Dear Agatha,
I am almost 37 years of age. Three years ago, the man I dated for seven years walked out of our relationship and life without offering me any explanation.
He simply disappeared without trace. No member of his family or his friends could tell me anything about his whereabouts. His office too was baffled and actually took a public announcement concerning his whereabouts.
As at the time he left, I was already five months pregnant. But for the grace of God, I would have lost the pregnancy. His mother in particular set aside her grief to help me through the trying period.
Fortunately, I had a set of twins, a boy and girl. They, more than made up for his absence in our lives and being an only child, for the first time, I had people I could lay complete claim to.
I grew up with my mother’s immediate younger, who though wasn’t cruel to me, was completely indifferent. I would have preferred cruelty for all the attentions she showered on me. Beyond responding to my greetings and asking me about my schoolwork, she didn’t say anything to me. She dutifully paid my school fees to the university level, took care of my needs but was never friendly with me. Her children too tried to avoid me like a plague. She bought us the same clothes, ate the same food, rode in the same car to school, went to the same schools but we were like strangers to each other.
It was something I couldn’t explain. We never quarreled but we just weren’t on speaking terms. We spoke to each other only when absolutely necessary.
After a while, I stopped trying to analyse the behaviour of my aunty and her children. After graduation and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), she and her husband presented me with a car gift as well as a three bedroom flat. She influenced my employment with an oil company. I wasn’t sad to leave her house because there was nothing there to miss despite the comfortable life I lived there.
Since packing out, I can count the number of times she or any of her children have visited me even though they each make it a point of duty to call me twice a month to know how I was faring.
Just before my man disappeared, I told my aunty about him and she told me I shouldn’t hurry into anything now. She said that I should first go to my father’s village to seek their approval before going into marriage to avoid regrets.
I didn’t know what to make of it and couldn’t ask her why since our relationship was devoid of such intimacy.
I am writing you because of the sudden change in the attitude of my fiancé’s mother who came back from the village very hostile. Not only is she blaming me for the disappearance of her son but is insisting on taking away my children before I infect them with my bad luck.
She also accused me of being responsible for the disappearances of my parents and that if she allows me have the children, I would also make them disappear without trace.
I later got to know from a concerned friend of the family that my fiancé’s mother was told in the village to avoid being close to me and that she should take away the children from me because I come with a spell that make people around me disappear at the approach of their happy ending. It was from her I got to know that my parents actually disappeared at my birth.
When I confronted my aunty, she confirmed it and said it was the reason either her or her children for that matter did not want to get close to me. That she took the risk of bringing me to her house when others rejected me because she and my mother were very close and couldn’t bear to see her only child suffer. She said, the spiritualist she consulted before taking me to stay with her said the only antidote was for her never to get close to me.
She said a woman he got pregnant and was supposed to marry before ditching her for my mother, placed the spell on me from my father’s village.
My aunty said, she couldn’t tell me because she was forbidden to but now that I know, I should go to my father’s village to meet his family who would take me to the child of the woman my father abandoned for my mother. She said only the forgiveness of the child who was born crippled can neutralise the charm.
I am so confused and at the same time very bitter against my aunty who kept all these from me. What do you suggest I do because my pastor is insisting I shouldn’t go? He thinks prayers, fasting and deliverance would do the magic. But after praying and fasting on my own over the matter, I have this strong urge to go. What do you think?
Ngozi.
Dear Ngozi,
This is not the time for you to be confused, angry or fight anybody. It is the time for you to act fast before anything happens to the person you are supposed to see in the village.
It is unfortunate that you had to go through all these but the important thing is that God has made a way out for you. Whatever I think is irrelevant. What is important is what God is telling you. If your instinct tells you to go, please don’t hesitate to do just that. Besides, why are the pastor’s reasons against your going? Has he any superior reason different from what God is telling you? No power or person is greater than the God you serve and who has told you to go.
This is one situation where you must move to make your deliverance complete. Yes, prayers, fasting and deliverance are necessary but so also is forgiveness. Since you have the opportunity of meeting the person whose heart is still hurting by what your father did, go and plead on behalf of your father and yourself.
Ideally, your pastor should offer to accompany you on the journey to provide you with the spiritual cover he carries as an anointed man of God, not to discourage you from doing what is right.
Religion aside, you owe it to this child to plead on behalf of the father who brought about his rejection as well as embarrassment of the mother. Like you, that child is carrying the cross of an incident he knows nothing about. Besides, you and this person are related by the blood of a man, who accepted one but rejected the other.
It behooves you to make peace. Don’t forget this person is crippled and don’t have the freedom of movement you have. That alone is enough to make him or her more bitter against you as very determined to keep the curse alive for not only having the love of your father but the freedom to move around like you. Unlike you, he may not have the opportunity of a good education and the quality of life you have.
These are enough grounds for anybody who has a bitter heart to continue to brew evil. In the first place, you don’t know the story told him about your mother who might have been accused of influencing your father’s decision to abandon the woman he first wanted to marry.
To have gotten her pregnant at that time means they must have done the traditional thing. Moral liberties were not so common then. Again, you don’t know the role your mother played in the whole drama. Granted, she may be innocent but in the eyes of the world proving her innocence in that situation would be most difficult because a man is not supposed to abandon everything he believes in for something else. Yes, he is allowed to take another wife but to completely deny his wife and unborn child is something a sane man isn’t expected to do.
Although their reactions and extent they went in getting justice is another matter entirely, but the fact remains you must make the sacrifices to moderate the consequences.
The reactions of your own aunty and children to you underscore the gravity of the situation, so also is the sudden disappearance of the man you were supposed to marry. The threat of your children also disappearing mysteriously is still hanging over your head. How many more of these strange happenings can you endure?
Life can be very lonely, hence you need wisdom at every point to make it very happy. Nobody except you and God knows where the shoes pinch the most. And He has given you the leading of the spirit as well as propeller through the attitude of your fiancé’s mother to act fast. This is one situation when a second delay might be dangerous.
Once you put God first, have faith that He is in charge and can do all things. If your pastor is unwilling to go with you on this journey, ask that God send His spirit and angels ahead of you to clear the road of all agents of darkness. Going to beg for forgiveness would stop the influence of the devil over your life.
Don’t worry about this person listening to you or not, your concern is obeying God and doing what He says to secure your victory over this dangerous foundation.
God is your strength and armour in this battle.
Good luck.
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