I give this testimony to the glory of God and to the shame of the enemy and declare that what the Lord has done is permanent IJN.
I am very grateful to God for His faithfulness, and thankful to Pastor Helen Folakemi Ajimati who was by my side every step of the way believing that my husband’s deliverance this time will be complete. May God bless you abundantly Sis, you have taught me what it means to travail in prayer, to pray until we see the answer and my prayer is to be able to stand with someone like you did with me.
On the 31st Dec before when I arrived at my church for the watch-night service, I was in the midst of my personal prayer time with the Lord, as I prayed, I heard myself say “Lord if you fix my marriage, I will testify of your goodness and will use my story to be a blessing to others” – This is why I am testifying to the glory of God.
My story is a very long one that cannot be fitted into a five minute slot so I will try to summarise and pray that God will translate this in the minds that need to hear it to bring about healing and transformational change in Jesus name.
I had gotten to a stage in my marriage where I had done all that I knew how to do, I had prayed, stopped praying, fasted, stop fasting, fought, kept malice, used silent treatment, sulked, used emotional blackmail and the list goes on to change my husband but still I was not getting the desired result on a permanent basis.
During this challenging time in my marriage, I was still speaking to God quietly but I just didn’t have the answer to this dilemma, so many times I would beat myself up by saying maybe I shouldn’t have married him, perhaps God is punishing my disobedience and often times, I heard God say that His grace was sufficient for me but I didn’t want grace I wanted a solution, I wanted things the way I believed they were supposed to be, the way I wanted him to be!
Fast forward to 2012, at this point, we were still living “amicably” together but things had now gotten really bad and I have had enough and I was certain that he had had enough as well. He would come to me and try to talk to see if we can find a way through this mess, he would say if we continue this way, it is the kids that will suffer but even that conversation would usually end up in an argument as no one was prepared to give in. We were both hurt, both right in our own eyes and both determined to stand our grounds. It was somewhere at this point that i shared my story with Pastor Helen and she took up my case in prayer, she will pray with me and for me and share revelations with me which at the time I really could not see the light at the end of the tunnel. She will say that the Lord wants to save this man completely and that i had to stand with God. I believed Sis but sometimes her words were like Greek, so difficult to fathom; but i kept listening and obeying and praying and crying. I don’t know how sis coped with me because sometimes i will just call her and rant on and she will just listen to me and always give me a word of encouragement.
It now got to a point where my husband started getting verbally abusive, he resulted to calling me names, anything to hurt my feelings and it worked.
Back to that evening in 2012, we had a row, not even sure what the row was about but afterwards I stormed out of the house and sat in my car and told God – Okay THAT IS IT. I GIVE UP, I told God that my mum used to say to us that, the calabash you put in God’s hands never breaks and the plates we give Him never rips. So I handed over this calabash and plate called my husband to God, I completely washed my hands off the situation, I removed my hands as I had reached the end – I was exhausted!! I had reached the end of my tether, I was finished, I had tried and I had done all I knew how to do, I was exhausted and I didn’t have the strength to continue, I had now hit the wall and no more space to move, I was DONE!. It was during that period that Pastor Helen will say “ you can’t operate at his level, you have to rise above this name calling and not say anything”. I remember the Lord asking me not to say a word anymore during a confrontation so I became mute. He also asked me not to answer my husband another word in an argument and I didn’t. This time I only watched to see what was unfolding before me and boy did things unfold.
Come 2013 Dec as stated, I heard myself gave that vow during my private prayer time that if God sorted my marriage that I would testify, I knew that was God speaking back in 2013 as it is so not like me to air my dirty linen in public. We got to church and Pastor confirmed the same word.
God said to me, there will be a transformation but my mind couldn’t comprehend that there could be one, people around me supported me and I am eternally grateful for that, but even they had had enough and would say to me “I will support you in any decision you make” I had never heard that before which confirmed to me that my marriage could truly be over. Only Pastor Helen stood with me believing for a total turnaround, it got to a point she asked me “what do you see”? I truthfully couldn’t see what i was supposed to be seeing but she kept saying to me after the pain was gradually better that i had to start seeing things the way God sees it. As much as I wanted to make the decision of divorce, something kept nudging me to say that God has a bigger plan for us.
When you have lived with something for so long, you start to believe that things won’t change and you start to say perhaps this is the way things will always be.
My husband left the family home early last year 2014, I was left to deal with a lot of my stored up emotions, – rejection, hurt, shame, resentment, betrayal, emptiness, anger, frustration, unforgiveness – name it and I felt it. I would kneel down to pray and God will ask me to intercede for my husband and his salvation, he said if I cannot intercede for the life of my own family member how would I be able to pray for the people He is bringing to me? I will wail in God’s presence because of the pain I was experiencing, because of the battle in my mind, it just didn’t add up, how can a hurt person continue in intercession for the person who hurt them and I will ask God – how can I pray for someone like this and He will say to me – This is the price that Christ paid for us all that while we were yet sinners, He died for us. I soon realised that what I was going through was not about me, it was bigger than me, God was birthing something new in me and I needed to go through this experience. I kept drifting out of belief and doubt but I kept myself in the assembly of the saints. As the months went by, the pain got better, I began to let go of the emotions and started to see purpose, even when others could not see that there could be light at the end of the tunnel, I chose to see God and the cross. He led me through this season with prayer. He would literally give me prayer points to pray and I now know that what I was praying was being manifested in the life of my husband back in Nigeria where he was without me knowing. God was also dealing with his heart.
I am here today to the glory of God and the shame of the enemy, after eight months of separation from my husband, eight months of uncertainty, eight months of not knowing whether my marriage was over, eight months of trusting God when you don’t even know if what God is saying is even possible. Eight months of intense pain where the only thing that made sense was the word God gave me about a year before things got really bad and I couldn’t understand the meaning of the scripture, little did I know that He was preparing me for events that make me afraid? He gave me “ so do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.11 “All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish.12 though you search for your enemies, you will not find them. Those who wage war against you will be as nothing at all. 13 For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear; I will help you.” (Isaiah 41:10-13″
He came back home after eight months and God used a completely different strategy to get his attention. Time will not permit me to go into detail but my husband is back in the home now to the Glory of God, the Lord has brought me a brand new man, even I have to pinch myself and ask if this is for real. Not only has he changed but I have also changed, I have learnt what it means to be respectful and I am no longer afraid to show vulnerability. You know when you pray about something for so long that when it finally happens, you begin to doubt your own miracle? Sometimes I still look out to see if the old man will come out but indeed old things have now passed away and all things are new. God has delivered him completely. To the glory of God, I now realise after 26 years of being together that marriage is indeed a work in progress – there are no perfect marriages. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I don’t have my marriage down on my list of what I want God to do in the New Year. I truly believe God took me on this journey to teach me how to love which I believe is the greatest gift we can give to anyone.
