I’m the only girl among four siblings. My father took a special interest in me at a very young age. Maybe it was because I was the only girl or maybe there was something about me he wanted to harness. He loved my brothers but everything he did for me told me he loved me more. My father is a reverend minister. I remember when I was young, I will crawl under his chair while he was writing his sermons and do everything just to disturb him. When he finishes writing his sermon, he’ll ask me to sit in front of him and he’ll rehearse his sermon in front of me. He’ll tell me, “You’re the congregation, my first flock, that’s why you get to hear it first.”

After he preaches the sermon to me, I will ask all the questions in my mind and he’ll explain everything to me in detail. My encounter with God started from there. I knew the differences between sin and righteousness at a very young age. I understood it in a different way than a child my age should understand things because I heard it every day. Dady will tell me, “Be careful you don’t fall for the sins of the flesh.” I will ask, “What does that mean, sins of the flesh?” He’ll explain, “Don’t fall in love and indulge in things that desecrate the body. For your body is the temple of God.”

When my young friends started falling in love, I was the one cautioning them to desist from the things of the flesh; “God doesn’t like us to play with our bodies this way because our bodies are his temple. God lives in the temple. He lives in us. We shouldn’t push him out the way smoke pushes the rat out of its hole.” They will make unsavory comments about me and call me names, “Mama righteous,” Mama All is Vanity.” That was how I started losing friends. Those I didn’t lose stopped sharing their romantic secrets with me.

When I went to High school, my dream was to become a chaplain so I looked for the current chaplain and served under her. We did church activities together and SU became our sleeping ground. Let me confess here, I was so much into the things of the church that my grade started suffering. I didn’t mind. What are we going to use grades for in heaven? Again, my friends started falling in love and doing things to their bodies while my body had been decorated and perfumed for God’s residence. Because of my closeness to the church, boys didn’t get closer to me. Those who did were those in the church and those ones won’t propose to you. 

When I got to the third year and was about to finish school, out of nowhere Asamoah proposed to me. We were in class together. We talked every once in a while but he wasn’t someone I would consider a friend. I looked at my left and my right and looked behind and asked, “Asamoah, are you talking to me?” He answered, “Of course, I’m talking to you. Are we not the only people here?” I took my time and explained the scriptures to him. “Asamoah, have you forgotten that I’m the school chaplain? Don’t let the devil use you to destroy me. I was made for God. I was consecrated in him the day I was baptized and he has given me the divine powers to cast away devils. Asamoah, I declare and decree that every devil…”

I couldn’t finish my statement when he started walking away. I went to the dormitory and cried. If someone can look at me and propose to me then it means the oil in me is finished or God’s anointed mark on my face has dried up. I prayed and asked God for forgiveness. Someone proposed to me. That was my sin. Asamoah became my devil and for the rest of our time in school, I never spoke to him again. How could he?

I went through the university just as I went through high school. Guys didn’t come near me because I wouldn’t even smile at them. One day, after my national service, I was in my room reading a book when all of a sudden this feeling of loneliness entered my heart. I didn’t have guys who were friends. What about women? I didn’t have any because I’d driven all of them away with my judgmental attitude. I prayed about the loneliness. I asked God to bring good people my way. It didn’t happen. Maybe, God doesn’t throw good people in our way. We have to go out there and choose who we think is good for us. When I started working, I started opening up to friendship and that was what led me to my first love, Kumi.

It was an office romance. It wasn’t allowed but we hid it very well. After work, I will wait for him at the bend and he’ll pick me up and take me home. Our first kiss happened in his car. When he tried going further while in his house, I whispered, “I haven’t done it before.” He looked shocked. He asked, “Really? What happened? Where were you in your childhood?” I answered, “I was there preserving it for God. This body right here is an old house for God. I don’t know if it still is considering how far we had come.” I was twenty-six and all of a sudden felt mature and ready to smoke God out of my system. I gave Kumi space to do whatever he wanted to do with me but he didn’t go all the way. He was considerate. He was taking his time with me. We lasted a year and a half until the fire of the corporate rules burned us. Both of us were not ready to give up our job for love. The pay was good. The company is reputable. Kumi was almost due for promotion. So we broke up.

As I write this, we are still working in the same company. We still see each other every day. He got married to a white woman. I wished him well. We are two professional beings so our emotions don’t come in the way. 

After Kumi came George. I wouldn’t allow shuperu before marriage so he found a smart way to leave me alone in the relationship. One day, I looked around and I was the only one sitting in the pallor of our relationship. Eric came along. I found out he was married before anything serious could happen. And then James. And then Sebastian. Later, Fiifi also passed through. And then I made a stop at the door of Dela. By the time I opened my eyes again I was thirty-three years old and still single. Slowly, love was becoming a tiring subject for me. I will give up on love and then another guy would come along with sweet vibes to shatter my resolve.  

At thirty-four I met Dennis. I told him, “I’m a girl who needs time to function properly. I understand you love me and I love you too but if you really want us to go far, please take your time with me.” I didn’t rule out sex. I was at a point I was ready to try everything just to keep my man. He said, “We have time. Where are we going that we need to rush?” 

Our relationship was two months old when he tried to put my back on the bed, I said, “No, it’s not time.” He kept trying whenever we had the chance. I still said no. He came across as someone who only wanted to check the sex box. I was monitoring him to be sure but one day, he wrote a long message about why he couldn’t continue with me. He called me difficult. He said, “All my life, I’ve never met anyone as difficult as you. I don’t think we will work out. I want what you don’t want so just let’s call it quit.” 

I was thirty-four years old and very vulnerable. I ran to him and begged and cried for one more chance as if I did something wrong. Even that day he wanted to sleep with me. I still said no. He said, “You see what I’m talking about?”

I’ve let great guys go but Dennis leaving me got me totally broken. I took leave from work and went home to my father. To make issues worse he asked me, “You still haven’t given marriage a thought? You’re not growing any younger. Bring a man home dear. Stop being difficult.” I cried. I told him everything I’ve gone through with men. I told him, “It’s not that I’m not trying. I’ve done a lot of things to keep them but they always find a way through my fingers. I’m tired. I’m giving myself one more chance. If by 36 I’m not married, I will stop trying. I will give up on everything love. After all, we all can’t marry.” He asked me, “You have a boyfriend?” I shook my head. He asked, “So who are you going to marry a year from now?” I answered, “That should tell you I’ve given up already.

November 2021, I attended Erica’s wedding. Erica was my roommate back in SHS. She was a friend from year one until we completed school. She was the SU secretary when I was the president. We were in the same class. She too was marrying late because of the same issues I was facing. When we spoke on phone she told me, “Dear, don’t give up. Unless you don’t want to marry but if you want a family of your own, then even at forty, you still don’t have to give up.”

READ ALSO: He Proposed To My Best Friend And She Said No But I Said Yes To Him

I was at her wedding when I saw Asamoah (You remember him? The boy who wanted to make nonsense of my anointing in SHS) walking through the gate into the church. I screamed in my head, “Wow, is that Asamoah coming? He even has gray. Are we that old?” I tracked him with my eyes while he went to sit at the back of the church. We met again at the reception. He was in the midst of other classmates while I was busy trying to hide from them. Somehow, he saw me. He walked toward me and said, “Chaplain, are we still fighting?” I smiled, 

“Did we ever start a fight?” 

“Oh, you’ve forgotten? We were enemies before we left school.”

“What did you do? Don’t make it look like I was the one fighting you.”

So we talked about that day and how I was too hard on him. We both agreed that we were young and didn’t know better. We talked about where we’ve been and how life had treated us after school. He traveled to the States after University and he had been coming and going back since. I told him about my job and spent the rest of the day together. After the wedding, he drove me home. The following weekend he was at my door asking me to go out with him. I said, “But you should have called me. A girl doesn’t get up and just go out like that.” He said, “Then a man can stay with the girl if she doesn’t want to go out.” 

The rest of the evening was spent in my house. Old stories, new stories, old love got rekindled. He proposed again; “I hope I get a yes this time.” I said, “Yes.”

That was November 2021. On March 27th, 2022, a week before my 36th birthday, we got married. Talk about dreams and I will tell you they do come through, even the ones we make carelessly. “Be careful what you wish for,” they say, “lest it comes true.” When I said I should be married by the time I’m 36, I didn’t say it with any plan or faith. I said it out of frustration. I knew it wouldn’t happen but look at me now. 

I cried on my wedding day, not because of the struggles I’d been through. I didn’t even think of them. I cried because of where we’d come from and how long it has taken us to find each other. We just started but there’s one thing I believe in. What we have didn’t happen by an accident. It was written somewhere we couldn’t read. It’s the same way our future is written somewhere deep. If we do the right things, good things will happen to us and we’ll have the desires of our hearts each day.

—Mrs. Asamoah

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