Strings and shards

The Police officers arrived right in 
the middle of the Sunday Worship 
service, they were led to the church 
by a smallish man who we later 
found out was one of the landlords 
in the community 
They came to arrest a young man 
(His tenant) who happened to be 
a Sunday School teacher in
the church 
The young man arrived for the church 
service at 6:45 AM 
He was well dressed for the service 
and he was totally calm as he led 
the "Fresh fire" prayer meeting from 
7 AM to 7:20 AM 
The elderly pastor took over from him 
to give a short charge before Sunday 
School started by 8 AM 
He was the HOD of the Sunday School 
Department 
He had been married for three years 
He was a model Christian 
The policemen were polite, they 
stayed outside the church premises 
and asked the young man's landlord 
to find a way to lure him out of the 
church premises 
As soon as the young man saw his 
landlord, he told his assistant to take 
over the class and walked towards 
the exit 
One of the ushers who had noticed 
that the elderly man came with police 
officers ran to call the pastor 
The pastor rushed out just as the 
police officers were arresting
the young man 
The pastor intervened "What is going 
on here?" 
The landlord pulled the pastor aside 
and explained that the young man 
had a fight with his wife in the early 
hours of that day and in anger he 
threw her down from the balcony of 
their apartment, breaking her two legs in
the process! 
The Pastor and some other church leaders 
went with the young man to the police 
station and then they went to the hospital 
to see the wife 
The funniest thing was, after throwing 
her downstairs, he went into their 
apartment to have his bath and walked 
right past her on his way to church 
She had fainted upon impact and he 
assumed she was dead 
He didn't get help, he didn't call anybody, 
he just left her there 
The neighbours saw her after he had 
gone to church and rushed her to the 
hospital 
When she came to, she told the doctor 
what happened and the doctor called 
the police immediately 
When the police officers got to the 
hospital, the landlord was compelled 
to take them to the husband's location 
That was the first time I witnessed a 
strange cold fire that i had seen in the 
heart of some spouses towards their 
partners in the last few years 
How can love bring someone so close 
to the edge of committing murder so 
easily? 
What about the consequences? 
How come he couldn't think of the 
possible consequence of his action 
to his own life? 
He could have ended up spending the 
rest of his life in prison or even facing 
the death penalty 
He didn't even run away 
It was as if he considered what he did 
as justified 
Eventually, he told his side of the story 
He said his wife was cheating, he had 
more than enough evidence and he didn't 
know what came over him after he 
confronted her and found out she had 
no defense whatsoever 
His wife didn't press charges 
It felt in a way that the wife wanted 
the whole story untold 
She never opened her mouth to tell 
her side of the story 
Not to her parents, the pastor or a 
friend 
He was made to foot her hospital bill 
and the marriage died a natural death 
afterward 
I remember their story often and I use 
it a lot when i teach on marriage and 
relationships 
Marriage is indeed very deep water, 
no one can actually truly know its depth 
apart from the man and the woman 
who came together to form the union!
The second time I saw policemen walk 
into a church to arrest a member also 
involved a marriage 
This time it was the wife that was arrested 
The lady was 32 years old, she was 
married to a 50-year-old widow who had 
two teenagers from his late wife 
She had been trying to have a baby
and her efforts were yet to pay off 
She felt her husband was not trying 
hard enough because he already had 
children 
She was jealous of the attention he 
gave his daughters and felt like an 
outsider in her own home 
She saw her husband's children as 
competition that she must get rid of 
She poisoned them 
She did it on a Saturday night hoping 
they would die mysteriously overnight 
and by the time she came back from 
church she would throw up her arms 
and pretend she didn't know anything 
about their death 
She got to the church early and dived 
into the service!
Her husband was in Abuja on business 
that week He received a text message 
and rushed home earlier than planned 
on Sunday morning 
He was able to rush his children to the 
hospital and miraculously (the poison 
had been in their system for 13 hours) 
both children survived 
The message was traced to the lady's 
best friend's younger sister who was a 
student at LASU 
This young lady overheard the conversation 
between her sister and the man's wife 
and decided to do something about it 
to assuage her conscience. 
She saved two lives by her good deed! 
(God bless her)
The wife was arrested and thrown in jail 
Friends and family members got involved 
They mounted pressure on this man to 
settle the case out of court 
They threatened his life and that of his 
children 
They harassed his family members 
Eventually, he agreed to settle the case 
of out court 
The marriage was dead 
The postmortem of the marriage was 
here and there 
The man never remarried 
Apparently, he convinced himself he 
was unlucky with wives 
One died and the other tried to murder 
his children 
The lady left Ibadan for Kaduna in order 
to have a fresh start some months after 
the incident 
She got pregnant two years after getting 
to Kaduna 
Nobody really knew how she came about 
the pregnancy 
She died giving birth to the child 
The child didn't survive too 
It was a messy affair with a messy ending 
Even after her death, the family couldn't
announce her demise 
They felt people would laugh at them 
and tell them she got what she deserved 
The third time was in Lagos 
I had a church member who attended 
midweek services diligently but attended 
another church with her husband and 
family on Sundays 
They attend an orthodox church 
One Thursday evening in 2009, a strange 
woman came to the church I was the 
one leading the Faith clinic service 
After the service, the lady said she 
wanted to see me 
As soon as we sat down she started crying 
She said the other lady who attended 
the church diligently for midweek services 
had arrested her son unjustly (They were 
neighbours) & had refused all entreaties 
to settle the case out of court 
She said her son was nineteen years old 
When i asked her what her son did, 
she said "It wasn't anything so serious, 
he was just being a foolish boy"
I told her I will pay the lady a visit and 
try my best to convince her to forgive 
as our Father in heaven had also 
forgiven us of all our sins 
I went to see this lady after service 
She was not in church that day 
When i got to her home 
I met a very unhappy, gaunt-looking 
woman
It was as if all life had drained off her 
She told me she had two sons, aged 
9 and 7 
On that fateful day, she locked them in 
the flat because she had to dash to 
the market 
When she got back from the market 
she met the front door open 
She saw this 19-year-old boy sodomizing 
both her sons! He had tied both their hands 
and her children were screaming in agony 
She said as soon as he saw her, he ran 
right past her into his mother's flat and 
locked the door 
She left her children as they were and 
went to get the police 
She said she was not going to forgive!
I agreed with her with all my heart 
Please don't blame me 
As at that time I couldn't even imagine 
what she described as real 
I had only read such in foreign novels 
The shock was too much for my journey
 just come sensibilities 
I said "Please madam, throw away the 
keys of his cell"

PS: I had an early morning meeting
earlier where marriage and relationships
was discussed
The three-hour session brought a lot
of memories to me
So many half-done cases and broken
fragments of human reality
When you are in ministry, you see and
hear a lot
Thank God for the Holy Spirit
Thank God for healthy marriages and
relationships
Thank you Holy Spirit for your presence
and your love

GSW's notes: A lady called me once
She reported a married man was chasing
her passionately
The man's wife called me weeks later
She reported that the lady was chasing
her husband passionately
Sometimes, only the neutral person
sees the true picture of things as they
truly stand
The Spirit of Jesus help us to act as
instruments of His love, peace and 
hope
Bringing the light of His Truth and 
Reality to bear in all
Glory be to His Holy name