is if I should pray for the person who advised me to take an elective course from Faculty of medicine (all of them laughed). It’s not worth all the stress I’m going through, at all. It’s so time-consuming, as if it’s a core course, now I have to write an article on extracting texts from a website that deals with pharmacovigilance. Sade, I need your coding expertise to extract some texts” Rita explained
After the meal..
Sade spent the next 2 hours explaining to her what she had to read and write for the report, and introduced her to a free app that simplified web content extraction.
Such a long night, they called it a night as Rita left. Sade checked her phone, about 6 missed calls from Lanre. She sent a text saying “I’m fine. Let’s talk later. Good night”
THOUGHTS: Who is Rita? Should Sade still continue her relationship with Lanre? Will they ever stop the immoral act? Should Sade give Lanre audience again or just break off the relationship?
QUOTE: “What is marriage if you are scared and hesitant to fully commit, love and trust?”
To be continued
AUTHOR: Temitope Ibidunni Akinloye
Inspired by the Holy Spirit.