GOD Comes Through
My wife usually wakes up around 2:30 AM to pray. She will quietly get up and try not to disturb my sleep. Most of the time I will hear the bedroom door gently being opened and closed when she’s heading to the living room. I am not the easiest guy to be married to, and I know my wife a lot of the time cannot deal with my anger and temperament. I am very aware of my flaws and have been trying to work on myself. I was feeling very hungry for whatever reason this specific dawn, and so I got up to go and warm leftover soup in the kitchen.
My wife had her headphones on and was seated at the dinning table, praying. I went to the kitchen, put the soup on fire, lowered the heat and returned to our bedroom to relax on the bed. I didn’t realize when or how but I had dozed off. The next thing I heard was my wife screaming and calling out my name. I woke up inhaling intense smoke coming from the hallway. Flames. Sparks gushing from the kitchen. Our house was on fire and my wife and kids had already run out, screaming for help.
I brought a baggage of insecurities into our marriage that my wife found it very difficult to address because I would always be on the defense. To the extent that I had failed to even admit I had left soup on fire and gone back to sleep. I couldn’t take the blame. By the time the fire truck arrived, our house had burnt down. We lost everything. Dave, my hands were literally on my head while I cried out. I was still barefooted walking from one edge of our compound to the other.
My daily routine suddenly had changed. I was now officially bent on worrying every day about how we were going to start all over again. I would leave our early morning quiet time feeling encouraged by the word of God explained by my wife. My wife takes the bible to its word, she ends up always boosting my confidence in God, but my mid-day, the worries had returned. Man was afraid. Man was in doubt. Man had lost hope. Man couldn’t forgive himself for being reckless. Man couldn’t tell his wife the truth about the soup he left on fire.
Fast forward to five months later. I received a phone call from an unknown number. He was a former school mate. He used to eat from my chop box. We were good friends. He had heard about my incident and wanted us to meet for lunch at his house. The moment he saw me approaching his car, he smiled. I couldn’t smile back but he kept smiling. He put his arm around my shoulder and called me by my nickname. That forced a light smile out of me.
“You look like you haven’t eaten for 30 years. Are you hungry?” he asked. I wasn’t. I just needed money and to be left alone. “You know you’re going to be fine?” he kept whispering, calmly and quietly. I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. I lost everything that dawn in the fire. Everything that mattered to me. “But you didn’t lose your wife and children. Those are the important people that matter” he spoke. I got to later find out he owned a construction company and the four-bedroom house we were standing in front of was one of the properties he had built to put on the market. He waved the keys in my face, made another silly joke about my posture before handing it over to me.
“God spoke to me. He instructed me to remember you. He has been guiding my decisions. This particular prompting didn’t make sense to me. But he said he had made a promise to your wife. God says he keeps his promises. He says your wife has waited on him for long, and he has to come through for her. Welcome to your new home.”
Some jokes we know are expensive. This wasn’t one of them. Who would have thought a simple act of kindness that happened in Secondary School, 29 years ago, from Form 1 to Form 3; allowing this poor kid to be eating whatever he wanted from my chop box because I had more than enough could create a positive impact on his life. I thought I only was deriving life satisfaction and fulfilment from seeing a friend get fed and feeling thankful. My aid meant nothing to me. It was simply a small gesture but it made a difference in improving his situation. His aid towards me and my family in our time of need made a big difference in our lives. It’s good to know there are still good people left in this world who are willing to come through for others in need of their assistance.
Image Credit: Andrey Karpov
