UNFILTERED

We met, I got pregnant, he came and paid my bride price and I went home with him. I was just 19.

We went to his parent's house. The level of education in their family was not to be compared to mine. They didn't maltreat me but it was rough. I did all the chores in the family house from cleaning the duplex to cooking and serving everyone including his siblings who were grown-up boys but just wouldn't help. It was so tough that I lost the child. Yet they said I was too lazy.

The first evacuation was done by his sister, a doctor, and I had cramps for two days. They kept telling me that I couldn't bear the pain. After I screamed, they took me to the hospital and the scan revealed that it wasn't done well. Immediately after that, my husband changed.

He would go out and if I asked where he went, he would beat me up. He was a really lovely person but I think he was beating me because I was far younger. I remember that once his younger brother stood up for me and he accused me of trying to come between them.

I can't even speak of the things I saw. I started having high blood pressure at that age. I was torn because sometimes he would act as if he loved me, and boast to his friends about how I was way better than his ex; at other times, he would beat me, so I wasn't free around him. He would tell me to kneel and flog me with his belt. He would even count the number of strokes and I'd have to raise my hands and close my eyes.

All this time, we were still at his parent's house. He insisted on staying there because of his poultry business. One day I got angry and cursed the birds. Two days after, there was a flu that killed the birds and I felt guilty. With that poultry business gone, we moved to his sister's house in Lagos where I was serving like a maid, even as far as washing her husband's boxers.

I had a hormonal imbalance from the evacuation so we went to Benin where I could get treated. There, I started an egg roll business and I'd turn the profit over to him daily. On different occasions, he'd use the money and I'd have to start afresh. I moved to a fabric business and he did the same thing. He would lose all my money in forex. I sank in over 800,000 and the only time we actually took money out was about 30,000.

I tried to have us move to Abuja. I even rented a place with my money but his parents refused.

Sadly, my parents don't value me any more than my husband and his people. One time, they quarrelled and my Mom moved out. My siblings and I went to talk to my dad. He locked us all out and planted guards at the door. These guards hit me and I was bleeding at night. We couldn't get to a hospital and my mother was still fuming about my dad's actions against her without even acknowledging the fact that I was losing blood.

All these experiences have changed me and made me a harder person to reach. I have since moved to Lagos to restart my life. I have returned the bride price that was paid and I'm picking up the pieces. I can see clearer now.

I moved to another city a few years after secondary school. I had been suffering from strange ailments that doctors couldn't understand and I felt I needed a change of environment. At the new place, I met some young people who were really committed to God. It wasn't a church but the organisation had an interest in young people serving God early. Their outreaches blessed many.

I sang well and that made me somewhat popular there. I got close to the founders, a married couple, and sometimes, they'd have me help them out with errands. The children were fond of me too.

One day, the man called and told me to help pick something up somewhere and take it to their home. When I got there, the pastor's wife was alone. The children had gone to their grannies'.

She needed help with some things and I helped out. I had stayed from noon till 4pm and when I wanted to leave, she asked me to stay for a bit. She started to ask about myself. Some of the questions were uncomfortable but she was an authority figure. When it was 6pm, I started insisting that I needed to leave because of how far my house was. She tried to get me to stay, but I insisted and started walking towards the door. This woman walked ahead of me, locked the door and put the key in her dress.

For context, she and her husband were basically pastors and at that time, they were my spiritual leaders. They knew what I had gone through with my health and kept praying for me.

She came on to me and when I told her I had not done that before, she insisted even more. She threatened to scream and alert the neighbours. It was strange. She chased me around the house, tore my shirt, and kept at it for hours. It must have been around 11pm that I finally gave up.

After she was done, she seemed like a different person; the person I had always known. She apologised. It was too late for me to leave, so I stayed there and in the morning, she gave me a t-shirt to wear home.

Obviously I never went back to the organisation. It affected my relationship with the church for years but God helped me move past it.

You have to be rich to put 6 children through school hitch-free. We weren’t. When my twin sister and I got admission into university, my father told us that just one person could go because at the time, we already had 3 siblings in university.

By God’s grace, I got a scholarship and I went through school effortlessly. I served God throughout my time in school. I had seen His hand and I chose to stick with it.

However, when I left university, I got into a dark, unfruitful period. After med school in Nigeria, you’re given a two-year provisional licence. In that time, you’re meant to do your housejob, before you get your full licence. After two years, if you have not started the housemanship, you'd have to go redo final year of med school.

My two years were running out and I could not get a spot for a house job.

I wasn’t accepted anywhere. People I taught in school started their house jobs yet I wasn’t working. Once, I was even told to give a bribe but it was against my values.

Without a job or money, I had to stay at my sister’s place. Friends and family kept asking me what was going on and I kept asking God. It was embarrassing but I think He was teaching me patience. During the wait, He blessed me with good friends and the church community.

One day, I went for an interview in one of the best hospitals in Lagos. Luckily, the man at the helm of affairs was the father of someone I had mentored. I’m not sure how he knew that I was interviewing at his father’s hospital, but he put in a good word for me and I got the job; months to the expiration of my provisional licence.

God showed up for me yet again.

Long before this time, God had laid it in my heart to leave the country to continue with my education and work with the best minds I could find. So I set my sights on that goal. It had its hurdles. I had to trust God and save towards it. Then there was the frustrating experience of writing IELTS three times, which was pretty weird because I never fail exams.

I have been in the UK for a year and God has helped me get a placement for my area of specialisation, He brought love into my life and showed me that indeed He makes everything beautiful in His time.

For quite some time I had disturbed my Father about knowing my hometown, my Grandma and his family members. After many promises, some years ago, we finally visited Ile Ife. 

Initially, my Dad was amazed at how quickly I bonded with my Grandma despite the fact that, I was just seeing her for the first time in many years. Then he said he was not surprised because she had trained me from 3 months till I was about 6 years old. I asked him if my Grandma had actually trained me for that long and they went into telling me a lot of stories. It was my first time of hearing those stories. They talked about how my mum left and didn't bother to check on me and how I survived without being breastfed; they explained how I battled with childhood diseases and the times they thought I would die; they even talked about the few times they wished I had died because it was so unbearable for me and them as well. They had considered giving me up to an orphanage, etc. They didn't know those stories were sowing seeds of hatred for my Mum. 

From that moment I hated mum for many years, to the point that I never wanted to be anywhere around her. The hatred held me down and affected my mind, and my view of women. This continued until the month we treated the topic of Love in church. During one of the Midweek services I sat directly in front of the Pastor. He said "when you forgive, you're not doing the offender a favour but yourself...". It felt like he was talking directly to me. The word moved me and I ended up crying during the message.

After some days, I told my Mom how I had been holding this grudge against her for years and she  was startled. She eventually told me her side of the story. After listening, I realised that in life you can't really make complete sense from a one-sided picture. Before you make your final decision, learn to hear the other side of the story.

I'm the second of three sons of my parents. Growing up, farming was our major source of survival as we literally lived on the farm. Through the proceeds of the farm we managed to complete our primary and secondary school in flying colors. We're brilliant; there is no doubt about that. 

However, we were made to understand that our next step would be learning a trade. That wasn't what I wanted, or what I believed to be my path. 

Chances of furthering my education were very slim despite my aspirations. I chose to take the bull by the horns. 

Different things had affected my relationship with my parents at that time, and one of them was my decision to move to a church that was feeding my mind and spirit better. 

I stood my ground & joined a service unit. During one of our Bible courses in church, God's word came to me: "don't let your background land your back on the ground. You're absolutely responsible for the outcome of your life". 

Those words set me in motion. I summoned the courage to leave the house when I was 17, determined to rewrite the story of my family. When I left home, I told them I'd only return when I had gained admission. 

I was committed to serving God and volunteering but I wanted to go to school. I kept saving the money I was making from menial jobs and three years later, I got into school to study Surveying and Geoinformatics. The journey was tough but God saw me through to the end. I worked through school - teaching, and doing any legitimate work I could find.

Today, not only am I a graduate, I'm also currently undergoing a Professional Diploma program while my younger brother is in his final year. By God's grace, I'm also responsible for other kids' education in my community. 

Seeking His kingdom first really led me to the "all other things" He promised. It was also in the place of service, that God blessed me with a very beautiful wife. 

He rewrote my story.

I picked up smoking about seven years ago when I was still in university. I got used to it and thought it was good company.

When I made up my mind to stop, I realised I couldn't, even when I transferred to a school where I had people around me. I've met people who have quit and others who have the ability to take long breaks but I'm none of those. I have tried to stop on several occasions and failed. As it stands, I don't think I can even take a break from it.

I really wish I could stop because it's the one habit I feel terrible about. I feel bad each time I take it and I can't even bring myself to accept it, even after all these years. Every year, I make a vow to stop, but still, I find myself going back to it. I've tried everything I know I can do. I've even tried accepting that it's part of me but it doesn't sit well with me. I know I need help. I just don't know what kind or how to get it.

Few years ago, I had an interview in Port Harcourt and I was to spend the night at a friend's place. The agreement with my host was that they'd pick me up, so I didn't get their address.

The bus left late and by the time I got there, it was minutes past 11pm.

I tried to call, but it wasn't going through. People were leaving the park, so I had to leave, so that no one would clock that I was stranded.

I just started walking, looking for an affordable hotel. The first one I went into was full. I came across two hotels beside each other and I was about to get into one when the Holy Spirit told me to enter the other. I did that.

While waiting at the counter, I picked a call, and spoke my native language. When it was time for me to be attended to, the lady at the counter asked where I was from and why I was out so late. I shared my experience and asked for the hotel rates. As she called out the price for each room type, I just listened 'cause I didn't have that amount if money on me. I wasn't sure what my next move would be. When she was done with the rates, she went ahead and told me that ‌I could stay in a room designated for staff, as the person who was to stay there that night was not around; more importantly, she said it would be free‌. It was a nice and comfortable space. I took it.

In the morning, she made sure I was comfortable and saw me off to where I could get a bus to my interview venue. She kept tabs with me till I got there.

After the interview, as I went over the experience in my head, I realised that in church, I was volunteering in a team that served inner-city areas. We used to pool resources together to take people off the streets and get them settled into homes. It dawned on me that God wouldn't let me get stranded on the streets when I've dedicated my resources to get people out of that situation. He's too faithful.

I started out as a brilliant and athletic kid. I was often casted as 'little king' at interhouse sports and I would do well. I was a child with no care in the world.

Then in nursery school, my parents sent me to live with a rich family. My new guardians didn't maltreat me but it was different from how they treated their kids.

Their kids attended a different school and used the school bus but I had to walk to my school. Frankly, it was a walk away and it was a good school. However, when I came across these richer kids who spoke with accents, my self esteem would take a hit. That happened for years. Even my guardians' kids spoke differently when they were with their mates. On weekends, they would go to the children's wing of the staff club and just blend in. I couldn't. Christmas gifts were different - me with my Kitto and jersey, while they had suits and shoes. 

Their kids would play with me at home but once their mates came around, it was different. Maybe I couldn't fit in because I thought they were better than me. 

All these got to me and dealt a blow on my self esteem. I became shy and didn't want to be seen or heard. I remember being chosen for little king and I declined. I was good with athletics but I was timid so I ran away and hid till the event was over.

The good thing was that I studied more. I was brilliant enough to go to secondary school from Primary 4. However, I needed to catch up with what I had lost in Primary 5; things like 'cancel' being synonymous with 'divided by'. I sat in class, lost, and I couldn't ask questions because I was shy.

Life went on like that till I took over as an assistant lead in the home cell group. It was my first experience with leadership in church. I had to speak sometimes and as I studied the scriptures and taught, I started to become the bold Christian I was talking about.

I had to say those things to myself - "I'm a King's kid"  was one of my favourites. I'd say it whenever the complex reared its head.

I studied Guidance and Counselling and I understand how an interruption like the one I had could alter a lot about a child. I'm still a work in progress but God has brought me far from the timid boy that I was.

When I moved to Lagos in 2006, I didn't have a university education and was not computer literate. My GCE wasn't even in the clear, because I needed to sit for Mathematics again.

I knew I needed to go to school and had to pay for it. I've always had to fend for myself because I lost my father when I was five, and there was only so much I could expect my mother to do.

I joined a security company, and they posted me to work as a gateman for a certain company. One thing I know God gave me is social skills, so I was cordial and friendly where I was posted. One of the workers at the company found out that I didn't have an email address and he decided to help me open one.

Within a year, I had sorted my GCE. Later, I was able to secure my admission into LASU.

I went to my boss at the security company and asked to be put on the night shift permanently so I could attend classes. He did that for me and, by God's grace, I went to school and graduated. I could tell that God's favour was with me.

Next, a man I met in the church asked me how good I was with computers. Luckily for me, I had saved some money and bought a laptop after I started computer school. I knew that using it regularly would make me better. That came in handy when I was talking to the man, and it impressed him enough for him to give me my first job. He had built software to help companies transition from analogue to digital records. I worked with him to train company employees on how to use the software.

A lot has happened since then - I’m married, with a beautiful family. I've been able to change jobs too.

Over the years, God has given me opportunities to see how far I have come. One of the companies that I went to train with that software was the company where I served as a gateman; only one person recognised me.

One time, there was an opening for the Kaduna branch of my office and I went to interview the applicants. One of them was the guy who had helped me open my email at the company I served as a gateman. Of course, I put in a good word for him.

God has been so kind to me. The stories abound.

I've worked in this bank for a long time, and when this happened some years back, I was working as a teller.

I was attending to customers when I noticed an old man on the queue. The first thing that came to mind was that he could be a fraudster, but I called myself to order. He was old and I shouldn't think that of him, I told myself.

When it got to his turn, I noticed that he wanted to withdraw a Hundred Thousand Naira. Usually, transactions below Five Hundred Thousand Naira didn't need to be confirmed, except the account holder set that in place as a default. My mind, or in hindsight, the Holy Spirit, kept telling me to reconfirm the cheque but I felt I was doing too much. The man had brought his ID Card and the picture on it matched the man in front of me.

The need to confirm the cheque still weighed on me, but rather than do that, I turned to my Cash Officer who was my supervisor and noticed that he was in the middle of a conversation; I decided not to bother him. I went ahead and paid the friendly, smiling old man the money and he went on his way.

About three minutes after paying, someone reached out to me on our internal communication system and let me know that I had paid a fraudulent cheque. The funny thing is, once I noticed that I had a message, I knew that was what it was about.

We tried to look for the man and he was no longer in sight.

I was restless about it for a while. I shared it with my house fellowship members and we prayed about it. I was lucky that everything I did was in accordance with the customer's mandate and the bank's mandate. I had not stepped out of the laid down process for a cheque of that amount; so my office didn't penalise me. Yet, it was something I could have avoided if I had paid attention to what the Holy Spirit was telling me.

The stress that followed could have been averted. God was looking out for me, but I wasn't mature enough to listen and act accordingly.

I struggled with ma********on for such a long time and I kept it a secret. It was the way I felt after it that made me certain that I wanted to break free. I felt worthless, and so out of control. I made several attempts to stop but I couldn't. It tore at everything I knew and believed about myself. It was even worse on days when I didn't have to go out to work. I would indulge as many as six times a day.

I was a Christian at the time, but this was my secret.

I should make it clear that I was not an awkward guy who found it hard to talk to ladies, yet this habit, for whatever reason, just had a hold on me. I don’t even remember how it started, and I barely know when or how it took over my mind.

One day I followed a friend to their church and the pastor kept talking about ma********on. It was the late Pastor Ezekiel Atang. He was so open about it and he shared examples of how other people had overcome the habit.

After the service, I walked up to a minister in the church and we got talking. He started sharing his own experience. That made me comfortable enough to share mine with him. He told me how opening up about it was a first step to breaking the addiction.

He counselled me and gave me some books to read and I became accountable to him for that aspect of my life. It was a gradual process, but eventually, it worked.

It came as a surprise to me when I was finally able to stay a day without it. Days have turned into years and by God's grace, I am free.

I have taken the time to talk openly about it, and that has made it easier for people to open up to me about their own struggles. Talking to someone is almost always the right first step. Adding secrecy to such a habit creates a vicious cycle and is an added burden that nobody should live with.

I come from a large family. My grandfather had four boys, but in all four families, no one had finished university. My father had five of us and his brothers had many children too but none graduated. I made a note of that when I was finishing secondary school. I started praying about it. I took my service and prayer life a notch higher. I didn't want to end up pregnant or uneducated.

My mom and my dad were separated at the time and she had a spot where she sold local gin, palm wine, ci******es, and the likes. I didn't take any of those, but it was the business I fed from, so I helped out with serving. In 2002, I know we sold a shot of locally distilled gin for about ten Naira. Many of the people who came there were older, retired men who had done well for themselves, but needed to spend time in a cheerful space in the company of friends.

My WAEC result came out great, and my JAMB too. We lived in a different town from the state capital where the University is; it's approximately an hour away. I went to the University on my own and processed my admission, but my name wasn't on the list of admitted students.

One random day, a man who had been our Local Government Chairman came to my mom's joint. The men there kept praising me for being bright and passing my exams. He got interested, asked how the admission process was going, and promised to help. This was on a weekend.

By the following Monday, he came and drove me in his car to see the Chief Bursar of the university I applied to. He introduced me as his child and told the Bursar to get me an admission. The Chief Bursar talked about how all the lists were already out and concluded, but my benefactor insisted. So the Chief Bursar gave me a letter to take to the admissions office; a new and final list was published for Zoology, a different course from what I had applied for. That was how I got into school.

The family funded the education and God showed me favour; I graduated with good grades.

I'm grateful to God for helping me break free mentally and providing the means for my dream to come true. Now I have younger cousins who are doing well on their academic journey. The jinx has been broken.

It started before we got married. My fiance told me about how an influential person in his life told him not to marry me; that I wouldn't have children. It wasn't clear whether it was a prophetic word or just an opinion, but she seemed pretty sure. She even referred to other things she had said in the past that came to pass, to remind him of how credible she was.

Well, we prayed and got married in 2011.

Two years in, I still wasn't pregnant. I checked and I was fine. Finally, the pregnancy came and it was peaceful and uneventful. I was pretty excited.

By the ninth month, hospitals went on strike, so we went to a private hospital. When the scan results came in, I was told to come in for an emergency caesarean section.

The baby died at birth.

This was the promised child, as far as I knew. I remembered what that person told my husband. The devil tried to mess with me. In the hospital, I idly opened another patient's file that was left within my reach. She had had five stillbirths. The devil told me that would be my experience. You can imagine what that did to me.

However, God yanked me out before it did too much damage. I heard a reassurance in my mind that I would give birth to my children. I refused to stay in mourning for too long. By the time people visited to mourn, I was already up; the strength was obviously not mine. My friends even thought I was in denial.

There was also the fact that we are pastors. How were we to explain this to people? I resumed church two weeks later and someone advised me not to, because of the shame. I decided that the shame was not mine to bear. I didn't want my life to be defined by the experience. That didn't stop embarrassing occurrences and congratulatory messages from people who hadn't heard. I had come to terms with the fact that it would be momentary.

It was a difficult experience but God bore us in his arms.

The stillbirth happened on August 27th 2013. I conceived in February 2014; by November my baby was born. She's a gift and a blessing. She now has two younger sisters. God did it.

It helped that I knew who I was in God, and I was sure of His sovereignty. It made it easier to let the experience refine me without defining me.

He invited me for a lunch date on Valentine's last year and made his intention known. I agreed almost immediately. He was everything I wanted in my man; caring, friendly, shrewd, well-educated, business-oriented, family-driven, and had a tiny physique. However, I had to try hard to convince my family about him because my family pastor said we were not compatible. I felt the pastor was wrong and he was going to make me miss out on God's will for me. Being with him felt so right at that time.

I got engaged to him, and we had our introduction in March after courting for a year. I found out he was cheating on me with some other lady and attempted to break up but his family persuaded me to give it a second chance, and he promised me he was going to stop the act. It really became hard to regain the trust and respect I had for him. So, I was always prying on his privacy and I kept finding disheartening chats. It was then I knew he was never going to change and I could not help but get verbally abusive at the slightest provocation.

One day, we got into a heated argument and he slapped me. It was at that point I had a rethink about spending the rest of my life with him. I got really worried about what my family, especially my mom, would think of me. Thankfully, they embraced my decision about breaking up with him when they found that he was becoming a violent person.

I wasn't innocent, so I do not totally blame him. I must have provoked him. But I don't think I can succumb to the world`s idea of the extreme polygamous nature of men anytime soon. I want to believe there are men who would not consider flirting with other women aside from their own.

I believe that one day, I'll experience all the love that life gives.

When we got married, we chose to wait for two years before having children but less than a year in, we decided to go ahead and have kids.

We tried but nothing came. Out of concern, we sought medical help and we were told that there was nothing really wrong.

Finally, my wife got pregnant. However, two months into the pregnancy, she started spotting and we were told she had placenta previa type 4. She also had fibroids. The doctor advised her to be on bed rest throughout the pregnancy. We did that at home.

It was clear to us that the doctors were not really optimistic. The signs and the science didn’t give them a choice. Whenever we went for scans, the report used to read "miscarriage inevitable". You can imagine how that messed with our heads. Well, we chose to trust God, as hard as it was.

God kept carrying us till it was eight months and some weeks. She was having cramps so we went to the hospital. She was scheduled for surgery that day and we had our first bundle of joy.

However, my wife was in surgery for a long time after our baby came. We even have to do a blood transfusion. It was a lot of drama. When the doctor came out, he advised us to have the fibroids taken out surgically before our next baby.

My wife and I prayed and took communion for healing; my spirit kept kicking against that report.

We decided to wait for two years before trying for another child but about a year after, we discovered she was pregnant. We started worrying because of the fibroids. Our doctor who attended to us during the first pregnancy referred us to the same place where we had the scans. The man didn't see any fibroid. We reminded him of who we are and he was surprised.

Then I remembered that a week or two earlier, there was a word of knowledge in church, that fibroids are gone and my spirit had held on to that word.

It was a seamless pregnancy. My boy is about 9 months old now while my girl will be three years old in October.

God showed up and showed out!