LOVE THAT STICKS TO THE END

 

I never knew that life could be dark and beautiful,
that there is always sunshine after a heavy downpour. Yesterday was the reign of gloom in my marital life. Things got so bad that my husband absconded his family of four, he started by keeping late nights and unexplainable absence, I swallowed all these pranks with the dignity of an African woman.

My husband deserted not just the home, but me. Respectfully, I have beckoned on him to see the need of creating time for me and our three beautiful children and the important of them growing up with a father’s air beside them. “Do you want to tell me that I am not a responsible father? Aren’t you grateful that I picked you from your father’s house?” he would always bark. Not quiet long I discover that my husband’s heart was in the hands of another ‘African queen.’ The positive turns in his financial life necessitated this development. 

As the days went on, I got clearer revelations about this marital mess of his through his long strange calls, soul melting romantic text messages and strange attitudes with strange women. But how could it be? When I have given him my all just to ensure that we conquer the storms that flooded our parts, but how could men be this callous? I have sacrificed my all; money, time, opportunities and life to ensure it works out between us, after all these, all I gain as premium for my investment in the nest of love is abandonment. 

This is four years going, without him taking me to bed as his women though I am in my prime he allows this youthful hue glittering on my skin to waste away. He said it is a punishment for my uninvited intrusion in his marital digression. He often says that he knows I cannot look for sexual satisfaction outside the bonds of our matrimonial bed because of my faith as a Christian. And truly as a child of God, redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus, I can’t pay back evil for evil. 

Silently and lonely, for this long, I yearned for the romantic warm of a man’s embrace and touch. I mean that soul melting moments on your matrimonial mat with the man you vow to spend the rest of your life with. At each of these longings, my mind meanders to the beautiful promises we shared of love unbroken and unending, most heart melting reminder is his figurative representation of me as ‘‘flower in the garden’’ before my parents and relatives, on our traditional wedding day, just look what he has turned the ‘‘flower in the garden’’ to, indeed the sting of a man is more than a scorpion’s. It is only time that can prove the intents of man’s heart. 

Friends, relatives and my natural instincts advised me to go for the usual – a divorce. This rang so deep and long in my breast, whether to yield to this voice and please self, friends and relatives or to hang on to prayer and obtain victory and shame the devil. “Casting all your cares on him, for he careth for you.” These comforting words of the Holy Scripture reminded me that there is hope and answer for the bending knees. So, I hung on to God through prayer and faith. 

Praise the Lord! He answers prayers. It was on a raining evening that I saw him walking slowly like a chameleon back home, but where was his car and all his belongings? For three months he was aloof. However, he kept walking slowly and shamefacedly towards the balcony with a note to me and his children with the inscription “HIV/AIDS positive. I am sorry, please, forgive me”. 

Haa! my heart skipped with sorrow, now I know why he was walking with covered face. But God what should I do with a dead corpse? Why do you choose to answer in this way? Why answer now that he is gone? All my husband could say was “please forgive me; please forgive me, my Darling” swiftly like a current; the vows I made at the altar flooded my mind “for better or worse, in sickness and in health.”

Hmmm! I forgave him, and gave him a hug and a passionate kiss that showed how much I love and missed him. I forgave him, because God through Christ Jesus has forgiven me. Thank God he has come back home after six years of wandering fare. As the sun wakes and retires back to bed, his condition grew worst, his flesh sagged but his soul resonated with a diamond love for his family. Then I knew how much he truly loved and missed us. We all stood by him in this trying moments of his last sojourn on earth. He surrendered to the love I gave him.

At this point, I told him that there is someone who loves him better than I do. “Who could that be?” he asked. It is Jesus. He loves you, needs you, he love and die for you. You know I can’t die for you but Jesus died for you. I told him prayerfully, day after day until he acknowledges that “Jesus is Lord”. 

Three days after accepting Christ as his personal Lord and Savior, he slept peacefully in the Lord on a busy Monday morning with a calm disposition of a soul that has tasted the living water from the fountain of grace. 

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