S.I.M.S Episode 30
(STEPPING INTO MAGGIE’S SHOE)
©️ Opeyemi Ojerinde Akintunde
On seeing Gabriel, something stirred up on my inside and no other name for it than “Lust”. The temptation to flirt with him came straight to my heart as I had been deprived of affection for months, but the good voice in my head spoke to me loudly this time…
“This is a distraction tactic from the devil, rebuke the thought”
“ I rebuke you this evil thought in the name of Jesus Christ, you the Spirit of Lust catch fire in the name of Jesus Christ.” I prayed silently as I walked towards Gabriel and his mother.
“ Mrs Beecroft, good morning, please Gabriel can not be in this meeting with us, it is strictly for women…” I said affirmatively trying humanly possible not to have eye contact with Gabriel.
“ Women?, What do you mean?, I thought this meeting was between you and I alone, that explains why I brought Gabriel with me, in case you have plans to kill me…” She said with so much arrogance
“ Well, I have no intentions of doing such, this Meeting is for about 7 of us” I said as I was determined to see to it that Gabriel left us. Mrs Beecroft peeped into the compound at the different cars parked by the women.
“ Ok then!” Mrs Beecroft said as she discharged her son to stay outside in the car. Gabriel wanted to say something to me, but I noticed he restrained himself.
“Better!” I said to myself
We both stepped into the house.
There was the usual exchange of pleasantries among the women which was obviously hypocritical, At about 10:22am , I took the stage.
“I want to appreciate everyone of you for supporting us in the church, thank you for the show of exemplary leadership in the church, but painfully I have realized that we all are far from who we present ourselves to be.
Please I will crave your indulgence to please watch these video…”
I switched on the T. V, and played Pastor Maggie’s confession video. I started with Mrs Beecroft’s Sex video with my husband. Mrs Beecroft jumped from her seat…
“ You are wicked!, Why couldn’t you call me privately, instead of making a public show of me……..” She said weeping profusely but to her surprise she noticed the other women were not condemning her, some of them had their heads bowed in shame, while others paced around.
I didn’t reply her, instead I played the other video. It came as a shock to all the six women that Apostle was actually sleeping with all of them. Each one of them had thought she was the only one.
“ This is bad, This is bad!” Mrs Beecroft said as she kept lamenting
“My life and marriage will end if my husband sees this” said one of the women
“ My In- laws will finish me!” Said another
“ My children will never forgive me” said another
“ My Husband will kill me and kill himself, if he sees this” the woman who had visited the toilet over 5 times in less than 5 minutes said as she was sweating profusely.
At that point, I knew this was this best time to strike, like the adage that states “It is good to strike while the iron is hot”
“ No one has to see this, if we decide to do the right thing!” I said
“ Pastor Happy, please we beg you, please don’t expose this” Mrs Beecroft and the others took turns in kneeling in front of me, apologizing…
“ Please, Have your seat, I would like us to discuss this maturely” I said
They all took their seats, though some sat on the floor while others sat at the edges of their seats.
“What has happened today has shown me that Sin thrives in secrecy, and there is a subconscious part of us that knows this is not right, I know the problem lies with my husband. He is the one that has the demonic craving, but sisters if you all did not make yourself available, that craving would have naturally died. Do you know that the reason why immorality, and unfaithfulness from married men is highly rampant is because these men have found accomplices in women. Let’s imagine if the women folk decide today to eradicate affairs with married men, the desire of these men will naturally die, because there won’t be anyone available”
“ Unless they will be sleeping with dogs” said one of the women….
“ Exactly, If men do not find married women and single ladies to feed their cravings, they will come back to their senses” I said
“Honestly, I never saw myself doing this, but it was when my husband started having extra marital affairs that I decided to pay him back in his coin” the woman who had visited the toilet 5 times said
“ We can’t pay evil with evil and think good will somehow prevail, by sleeping with my husband to get back at your husband will never let God intervene in your marriage. God will see you both as unserious people” I said trying to tell her she had no excuse
“Pastor Happy, no right thinking married woman wants to commit adultery, but when she has responsibilities and unfortunately for her she is married to an irresponsible man who has also become one of her responsibilities, she has no choice than to look for help outside. I am not sleeping with Apostle for sexual satisfaction but for financial help so I can cater for my four children, husband and siblings.” the woman who said her children would not forgive her said..
“ Bible tells us that woe to those who look up to man as our help, You should have asked God for help rather than sleeping your way to get money that has its roots in sin” I said…
“I am sorry, Pastor Happy, My Husband doesn’t like and have time for love making, which is hard on me, because of my past. Before I became a Christian, I was a call girl, my sexual drive has always been high. I had come to Apostle for Counselling on the matter, it was during the Counselling Session Apostle made a joke about helping my husband out. Pastor Happy, that is how and why your husband and I have been together for 8 years” Mrs Beecroft said
“Our desires can be subjected to the HolySpirit, Mrs Beecroft you could have told God about your desires and about your husband’s disposition to it, God is the one who created us, he can reduce your sexual drive and increase your husband a little in a way you both will be on the same Level sexually”…. I said
Another lady was about to give her own excuse, but I cut her short as I was not doing all this for confession sake, I had a motive…
“ My sisters, this meeting was not called to humiliate you or have you make your confessions to me, rather I wanted to show you where you all have missed it, It is a sad thing that our own pastor has a problem and the women of his church are the ones adding pepper to his open sore. The amazing thing about God is that God might be giving His servant a long rope, but what about us who are aiding him in his act, do we have that length of rope of Grace?….
Pastor Maggie thought she could expose the decay of her husband, but she didn’t live to tell the story. That tells me something which is written in the scripture “God is not after the destruction or disgrace of a sinner but repentance”. Therefore, I don’t intend disclosing this material to anyone, but rather I want you all to retrace your steps back to God and help our pastor by being unavailable to him” I said
At that point, I could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in the room, as my sitting room became a small revival ground, the 6 women laid on the ground weeping and asking God for Mercy….
Together, we wept and prayed. I wept because I knew I was not a saint either as I was also led by greed in the past…
We were together for up to four hours under the mighty hand of the HolyGhost.
The women returned to their homes, and Apostle returned later in the evening.
The next day, during the Sunday service, I looked around for the women, only two of them came for the service. I knew instantly we had lost some members, but I was not bothered as that was better than the hypocrisy in the house of God.
We returned home as usual after service, without saying anything to ourselves, but the moment we stepped into the living room, all hell was let loose as usual…
“ What have you done or said to my women, they have not been picking my calls or replying my chats since yesterday and just now, Mrs Beecroft sent me a message that she was no longer interested in me!, What have you done?” He said screaming on top of His voice
“ God led me to speak to them on your behalf” I said
“ You did what?”
S.I.M.S Episode 31
(STEPPING INTO MAGGIE’S SHOE)
©️Opeyemi Ojerinde Akintunde
“God led me to do what you have not been able to do by yourself” I said.
“You are still not answering my question, what did you do?” he said in a fury.
I moved away from him…
“I showed them a video Pastor Maggie had made to destroy you.”
“What video?” He was literally shaking in anger.
“Give me some minutes” I ran up the stairs and brought the flash drive which I inserted into the USB Port of the Television.
Apostle staggered the moment he saw the first scene of him and Mrs. Beecroft. He held his chest and sat down as he watched Pastor Maggie reveal a lot. The video lasted about 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Ray watched every bit of it, with tears flowing down his face…
“Why didn’t you take this to the social media?” he asked ridiculously.
“You want me to do that?” I asked.
“No, I mean despite everything I have done to you, this would have been a great opportunity to nail me, just like Maggie was going to do before she died.”
“I am in no shoe to ridicule you in public, apart from the fact that you are my husband, you are a man of God and fighting or disgracing a man of God is like fighting God. When Miriam tried condemning Moses in the Bible as regards his Cushite wife, God struck her with leprosy, showing that whatever a man of God does is between Him and God. God knows how He deals with them. All I can do is advice and pray, but sharing this online can bring down God’s wrath on me” I said.
“You are more righteous than I am, Happy can you pray for me? Can you tell God to take away these crazy feelings from me? Just watching this video shows how dirty and useless I am. What if this had gone out, my ministry would have ended, I would have also brought disrepute to the name of the body of Christ.”
Apostle wept and wept. We sat down on the floor in the living room for hours as I sat down encouraging him, that we all had our shortcomings but we must be ready to drop them at the feet of God.
I told him, we needed a Spiritual Retreat, which he agreed to.
The spiritual retreat was to happen in our home, we wanted to settle it with God together on our knees. I knew it was time to step into the shoes and find a way of filling the big space.
It was a fasting and praying retreat of 7 days without food. We took only water in the evening around 6pm.
For those days, all we did was ask for mercy for our individual greed. We knew greed had led us to the point we were.
Apostle cried more than he prayed telling God he didn’t know how he got to where he was, he told God he had always been passionate and in love with God, but he didn’t know what happened that changed everything…
As he was praying, I just heard a scripture in my heart; Ecclesiastes 7:26. I was not familiar with that part of scripture, so I picked up my Bible and read through…
“I found something more bitter than death, the woman who is like a trap. The love she offered you will catch you like a net, and her arms around you will hold you like a chain. A man who pleases God can get away, but she will catch the sinner.” (Good News Version).
I understood the woman in the scripture referred to the spirit of immorality, but the part that struck me most was “A MAN WHO PLEASES GOD CAN GET AWAY (from sexual seduction and sin), but she will catch the sinner.”
God spoke to my heart that, He was not pleased with my husband and that was why the spirit of seduction and sexual immorality was able to capture him.
Now the next question was “God what did he do that displeased you?”
I shared this scripture with Apostle and our prayer point changed, we started praying enquiry prayers from God to know where he had displeased Him.
We heard nothing even after the seventh day.
Apostle returned back to his church duties. He reduced his counseling with the opposite sex, he referred the women to me. At home, he became a different man, making deliberate efforts to be a good husband and father. He went to the extent of asking my mother to return to our home in order to help with the triplets.
I tried moving close to him with my sexual advances, but he would smile gently and say
“Please just give me some more time, let me get a hold on myself completely.”
Everything was going on smoothly as we kept praying to God to show us what Ray was doing that displeased God.
In the midst of these, Chaba returned, but this time, without Ray bringing her in. The devil brought her to tamper with what God was doing.
“I am going to expose you to Christabel if I don’t get my 300 million” she had said on the phone one afternoon.
This time around she was blackmailing Apostle and I.
I knew this was the best time to silence this blackmailer forever. Instead of giving her what she wanted, I did what she never would have imagined I could do…
To be continued
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