When we pray in secret, God, who listens in secret, answers us in secret. We did not become rich, but we could at least sleep with full stomachs. That made a huge difference. From sleeping with an empty stomach to having all three meals of the day every day is quite a blessing. At least with my naked eyes I could see God do something about my family situation. But still, I was angry with God and people, yet I wore a smile every day just to get them off my case.

Not that I needed to be rich. No. All I needed was to be able to afford my needs. I believe we go through whatever we go through because God is making us testimonies. There is a difference between someone who is a testimony and someone who has got a testimony. But there was one problem I had with being a testimony… and that was going through the fire.

I knew that I had to go through whatever I went through in order to be a testimony. But for someone who grew up having it tough, the flame of fire was more than enough. It was unbearable though jumping out was never an option. Not that I never thought about it though.

I thought about it more often, especially when things were going up-hill, when the fire was getting hotter. It felt like I was melting. Especially when my intellectual life started turning into something I never planned nor expected, all because of family. Not that I blame them though. We may plan but God has the last word.

So everything was His perfect plan though I never understood the how part of it. My family always fought with me about beliefs and mingled it with everything. Everything that was happening in my life, they would say it is because of my belief. According to them, I was bewitched. Our belief systems were so different and unfortunately, my life was made a living hell because of that. And well, who am I to have expected my family to be perfect? All families have disagreements.

If there was ever a day I was mostly hurt, is the day my family and I had a disagreement. It was on the 5th day of January in 2013. Just a day before my birthday. On that day, my mom said to me, “Should I have known that you were going to be like this, I could have aborted you.”

Then my brother said, “You must pack your bags and leave this house. Go die wherever you go and be buried there, you dog. And mom, if she happens to die, don’t call me because I don’t want to waste my money coming to her burial. Go die and be buried there.”

My sister added, “Because of this, your belief, you will feel like you are not loved or appreciated. We will not offer you any kind of help when you need it because you are isolating yourself.”

My brother once again said, “If you think we will apologise for saying what we said, dream on. You will never finish school, not to mention getting a decent job, just because you don’t listen to us. You should be doing as we say. You are a child. We should be playing the strings whilst you do the dancing.”

All that, simply because I returned a tithe, my heart was pierced with words. It is actually surprising how people can release curses with their own mouths before understanding things. Well, we can never change people. People change only when they are willing to. So no matter what you say or do to people, if they are not willing to change, they never will.

That day I was totally hurt. I had the bitterest birthday of my life that year. Though my birthday was never a big deal to anybody in my family but myself. It was like any other day. But it is life. After all, what can one say? I cried a river that night. I wondered how on earth could anyone say things like that to another human being? Do they not have hearts? Do these people have feelings?

Those were the questions in my mind. They did what they did not thinking it was wrong.

I never cried like that in my entire life. And they unbelievably did not care whether I cried water or blood, a river or an ocean. From the day I opened my eyes to the reality of life, pain welcomed me. I embraced it without realising. I grew up in it. It watched me grow. I embraced it because I had no choice.

My years became years of nothing but tears. I spent most of my time weeping. But even if we cry, I came to realise that there should always be time to stop and listen. Keep quiet and make decisions with a sound mind. Not with a clattered one but a relaxed one.

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Tell us: Do you think it was right of her family to talk to her the way they did?