The Desolate Woman

I met the Desolate Woman at Ibadan. 

I remember the meeting which led to my meeting her in 2018 vividly.

As a minister of the gospel, you are never told the whole story, only the part that would get you to offer whatever help you can or even defend the one that came to you with the story without a second thought.

I remember ministering in that church

The youth ministry of the church had invited the GSWMI ministers and I to an event very close to the New Year.

We went as led by the Holy Spirit to teach on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and also got the entire youth church filled with the Holy Ghost.

In the course of my sermon delivery that day, I mentioned that I was a graduate of Bowen University and shared with the church how I met with the Holy Spirit while I was in 300 level in that school.

After the service, there was quite a queue of people who wanted to meet with me

Some wanted to get some insight into the challenges they were facing at the time

Some others wanted a word of prayer

Some wanted to share their testimony

Some others wanted to take a picture with me in order to preserve the date

The senior pastor himself came to me with a woman in tow

The woman looked extremely sad in her local blue lace attire

The Pastor said she came crying to him when she heard that I attended Bowen University

I asked why

The Pastor said the woman's husband took away her three children several years ago and refused to allow her contact or have anything to do with the children since then

He said the children attended Bowen University and had graduated around the time I did

He said from the little information the woman had, the three children had all now traveled abroad for their masters degree

The woman was desperate for any contact with her children, even if it was a phone call or a text message, anything!

I was perplexed.

Who would do this to a woman?

What could the woman have done?

A woman you married and impregnated three times!

No matter what she could have done, the treatment seemed too harsh

I sat with the woman and listened to her story

She told me everything she could remember about her children

How they looked, their names, what they studied in school, who their father was, etcetera

She didn't tell me what went wrong though

I tried to probe but she stylishly evaded my inquiries about the genesis of the whole issue

She just wanted me to try as much as possible to reestablish contact between her and her children physically and use the name of Jesus, to cause there to be a strong bond between her and her children

When I got to Lagos, I got to work

I didn't just engage spiritually, I got on Google and on the Alumni groups of my alma mater

I fished out the woman's children

I fished out the father

I know the children very well and they know me

I was their fellowship leader for four years while I was on campus

I reached out to the eldest of the three

I told her about my meeting with her mother at Ibadan and broached the topic of a possible reconciliation

She was patient

She listened to me until I was done

Then she said, "That woman might have given birth to us but she is not our mother. Brother Gbenga, if you are a lady, I would have shown you a scar on my left breast, my mother held me to the coal pot when I was 8, I mean she tried roasting me alive because she sent me to bring a glass cup and I made the mistake of bringing her a plate!

The kind of woman that would lock three children in a room and sit in the living room watching TV and eating a hearty meal while her children cried themselves to sleep out of hunger and pain...”

She said a lot, she said enough to make one cry...

"My father was a bursar with a federal secondary school and he traveled a lot for work

My mother was a full housewife, a terror that scarred our minds and hearts to the point where when we see her coming, we wet ourselves

We were timid and unexpressive, afraid of everything and unable to function like human beings

Our youngest brother couldn't talk until he was six due to psychological trauma

We couldn't tell my father what was going on out of fear but one day, he found out

He came home and met my mother in her Gestapo mood and he saw us covered with marks all over as she flogged us mercilessly for fun

My father didn't say a word

He took us into his car, lodged us in a hotel, and stayed there with us for several days

He got a nurse to check us and ensure the sores on our bodies got healed

He asked us questions and we answered honestly

We showed him marks and told him how she would starve us or make us go to sleep whenever she was having her episodes

My father went home after five days to have a talk with my mother, do you know what she said?

"You travel all over carrying women and enjoying your life while I am stuck here raising your children and you expect me to be kind to them? For every stroke of sex, you have out there, they will suffer!"

My father said he didn't argue with my mother. 

Her words merely helped him make up his mind about what to do

He got police reports, reported at the welfare office everything he saw and what we told him and then he sued for divorce and sole custody of me and my younger ones.

He took us with him to Asaba, where we started all over with him

He didn't even let us know anything about the court case

After the divorce, he was posted to Kaduna and we moved with him

Brother Gbenga, my father had some girlfriends from time to time but he never remarried till today

He watched over us like eagle

When he eventually moved to another federal government agency in a senior capacity, in Abuja, we were teenagers then and we came to Bowen University

None of us forgot who our mother was or what she did to us

My Father didn't have to warn us to keep away from her, we all instinctively knew that we must keep far away from her.

Let me tell you, Brother, that I saw her twice before I came to the United Kingdom

On both occasions, I was in a car and she was walking by the roadside, I felt nothing for her but deep rage and hatred, the way some people will see a snake and immediately look for stones and sticks to kill it. That was how I felt."

Wow!

The other two siblings gave a similar story. 

You could taste the venom in their words as they gave details of the horrible treatment they got from their mother as children

I had to change my approach towards the children, I told them the dangers of hatred and unforgiveness and how it affects our walk with the Holy Spirit as believers

We had a long session

There were tears and declarations of forgiveness and supernatural healing

One of the children who had been suffering from insomnia got healed, the other got healed from amnesia

They forgave their mother but they didn't feel strong enough to establish any form of contact with her

I didn't push it

I had to agree with their father when I eventually spoke with him that the children were better off without their mother

He said he had to choose between raising the children alone in love and helping them heal and grow into responsible citizens or leaving them at the mercy of their mother and watch them die or turn into notorious criminals due to her treatment.

He said he chose the path that he believed was best for the welfare of his children

He said that the desolate woman remarried and had two children but the two children died before the age of five

He said she was sent packing by her second husband and labeled a witch

He said this was what shifted her attention back to the older children

Hmmmm!!!

As for the desolate woman, she called me several times but I didn't have any word to say to her

If I told her I had spoken with her children and ex-husband, she would expect me to be a sport and share details of their lives with her

She was really hopeful for news but I had none to give her

I pray that God will comfort her and bring her to the point where she would accept that her children will reach out to her when they have the conviction from the Holy Spirit to do so

Her story redefined many things for me

Judging a case without knowing its merit became a no for me since then

Once in a while, I remember the "Desolate woman" as I have tagged her and I say a word of prayer for her

-GSW-