Closure 1

A married pastor lied to a sister that he was divorced and started a relationship with a 33-year-old sister who had never known a man sexually. Of course, the lady at that age wants to get into a serious relationship with a committed partner. They got sexually involved, and for the first time, what she had been hoping to share with the man of her dreams on her wedding day was shared with a man who is ‘’divorced’’ and smooth-talked his way into a relationship with her. She has found the man, the perfect man, to cap it all, a man of God. Less than 3 years down the line, she found out she had been lying all along, and he is married wonderfully and having good times with his wife. The sister was left to hang dry by the pastor. She thought she was in a future relationship, but she lost her virginity to a deceiver. She feels betrayed. She was taking for a fool. She feels so guilty and ashamed. She was deceived. She thought she had a marriage coming, and she is totally disappointed. She questioned her ability to judge, and her wisdom to navigate life matters. Where would she start? How does she start again? How could she ever trust a man again? ‘’A man of God’’ did this to her. And to make it worse, she feels dirty, how could she ever do all he did with the man? The sex… and it happened outside of marriage. She wants an even score. She wants him to pay for the lies, the deception, for taking away one of the things she cherished most and leaving her in the balance, for the wasted years. She is hurt, she wants closure, and that can come when she can get back at him to pay for what he did to her. He is not even talking about or for once admitted to his manipulative conduct to get under her skirt, he is silent about it and his image is intact. She needs closure and how exactly would she get that?

A father gave birth to three children, then decided to go against his marital vow and abandon his children at a very young age. He had some money and therefore could afford to spend it on ladies. He left home to stick with some young chicks out there and spend the money he was meant to use to take care of his family on them. He was not dead but alive and left a woman he made a vow to spend the rest of his life with to take care of 4 children all by herself without a good source of income. The woman maned up and rose to the occasion; she raised the children through school. The days of happiness, joy, pain, hunger… The days when the children would misbehave badly and they needed a father… The days their mother would be overwhelmed and she would cry all alone. They were meant to grow and experience what a father is but the irresponsibility of their dad deprived them of that. He gave birth to them and neglected them, he watched as they and their mother struggled and he would rather spend that money on chicks out there. The children are now grown, their mother did well to raise them in all wise and point them to the Lord as much as she can, they all turned out well, one is in the UK, the other wonderfully married and another forging a good path for himself in the academics. Suddenly, the father appeared in their lives again. He wants forgiveness because the money had dried up. The chicks had produced nothing except emptiness and sad life for him. His relationship with them was not sustainable, there was no future. ‘Bro Paul, how could he come back?’’ asked one of the children. ‘I am finding it difficult to forgive him’ he said. Of course, he is full of the Holy Ghost, but the memories are there and they have not found closure yet. The struggles over the years, how does he want the mother to process all of these things. He left her during her journey early into motherhood, how could he leave her that vulnerable? He deprived her mum of everything she was supposed to enjoy in her youth, and he is coming back now when she is old after enduring years of physical, emotional and mental struggles. He went on to enjoy all that, and now he wants into our lives. Of course, the motive was selfish, he would have no one to take care of him, and suddenly he remembered that he had some children and a wife somewhere he could fall back on as social security. They need closure.

You are spirit-filled, growing in Christ, and you are that sister or one of the children. What would you do?

To be continued…