GRACE! GRACE!!

I wrote in the second to the last episode about you looking out for my book. I had always known that I’ll write at least one book but by GOD’s Grace, maybe I’ll write more.

I started writing this book about 2009-2010 and the content now has really changed compared to 2009. The power of Grace. (I will put some excerpt from the original writing in the updated book).

This current version, I started writing two years ago. Last year while on my bed one morning, I heard the Holy Spirit tell me very clearly that I shouldn’t forget to write about the abortions and the rape in my book.

Before I went to the university, I started going out with this guy whom I met in church, back in Nigeria then. My family got to know him but didn’t approve of the relationship. Along the long way, I got pregnant. I was so afraid - afraid that I, a tongue talking Christian had gotten pregnant outside of wedlock (people don’t even use that word anymore); plus, my dad was known to be a Christian. I knew he wouldn’t kill me but I didn’t know what would happen, what he’ll do.

I was in the university then and I didn’t want anything tainting my future, so my first thought was to terminate the pregnancy. Oh! I know full well that life starts at conception (for those that say that the embryo is not life, at what point does it come alive? Because everyone knows that even a seed on its own is a living organism, and as soon as you put it in the soil, it begins to grow - that is life).

Myself and my boyfriend decided to terminate the pregnancy. I remember that the week the abortion was scheduled for, some family of ours, a couple from my dad’s church, had travelled over from Akure to Lagos and they stayed with us and this couple didn’t have children. I wept bitterly within me and praying in my heart if GOD could take the child from my stomach and put it in aunty R’s stomach. But life doesn’t work that way.

I had the abortion, asked GOD to forgive me and moved on with my life - but not really moving on.

I moved to the UK to join my husband, got pregnant after three months of marriage, and had my daughter. My mum came from Nigeria for a few weeks to help nurse my baby. During that time, my mum had a dream that I got pregnant again while nursing that tiny little baby. And she warned me to do birth control. I told my now ex-husband about the dream and that I wanted to have some birth control but his response was a categorical ‘No.’ He had plans that I was returning to Nigeria, so there wasn’t any reason for me to use birth control.

My daughter was three months old when I got pregnant again. How on earth would I cope with a three-month-old and another pregnancy. ‘GOD, I told you I wouldn’t do it again but I need to do it again. I can’t cope; you’d have to forgive me; you’d have to have mercy on me. The agreement again - with my husband, terminate it; so, I did.

My daughter started growing up, a love child, growing fast and brilliantly and when she was two years and three months old, I got pregnant again. My husband said he didn’t want the child and that I should terminate it again. I screamed ‘NO!’ For how long will I continue terminating pregnancies as though it doesn’t matter.? ‘No!!!’ I insisted. (A whole book can come out of what happened afterwards - you’ll read about it all in my book).

I had the baby, a boy. Hmmm! All is well. I was still in a marriage, at least living with a man I called my husband but life was lifing me seriously. I was ready to do anything to keep my marriage, anything at all.

Then, when my son was three months old, I got pregnant again. I didn’t even wait to argue with the man; I told him I would abort the baby - anything to keep my marriage. He stayed with the two kids, and I went alone, a Christian, to abort the pregnancy.

It was at this point that I made up my mind that I, as a person, would never, ever judge any woman who terminates a pregnancy (people do it for so many reasons). I did the first because of my selfishness (I was doing what I wasn’t supposed to do and wanted to cover up the consequence). The second was because of selfishness as well, I felt I wouldn’t be able to cope, and I didn’t want to disobey my husband. The third was in a foolish bid to save a marriage that was already dead.

I never involved GOD in any of the matters, I knew what I wanted and went ahead to do what I wanted. After all, GOD is a merciful GOD. He will forgive me; ‘He knows my heart.’ ‘He knows I don’t have a choice.’ ‘He knows I need to do what I can to save my home – save my marriage.’

But how my heart broke each time the thought of these three abortions came to my mind. It does something to the soul; it leaves a guilt, a blood guilt on the soul, on my soul. My heart cried out every time but I couldn’t tell anyone; it was my secret. I always thought about how old the first child would have been, if I had not been carted away by shame and delusion of what I wanted to be perceived as, that I wasn’t.

But GOD, the GOD of all GRACE (1 Peter 5:10a), in His mercy, reached out to me. I used to go to Pastor Sola Fola-Alade’s church, when he was in Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) and there was this invited minister who came to preach. This day, during his preach, he just started talking about abortions and he accurately described what it does to the soul. Then he asked all concerned to come out for prayer/deliverance. That was how GOD saved me from the blood guilt on my soul.

What did I pray afterwards and still pray now, LORD, give me the GRACE the empowerment, the strength to not do it again. For I know that in myself, my strength, my ability, no matter how much I will, I need the power of the Holy Spirit to do the things that I ought to do and to not do the things that I ought not to do (Romans 7:15-20).

I pray for mercy, that GOD will have mercy on me and my kids- that they will honour marriage and not defile their marriage beds. I pray that the rod of the wicked does not fall on my lot, so that I don’t put forth my hand into iniquity (Psalm 125:3).

Only GOD knows how much pressure each of us can take before we break.

LORD, help!!!

But I am a product of GRACE. Hallelujah!

(tbc)