Bail Me From Masturbation Before It Bends My Life

Dear Agatha,

I am an ardent reader of your column. Words are inexplicable to express my gratitude to you for the many souls you have resurrected and reinvigorated through your words of advice and encouragement. You have chosen for yourself an onerous and glorious task of shaping and making this world a better place. May God continue to bless you? Amen.

I am 25 years of age and my problem is that I have lost count of the number of times I masturbate. It is now a habitual and a daily routine for me to masturbate, and I find it difficult to stop this act of masturbation. It all started since 2001 when I was in my SS III. A classmate and friend of mine unintentionally lead me into this act by giving me some pornographic magazines to read, after which I start to masturbate. After my secondary school, it had become a part of me and watching blue films haven’t helped my case at all.  Though I masturbate, it has never affected my courage and desire to approach and befriend a woman. I once stopped this act when I was in a sexual relationship with one of my ex-girlfriends, but started it again immediately I left the country for my academic pursuit.

Right now, by the grace of God, I am in my final year and the best academic student in my school and on a first-class grade. I have been able to achieve this success mostly because I try to abstain from women knowing fully well the inconveniences, emotional stress, time consumption and most importantly the academic setback that having a relationship with a woman may cause me.

Academically, I am progressing but my private life is another story altogether. This has to do with the decision I took to refrain from sexual intercourse, a decision I am now fearful may affect my marriage later in the future.

This is because I easily get aroused whenever I am with a woman; which is also part of the reasons I totally abstain from women and have never considered being in any platonic relationship with a woman.

The major issue now is I still masturbate and do it whenever I am sexually aroused instead of sexual intercourse with a woman. I have been battling with this self-imposed problem of mine that I am now left with no option but to seek your counsel.

I want to know if masturbation affects a man's potency of impregnating a woman. If yes, please advice me on any possible solution to adopt to stop it.

If no, is it more advisable to continue with masturbation and let go of women for now, knowing what it would cost me to have a woman at this defining moment of my life? I stop masturbation whenever I am in a sexual relationship with a woman irrespective of the number of times we have sex. That I have a woman by my side is enough for me for me to stop the act.

Not minding the number of times I have sex with the girl. Please help me, as I don't want to ruin my future. 

Confused Man.

 

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Dear Confused Man,

What you need is determination to stop the act. If it is any help, a lot of men and women are going through this experience. At one time or the other, a lot of people have engaged in this act: some out of curiosity, others a combination of fear of the consequences of having premarital sex as well as inability to control one’s desires.

It happens to the very best of us. So don’t be so condemning or hard on yourself because such negative conclusions would make it almost impossible for you to have the right frame of mind to view things objectively.

Whatever reasons one may have for going into it, if not properly managed, could have far-reaching implication on one’s ability to have a normal satisfying relationship with one’s spouse.

While doctors say, it is a healthy habit and could help couples improve on their sex life, the caution is that it could also destroy it if a partner gets more satisfaction in self-stimulation, and it becomes harder for anybody to be able to do it right with him or her.

This is the inherent danger in self-stimulation. When you watch a blue film or read pornographic materials, the result is arousal. It would take a heart of steel not to get stimulated reading or watching those kinds of materials or films. The reason is simple, we all have our origins from the act of sex, so deep down it is there, the awareness of whom we are, the primitive reason we are on earth, and our total essence in life is laced with sex. If we must procreate, we must have sex. If we have to fulfill our essence, we must have children to carry on our legacies as well as dreams.

And since we are told the world is loaned to us, we have to keep having sex to produce children and to give them a better world where the dreams of more children can be fulfilled.

So, going through sexual materials only serve to remind us of whom we are and our major assignment on earth. This is the reason most people get aroused and not necessarily because they are sexually deprived or dirty minded as some people assume.

The major issue here is not your masturbation but your apparent inability to control your urges. You must first of all battle to put your urges under control because your inability to means you have a deep rooted psychological problem, more than what you are saying.

Beyond what you have said, is there any reason why you seem unable to control your urges at the sight of a woman? Think, is this the real reason you are avoiding women and not the issue of your being able to concentrate on your studies as you have led yourself to think?

To be able to tackle a problem, you must be willing to admit to the truth. What is the real truth concerning your sexuality?

If it remains just a matter of masturbation, avoiding materials as well as thoughts on the matter would help to an extent. Furthermore, being in your final year and at 25, you are matured enough to handle a relationship without it affecting your studies. Her presence is not to help reduce your sexual burdens but as a part of process to make you responsible to yourself. Responsibility means being able to resist some actions, utterances, urges that are not in line with expected behavioral norms. It is natural for a man or woman to desire a member of the opposite sex but totally unacceptable to embarrass that person with all the visible signs of one’s desire. Such signs have only one place of exhibition, the bedroom, if the conditions are acceptable to the other person.

You cannot continue to avoid interaction with women simply because you cannot control your urges. If you keep giving this as an excuse, it goes to show a complete lack of sincerity on your part.

Sincerity is the only weapon of help you have. You must use it effectively to maneuver yourself out of this issue. If you are unable to take effective charge of your feelings now, what assurances do you have that the self-control you cannot exercise now; you can when you get married?

It doesn’t just happen. Besides, you won’t be fair to yourself because your attitude didn’t start today. It took you several years to get to this point so you must give yourself some time to erase from your life.

Besides, this is something you cannot do on your own. You need a friend, a trustworthy female friend to help overcome this situation. She has to be a woman who is caring, understanding and very supportive.

Importantly, you need the help of God to win this battle.

Good luck. 

What Should I Do About My Cheating Husband?

Dear Agatha, 

I need help. I am married and my husband lived a very careless life in the past. He had so many girlfriends before we got married.

When we got married, he promised to change from his old ways. I believed him even though I still had my doubts considering that most married men are having one affair or the other.

However, giving this allowance didn’t mean I was ready to share him with another woman or expected him to go into an affair with another woman.

Prepared psychologically as I was of the possibility of him going back on his words, I didn’t find it funny.

Unknown to my husband, I was already aware of his extramarital affairs because I was always in the habit of using his phone to send text messages or make distant calls to my friends and family members in Nigeria from where I joined him in the United States after we got married. Besides, since I wasn’t working, I still rely on him for money so cannot effectively manage my own phone if I have to call home regularly.

One day, he gave me his phone to read a text message from my aunt. As I searched to read the message, I noticed some strange text messages he sent to certain numbers. Initially, I ignored the first, only for me to notice a second message for another number. This time, my curiosity got the better of me so I read the messages. It was similar but different invitations from him to two girls. In the messages, he asked which hotel they were to meet. He also begged them to pick his calls as he desired to make them his. He promised to take good care of them. 

I felt so disturbed. He deleted those messages from his phone. His work involves working at night so I started monitoring his calls, only to discover that he calls two other women at around 11.30 p.m. almost on a daily basis. 

I guess he sometimes forgets to delete the numbers from his dialed and received calls because when he comes home I would always view his call list.

The disturbing part of it all they will call his cell phones at home during the weekends; his day off and he would immediately tell me he wants to take our five-month-old baby for a walk something he seldom does unless as a camouflage to reply the calls.

Agatha, imagine him forgetting my birthday for the second time since we got married. Even when I was in Nigeria, he never for once forgot my birthday.     

I really need your help, because I am so confused. I don't know whether to call those girls and have a chat with them or to confront my husband. I would have confronted him but one big problem we always have is that he refuses to listen whenever I talk to him. He thinks he knows it all and that I should never question his authority. He feels that whenever I ask him about anything; I am questioning his authority as well as attempting to control him. This is fallout of his past experiences with girls and stories his friends tell him about women controlling their husbands.

I need your help. I do believe in God for everything but I need someone to really help me out.

Confused Wife.

 

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Dear Confused Wife,

You don’t have any business with these girls because if your husband didn’t create the opportunity for them to be part of his life, they wouldn’t have been present.

To call them is to cheapen your position as the woman at home as well as advertise your insecurity.

Besides, confronting the girls could lead to several problems for you because you really don’t have anything substantial that can stand the test of time in defending your suspicions. Those calls as well as text messages are perishables because once they are deleted they cease to serve their purpose of being exhibits. So, these girls and your husband can turn round to accuse you of embarrassing them as well as of unlawful accusations. Your husband could turn round too to deny knowledge of such things without concrete proof on your part. If you don’t handle the issue very well, you could end up being the one made to apologise for the matrimonial crime he is committing. He could also use your out-pour to unveil his yet to be visible agenda.

Therefore, it is in your interest to play it cool and resist the temptation of engaging any of these girls in any form of conversation. They should be kept out of whatever efforts you make in getting your husband to respect his vows to you.

Also, you cannot be sure he is dating these two girls at the same time going by the time you claim he calls them. Would he be dating these girls at the same time; meeting them at the same hotel, at the same time? For that matter what are his sexual preferences?

You can only tackle what you know. What do you know about the man you married beyond his exotic tastes for women?

What you should do is to confront your husband the next time you come across such messages before he remembers to delete them. When it comes to saving a marriage, fear should be eliminated because the more you are imprisoned by fear; the more damage is allowed to reign in the marriage.

Doubtless, you must at all times accord your husband every respect he deserves as the head of your home. This isn’t the same thing as fear. Fear is destructive and could eventually lead to the collapse of the union because it would lead you to a point in which you can no longer endure the situation and consequently lead to violent eruption in the end.

His reception to your query would depend on how you handle it. To get a husband off an affair, the wife must learn to be humble as well as put certain things in place. First, you must begin by doing a thorough self-appraisal. On a scale of 1:10, what is your love life like? For a man who is used to a variety of women, what exciting alternative do you have to keep him by your side? As a matter of necessity, you must improve on your act. Like I always say, be your husband’s prostitute; you have a licence for it; don’t pretend or be outraged by whatever engages his passion in the bedroom. If you don’t do it, there are countless other women who are willing to take your place and do it. So, don’t waste precious time worrying about those other girls; they are not worth your time.

An addiction is something that cannot be buried within a day. It takes a gradual process and a lot of incentives to get a person off the hook. That he promised to remain faithful to you doesn’t mean he can do it effortlessly. He also needs your love through unconditional understanding, care, support, patience, respect, responsibility, loyalty, endurance as well as plenty of prayers.

Cook good food for him, find out what excites him about other women, dress to fit the part of his mistress, he has to be reminded that you are a woman and still has what it takes to be beautiful and attractive to him.

You have to make him want you in every way possible so much so you would be the only woman engaging his thoughts. Send him text messages; woo him with your body, gifts, neat and peaceful home, premium sex, quality companionship as well as unconditional friendship. Use the advantage of being his wife to make it work for you.

It is only after you have invested all these you can bring up the matter of how much he hurt you with his relationship with these girls.

Above all, learn to pray with all your heart. Pray as if it is going out of fashion. Matrimonial issues like this are best fought on one’s knees, not through a physical means. You will never win without the presence and support of God. Use His wisdom and knowledge to discover all the secret things about your husband. If you know how to link God, all these girls would become past issue.

Good luck.  

Love Her But Madness Runs In Her Family

Dear Agatha,

Early last year, I got engaged to this lady I have dated for close to six years. Being much older than her, I could easily afford to pay her school fees. And I gladly did that throughout her university education.

Her parents had wanted her to attend a polytechnic due to financial reasons but since I could afford to pay her fees, I encouraged her to go for a university education instead.

We were to marry immediately after her NYSC programme last year but we couldn’t make the Easter date because her elder brother was seriously ill at the time.

It was a protracted one as it later developed into a mental case. Being practically like the breadwinner in the family, I provided most of the funds for his medical bills.

His sickness took us through several processes including that of visiting spiritualists. We finally got a cure in one of these homes and it was here we were told that it was something that would keep recurring in the male children of the family whether these males come from their sons or daughters. According to the spiritualist, it has no antidote and is something they must all go through if they are to live. My father-in-law who happens to be the only surviving child of the family admitted having been told of a similar thing in the past.

Unfortunately for me, my elder sister was with us when the spiritualist said this. As a matter of fact she was the one that took us to the place.

On hearing this, she went straight to our aged parents to tell them that the woman I plan to bring into the family has a curse which would make all their grandchildren by me go mad. Being their eldest son and only surviving son, my parents have forbidden me not to bring this woman home again to them.

My sister didn’t stop at telling them, she has also gone to my girl’s family to warn them to keep their daughter away from me.

There is nothing I have not done to make her change her mind or my parents for that matter but my mother says the day I go back to my girlfriend is the day she would die.

I don’t want my mother to die because she is very precious to me but I also happen to love my girlfriend with my entire heart.

I am in a fix. Our wedding was planned for December but with the way things are, nothing may happen.

My problem is further complicated because she is almost three months pregnant. I really don’t know what to do with my mother and my girlfriend threatening to kill each other if I don’t do things their different ways. This girl is very faithful, honest and has all the qualities I have ever wanted in a woman. She gives me peace and understands me most times more than I do myself. Besides, since she came into my life, I have experienced tremendous progress. Her coming unlocked so many progressive doors for me.

I am so confused and helpless about everything. Much as I love her, I don’t want to have mentally unstable children.

Paul.

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Dear Paul,

What is your relationship with God like? Do you belief in Him at all or the fact that there is nothing He cannot do? He is the author of everything, here on Earth and in Heaven. All powers bow to Him. Nothing escapes His knowledge and only allows most things happen to glorify His name in our lives.

We perish due to lack of knowledge and appreciation of who our God is. If you are in the right wavelength with God, you will know without being told that there is no problem under heaven that has no antidote because all powers and weapons used by the kingdom of darkness submit to the names and potency of God, the alpha and omega.

Your mother doesn’t have to die because you desire to marry the woman of your choice. All she has to understand and appreciate is that where God resides, no power of darkness can prevail. Assure your parents that they would have healthy grandchildren, ones they would always be proud of and that whatever powers that hold the family of your girlfriend captive, can be defeated by the mere mention of Jesus Christ.

But for you to convince her, you must have a relationship first with God. You must have an encounter with Him personally to appreciate that there is nothing He cannot do or problem He has no answer to.

First make peace with God by praying to Him and asking to be forgiven of all your sin. There after, recognise and accept Him as your God before asking for Help in your affairs. Entrusting Him with this problem means He would send you to the right persons He has prepared to help you overcome this challenge.

Your solution cannot come from persons who know what the problem is but have no knowledge of what to do. If the spiritualist were that powerful, he or she wouldn’t have dashed your hope of a chance to be happy by telling you this problem has no solution.

This is what happens when one goes to the wrong source for a solution. You end up more confused and with a larger container of issues, which never were before.

If your sister had taken you to a real man of God, not only would the source of the problem be revealed by the spirit of God, but the ways to break whatever covenant entered into by their ancestors.

To have told you it has no cure is to admit to failure in the diagnoses as well as lack of competence to do what he or she is doing.

Competence comes from knowledge and willingness to defend it at all times.

What your woman and her family need is a strong deliverance session. We all come with different foundational problems. Yours may be worse than hers but through the blood of Jesus yokes get broken and freedom given to those whose fate and progress have been imprisoned by certain human beings.

Only a higher power can eject these powers our ancestors or some of us go to unknowingly. In most cases these powers get invited into families out of ignorance. Someone from their past may have done this out of desperation or some wicked people did it to stigmatise them out of envy. Unless God speaks His words of supremacy into the situation, such powers never let go.

If you love this girl as you claim to and the fact that she is already carrying your baby; concern yourself with helping her and her family get out of this spiritual dilemma. This is something you have to do on your own.

Involving your sister or friends could cause more complications, as things said during these deliverance sessions may be amplified to create further mischief for you.

While the deliverance is taking place, enmesh yourself in prayers and fasting to complete the process as well as to get your parents to soften their hard-line posture.

Because of the forces involved, you cannot win this battle on your own or rely on physical wisdom. The forces too could come from your own side; a force determined to deny you joy and peace with the woman God has ordained for you.

These forces also know with her by your side, the sky is just your starting point hence are determined to use whatever forces abide in her side of the family to force you into leaving her so that they can effectively lock all the doors her peculiar luck seems to have opened for you.

For this reason, you must be extremely careful you don’t end up losing more than the woman.

It takes more than mere proclamation for true love to happen. Love is about selflessness and belief in that special thing which is not seen but felt deep in the heart.

What is the character of your love for this girl? Love takes more than physical investment to giving of that thing which is priceless to you. Had you married her before the medical condition of her brother became manifest, would you or your family have asked her to go? Would you have divorced her on account of you not wanting your children to inherit the same spiritual problem?

Now that she is pregnant, what happens to that child? Would your family insist on rejecting the baby as well as its mother?

For you to be the only surviving son of your family also shows yours isn’t a family without spiritual challenges which if investigated by ordained men of God could be worse than the one this girl and her family are being prosecuted for by your family.

Since your sister seem to have a lot of influence over your parents, still go to her and plead with her to understand your situation especially against the background of the coming baby. Let her know once again the many positive changes the presence of this girl has brought into your life and how sad you would be if she leaves.

Also let her know that you have no intentions of aborting the child and if children between you are what they are trying to prevent, it is already too late.

This is the time you must make your stand known on how much this girl means to you. To sit on the fence is to cause yourself a lot of damage and harm.

Just learn to trust God. It is all you need to be happy.

Good luck.

About Me...

Some call her the ‘love doctor’, others describe her as an ‘authoritative life support’, yet to thousands of newspaper and magazine readers within and outside Nigeria, she is simply ‘Auntie Agatha’. Agatha Edo is an award-winning relationship advisor, life coach, columnist and conference speaker whose influence spans over 20 years of superior advice to innumerable groups of people. Or how else does one describe a career that has seen her take delivery of over 50,000 letters in just five years?


From a humble beginning as a columnist (Share A Problem) with Punch newspapers, Agatha’s passion for helping people overcome personal and relationship challenges led her to Daily Independent newspapers where her column assisted the latter clinch the prestigious NMMA Newspaper of The Year Award twice within three years.


Her desire to translate her passion for Relationship and Life Management from print to live consulting, several years ago, resulted in the birth of SHARE A PROBLEM CONSULT. Since its inception, this volunteer organisation has effectively counselled over 10,000 people from all walks of life. SHARE A PROBLEM CONFERENCE, the relationship/life management summit she hosts, boasts of overflowing capacity halls.

Auntie Agatha has several recognitions and awards to her name. Just recently, she won the Uncommon Man Role Model Award for 2008.

Testimonials

Uzo wrote:

Dear Agatha,

You published my article on June 15.

My father eventually allowed me to travel to Ghana to visit my husband through the help of my uncle that came to visit us.

I am glad I went to Ghana because my husband was almost a stranger to me. I really appreciate your words of advice.

Thanks.

Click here for the original article.

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Charles Tade wrote:

Dear Agatha,

I must confess you are a God sent. We have heard so much of Oprah and Dr. Phil, but I can tell you from my personal experience that they are not doing half of what you are doing to keep together thousands of homes and distress souls.

I cannot imagine how you accumulate all this wisdom. You published my concern on the above topic few weeks back, and I can tell you that putting all your advice into play, things have really changed in my home for good.

To start with, I took my wife on romantic ocean cruise holiday for 10 days, even though we went with the kids, we were able to secure the help of my mother-in-law to mind the kids while we escaped to have some quality time together. It was at that point we both realised that the tension we are having is due to the long time we put into work as well as the care of the home without allocating time for the two people that matter most in a home, us. We realised that though we were living under the same roof, we had created a wide gap between ourselves.

I am glad to report that things have really improved between us after the holidays. Actually, the best holiday we have had in four years and plan to carve out specific time for ourselves and arrange for more holidays in months to come.

Thank you for all your help to humanity, and hope you keep doing what you know best. I will love to catch up with you whenever I am in the country, it will be a wonderful thing to meet you in person. Planning on coming home in a few months time. Once again, thank you.

Click here for the original article.

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Three Babies Gone At Birth Over My Man’s Pre-marital Deals

Dear Agatha,

I need urgent help. Five years ago, I met my husband. Right from the first day, I knew he was the right man for me. Although a lot of people kicked against our relationship on the premise I was too innocent for his wild ways, I was determined to go ahead with the relationship.

It wasn’t long for me to know he was a chronic womaniser not because he kept dating them but as a result of the number of hostile females I had to contend with. Our first year together was tough as many of his ex-girlfriends fought tooth and nail to get him back.

One of them was particularly hostile. She employed all sorts of tricks to ensure we went our different ways. But we were able to defend our love as well as protect it from all the different challenges we were encountering.

We got married two years after we met. I got pregnant almost immediately but I lost the child at birth. The same thing happened with our second and third children. I always lose them during labour.

When it happened the second time, I decided to try another doctor. The same thing happened. None of the doctors can say categorically why I kept losing my babies at birth.

My husband was always supportive assuring me that the child meant to be ours would stay but I noticed my in-laws, precisely my mother-in-law was getting impatient. When I lost my third baby she stopped short of calling me a witch. She told my husband that I was responsible for the deaths of my children because of a covenant I sealed with my spirit husband.

Initially, my husband protected my innocence but he must have yielded to his mother because I noticed tremendous negative changes in his behaviour. He became violent and took to beating me whenever I questioned the change in him. It got to a point he stopped coming home for a whole week. He also stopped giving me housekeeping money. It was his young brother staying with us that took to giving me money as well as encouraging me to stay on. When my brothers came to take me away from his house after a particularly violent attack, it was his brother who intervened on his behalf. My brothers listened to him because of the role he played during the attack. But for him, my husband would have killed me. He fought his brother on my behalf, a situation, which led to his brother and mother accusing him and I of having a relationship.

My husband insisted his brother left his house but my father in-law whose property it was insisted his younger son stayed. He also went to beg my family to ignore my husband and his mother.

According to my father-in-law, the source of my problem would soon be revealed. My people had no choice but to allow me stay on.

My fourth pregnancy was really a miracle. It happened on one of those rare moments my husband came home and practically forced me to make love with him. I didn’t want to because I was still very sore but I had no choice that night.

I didn’t even know I was pregnant until three months after. When I told him, he asked of what use is the pregnancy since I would again eat up the baby in the labour room.

I was very upset but I ignored him and instead concentrated on the prayers given me by my new pastor, a close friend of my brother-in-law. My husband wasn’t around most of the time so didn’t know when I went into labour.

He also didn’t know all the prayer warriors were with me at the hospital from the minute I went into labour. This time I didn’t have a stillbirth. The baby and I had to fast for the first 12 hours after birth. Fortunately, the medical doctor too was very religious and was around to ensure compliance.

Two hours before our 12 hours fast was to expire, I went into a sort of trance. I saw the lady who gave me the most fight of all my husband’s ex-girlfriends, come into the ward with a knife with which she intended stabbing my baby but she ran away when she saw a massive angel with a golden sword in his hands who warned her to stay away if she didn’t want her child to die.

I woke up from the trance and relayed it to my brother-in-law and the pastor who were with me in the ward. They too had seen similar visions.

The next two hours were spent praying.

I was discharged the following day and since there was no way of contacting my husband, he didn’t get to know until a day to the child’s naming ceremony when he returned purportedly from Ghana.

On the day of the ceremony, his ex-girlfriend came with a two-year-old daughter and right in the presence of everyone, she announced my husband as the father after which she became mad.

My father-in-law insisted on the ceremony and celebration going ahead.

It was after the whole ceremony; I got to know that my mother-in-law was behind the re-union of this woman and my husband after she threatened to expose my mother-in-law’s involvement with their occult world.

This lady killed my babies at birth.

But my problem now is, looking after their love child and forgiving my mother-in-law and my husband. My husband is begging forgiveness. How can I forgive him; forget how he almost killed me or how much he made me suffer for something I know nothing of? How can I look after this child without remembering all I went through in the hands of her mother? What if the spirit of her mother enters into her and she tries to harm my baby?

I am all so confused. Please help me.

Adebimpe.

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Dear Adebimpe,

Haven’t you learnt anything from this whole experience? When God fights, His victory is total. You are today a mother through His grace and mercy. A lot of women in your shoes are still under the heavy yoke of the devil because they are yet to get the type of mercy God granted you.

If God is so merciful to free you from the bondage you were placed in by the combination of your mother-in-law and this other woman, why are you fearful of anybody being capable of hurting you again?

The only thing that would prevent you from savouring this victory as well as stop this advantage you have over your enemies is not to forgive your enemies. One of the best weapons in life is to learn the art of unconditional forgiveness. Irrespective of what anybody does; the harm as well as the pains they bring into one’s life, the law of God is a simple one; forgive. It doesn’t cost a penny but gives one an enormous strength to do the incredible and be right with God.

You got this far, not because you are without sins but because God did the unusual with you; forgave you all your past sins as well as faults. Think, haven’t you done two or three things you are not proud off in the past, something you are too ashamed of, you don’t want anyone to ever get to know about?

Your mother-in-law and your husband’s ex may have caused you incredible pains, denied you of holding and nursing your three children; but think, did they really make these children die? If you know God the way you should, you will know that nobody has the powers to take life. It happens only if God allows it for a reason; yes they may have desired to hurt you in the only way they know how but only God in His unquestionable wisdom made it happen.

He did it to exalt His name in your life. Your new baby, the support of your father and brother-in-laws as well as what happened to the his ex are all patterned to give you strength as well as edge over your enemies. You didn’t do this on your own. You did through the support and glory of God.

What you owe Him is to give your support for His glory to continue to manifest in your life.

Allow the girl a place in your heart and home. She needs you now that she has lost her mother and stability. Remember she is an innocent party in all of these. She didn’t ask to be born; she didn’t ask her mother or grandmother to do what they both did; for that matter she didn’t have a say in who became her mother or not.

So why punish her for something she or you can never change?

We can only change a present and future we know but not a past we have little or no control over. Many of us would have chosen different parents or relations had we the powers or say in the matter.

However, you can help give her a positive future if you invest love into her. It is the only way your fears concerning her would not materialise. She doesn’t have to have a wicked mother to harm your child if you insist on being wicked to her or treat her like house-help in her father’s house.

She would grow to become your child if you get it right from the beginning by giving her a large space in your heart to grow up, make mistakes as well as love you. I know sometimes it can be difficult to let go of some painful memories but you just must do that because it is the only option you have.

It is also the least you can do for the support and encouragement of your father and brother-in-laws. They had a choice of not supporting you but did. Though you also have the choice of being hostile and rejecting this child but do it for the sake of God whom you daily pray to.

Good luck.