Lighted

They all kept saying the same thing

Get out there and exercise

Exercise like your life depends on it

Your life depends of exercising your body

She bought a bicycle

She rode and rode and rode

She rode like her life depends on it

Every evening and every morning

She rode three kilometers a day

She always met with a giant of man

He used to play football for the country’s national team

He exercised unfailingly from 5Am -7AM

He owned one of the fanciest buildings in the estate

He was just forty-five years old

He had three children 

A very lovely wife

A fleet of cars

She didn’t notice him on the road as she rode that morning

She was later told he committed suicide sometimes that morning

His death was discussed by sports pundits and psychiatrists all over the world

They concluded he took his own life due to depression

She almost fell off the couch when she heard

Depression!

She was diagnosed of depression earlier that year

She really didn’t know what she was feeling had a name

She just woke up one morning and her bed wouldn’t let her leave

Her mind kept reeling in darkness

Like a computer that crashed and was finding it difficult to boot

She thought it was just a spell

“I just need a little rest, I will get up in a while”

She lied down on the bed but there was no rest

Her mind was active but doing nothing

She couldn’t even process a thought to conclusion

Everything just seemed overwhelming

Like being thrown into a silo of grain

She was alive but choking from within

The choke was not really a painful choke

It was like a choke of meaning and purpose

Suddenly she didn’t feel any joy when she woke up in the morning

She didn’t feel any enthusiasm at all

She lost interest in all her hobbies and relationships

She didn’t care about anything or anybody

She just wanted to be alone

Ironically, it all started a week to her birthday

She had ordered cake, small chops, food and drinks

Her husband was running around to make sure the day was a success

She couldn’t even be bothered to get out of bed

Her children came to her room

She saw them

She recognized them

And yet, she felt nothing

It was as if they were both nuisances disturbing her quiet ruminations

Her husband thought she was just being blue

He invited his younger sister over

Together they took care of the children

Two days to her birthday celebrations

Her husband got married

She had refused to leave her bed for four days

She had neither eaten nor drank anything

She found herself crying for no reason at all

She was much more than sad

It was a numbness from within

Like the thick cloud that covered the earth at the beginning

Everything for her was void and without form

She kept trying to find that light from within but she couldn’t

Her insides were in perpetual sadness

She was crying in silence

Roaring within her own core

Her husband brought her people

Her parents and siblings

He wanted them to persuade her to snap out of the darkness

She was just looking at them

Like a zombie

She recognized them with her eyes

She recognized them with her brain

But she didn’t recognize them with h…

She panicked but quickly got a hold of herself before her husband could notice. She knew he wouldn’t hesitate to return her to the hospital if she didn’t put in a good performance. He had hired a cook, a nanny and a maid in her absence. She waited a little bit in the sitting room before moving to the bedroom. As soon as she saw the bed, her heart sank! She could practically see her coffin right in the middle of it. She stood before her dressing table and started sobbing! Why wouldn’t the demon leave her alone? She had tried to come out of it and love life again. Why does it feel like she had been recruited to partake in a sort of misery or sorrow competition?

No. She felt worse than that. She felt like the living dead, like a robot! Everything was dead flat. Nothing brings joy and nothing brings pleasure. Like a shut tap, the flow of her emotions had been shut off, and in a perverse way she wasn’t even feeling sad or unhappy or angry! She was just numb! Like an amputated limb! Just numb!

Her doctor had told her suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, like chopping off your head to cure a headache!

But death looked very appealing. At least she wouldn’t have to face people and prove to them she wasn’t crazy by saying the right things and doing the right stuff. She wouldn’t have to look at her own children and feel nothing. She wouldn’t have to be so mean to her own husband. She wouldn’t be a burden to everybody! She sat on the chair and got lost in her ponderings. That night she slept on a mat on the floor of her room. She felt the floor would allow her rise up easily the following morning. By 10am the following day, her husband took her to the beach.

Wowza!

The light came back on.

They stood in the water for hours! She was in his arms and he held her so tight she felt safe! He made her laugh, he whispered stuff into her ears and even swore he would pull down her panties and sleep with her right there is she didn’t return his kiss. She quickly kissed him! Her madness is sane enough to recognize the longings of a frustrated man.

While driving home that evening, he told her he had another surprise for her. He took her to a four star hotel. He told her mother had volunteered to stay with the children. She showered and they had dinner at the Chinese restaurant on the ground floor. She felt herself laughing for real for the first time.

Later that night as they made love, she could swear that she was fine again! The dog had lifted. Hallelujah! They returned home the next morning, everything was fine until she saw her bed again! She couldn’t believe it! The veil she thought had been thorn to reveal the light of God’s presence mended itself and kept the light out once again!

She lost her marbles! She went berserk and attacked the bed, she pulled the mattress out of its wooden case and threw it against the wall. The wall threw the mattress back and the mattress knocked her on the head. She was knocked unconscious and crumbled under the mattress. That was how her husband found her by the time he rushed upstairs to their room to see what was happening.

Her husband thought she was dead.

He quickly lifted the mattress and found her underneath it breathing quite calmly. Luckily, she didn't sustain any injury. He carried her into the guest room.

He laid her down on the bed

For once he was at sea on what to do

He didn’t want to return her to the hospital!

How could one month’s admission be undone in such a dramatic fashion within minutes of her return home?

He decided to call her mother!

Her mother picked the call and listened intently to what he said, she had suggested several times that they pursue a spiritual solution but he was weary of spiritualists

He knew there are some people who have the spirit of God

He had also come across others, who would solve a problem and create twenty more in its place

The Bible says believers should test every spirit and be sure the one they are listening to is from God!

He told her mother to bring the person she had in mind

Her mother arrived thirty minutes later

She arrived alone

Normally she carried a white handkerchief from one man of God with her everywhere

She called It “Mantle”

This time she didn’t use the mantle

She sat beside his wife and made a phone call

She spoke with the voice at the other end of the phone for a few minutes, then she stood up on her feet and said “Father, in the name of Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I come against the spirit of affliction in my daughter’s mind, body, brain and spirit in the name of Jesus!”

She laid the hand on her daughter and the daughter sat up straight!

Straight like ramrod straight!

He couldn’t believe his eyes, what was happening?

Her mother didn’t seem fazed by what she saw, she persisted “Body, I come against the spirit of depression, the fog and darkness choking your soul from seeing the light, I command it to lift off you in the name of Jesus!

His wife suddenly screamed

A hoarse, heart rending, goose pimples inspiring scream and collapsed back on the bed

It was as if she was lifeless for a few seconds

And then she started breathing normally

Somehow, he knew his wife had been delivered

Her mother put the phone on speaker

He heard the voice on the other end praying in the spirit

His wife opened her eyes and started praying too

He didn’t know when he joined the prayer

They all prayed in the spirit for almost thirty minutes

The voice blessed them and rang off

And that was that!

He couldn’t even be skeptical

How could he?

He saw the instant transformation!

She was equally astounded

She suddenly found herself in the light

Or put properly, she suddenly found the light had come on in her

She couldn’t even remember the darkness anymore

She had regained herself somehow

It was wow!

The following Saturday, they traveled to see the “voice” at the other end of that phone call

The voice was that of the Brother in Jeans and T-shirt

He blessed them and prayed along with them

He assured them the affliction would never return again

It’s been two years

The promise of God for their home has remained steadfast

Glory be to God!

Ps: This event happened in Benin, January 2017

People say religion cannot cure depression

They are right

But the name of Jesus destroys it totally

It is a spirit of darkness and we are the light of the world!

Don't you give in to depression

Say to that darkness

"Arise, Shine, for your light has come for the glory of the Lord has risen upon you"