I followed a friend, Adelaide, to the Achimota Forest to pray. I’m a Christian but I wasn’t the kind of Christian who would move places just to go and pray. This my friend would go anywhere as far as prayer was concerned. She had been bugging me so that Saturday, I followed her.

Before we entered the prayer ground, we could hear the voices of people. It sounded like a multitude until we got there to realize there were a few men and women shouting their lungs out in praise of God. We joined them. We prayed for over ten minutes before we took a break.

The leader welcomed us and asked us to mention our names. Adelaide was already known so she didn’t. I mentioned my name. All the new people there also mentioned their names. The leader asked our reasons for coming. Some mentioned marriage, others mentioned marriage that wasn’t going well, some mentioned jobs. When it was my turn, I said, “My friend invited me here and I followed her.”

They laughed. The leader asked me if I didn’t want anything from God and I answered, “I want a lot from him but I’m grateful at this moment.” He gave an exhortation for about fifteen minutes and asked us to hold hands and pray the last prayer, which lasted for about twenty minutes. When we opened our eyes, he asked us to look at the face of the person on our right and bless them. I turned and saw this guy who was already smiling. I blessed him and turned to the left and also did the same.

A week later, I had a call, “I’m Moses, the guy you met at Achimota Forest.” I answered, “The only guy I met in the forest was Jesus. Are you Jesus?” He laughed. “No, the guy on your right. The guy you blessed with a smile.”

He took my number from Adelaide and decided to call me. “I would like to know you better,” he said. “Why don’t you come to the forest again?”

Instead of the forest, he came to visit my church. I went to visit his church one day after talking on the phone every day. After church that day, he proposed. I said, “No.” He told me, “I’ve prayed about you since that day. I won’t say I heard God’s voice but the signs I’ve seen are clear. God approves of us. Please don’t say no to me.”

I said no again but when I went home I prayed about it; “God, I went to the forest to pray. I didn’t even have an agenda but look at what’s happening now.” I called Adelaide and told her about Moses. She laughed at me; “You mean he opened his mouth and proposed to you or he used sign language?”

“What do you mean? Is he one of the deaf and dumb people Jesus healed?”

“Nooo, but I never thought he could talk. He’s so innocent and doesn’t look like someone who’s interested in love and relationship. If you like him, give him a chance. He’s a good guy.”

For one whole week, I didn’t sleep well. I would think about him before going to sleep. I would have crazy dreams about him. We would be walking in a garden. He would be holding my hands while singing to me. We would be seated among the congregation and gossiping. I would wake up abruptly at dawn and he would come to mind.

READ ALSO: He Keeps Breaking My Heart Because I Live Too Far Away From Him

When one dawn I woke up, I picked up the phone to call him. He picked up the phone on the first ring. I asked, “Were you not sleeping?” He answered, “I hardly sleep these days. I’ve been up reading.” I told him about my nightly restlessness and the dreams about us. “You asked him for a sign, isn’t that enough?” He asked me.

I accepted his proposal that very dawn. It was very late, around 2am but this guy shouted and started jubilating. We didn’t sleep again until the morning came.

One month later, we started talking about marriage.

Four months later, we sent out our wedding invitations. The only person who believed I was doing this was Adelaide. She was there right from the beginning so she could understand us but the rest of the world looked at me and pushed their palms downward to tell me, “Take your time. The world isn’t going anywhere. You met a man barely five months ago and you’re marrying him? What do you know?”

My dad accepted us but he cautioned me. He asked if someone was blackmailing me into the marriage. He asked if I was marrying him because I felt he was my last chance or I was under any pressure. I told him, “We are getting married to avoid temptations. He’s an example in his church. No one looks up to me but once I’m in his life, I’ve also become an example. It’s risky, I understand but what’s life without some risk?”

We got married in 2019. Less than a year later, I got COVID. It was at the initial stage of the pandemic where a lot was not known. Listening to the news and the announcements of death got me scared. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t smell. I was weak at the joints. Somedays, I couldn’t walk. I was left alone in a hospital room where anything at all could happen to me and no one would know. I said to myself, “God, if you knew I was going to die this soon why did you make me marry him? Isn’t it a sad way to waste a marriage?”

I was scared to sleep but Moses called every day and prayed with me. He sang to me. I remembered the dreams I had before marriage when he was singing in the dream. He told me I would come home. I nodded but didn’t believe it.

When I finally went home I told him, “Let’s get pregnant. Life is too short.”

That was the only thing in our marriage that brought us shame. I started hearing voices when we were trying and failing. Everything people said to me before marriage played in my mind, all the negative things. I asked myself, “Was this the reason everyone was warning me against marrying so early? Was it God’s way of telling me to back out and I didn’t listen?”

We tried for two years but nothing happened. We tried for three years, there was no sign of pregnancy. When we got to four years, I went to Moses with tears in my eyes, “Let’s end it here before it’s too late. How many years and still no sign?”

Looking back, I don’t think I meant it. It was the pain in me talking. I was desperate to get out of the shame I thought I was going through. Tongues were wagging. We were once a poster couple for the possibility of marrying early and still being successful but once the pregnancy wasn’t coming, the voices turned against us. They said, “If they took their time, they would have known they were not compatible.”

He Called Me On The Phone So I Could Hear The Other Woman’s Voice

I’m sharing this story today with my baby on my lap as I type this. We were tested emotionally, spiritually and physically. We were meant to fail the test. I pushed us to fail but with a little bit of steadfastness, we sailed through it.

Nothing is easy. We had it easy at first only to face the difficult task in the middle. I take solace and pride in the fact that we didn’t listen and give up. I’ve also learned the road gets slippery very often but when we walk with the Lord, he sees us through it all.

—Hilda

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