As I write this, my relationship with the pastor of our church is in turmoil. I don’t know if we are going to survive this. Prayers work, but I don’t know how far a prayer can fix what a friend has broken.

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I’m in church with Tilly, a friend I’ve known for ages. We come to church together and serve the church in the same capacity. She was with me when one of the junior pastors started approaching me. I wasn’t sure what he wanted, so I opened up to Tilly and asked her to pray about it on my behalf. She asked, “A pastor? You’ll want to marry a pastor?”

I answered, “If he’s the one God has chosen for me, who am I to say no?” She said a pastor would limit my growth and social life and even dictate my life for me. I didn’t see anything wrong with that, so I told her to remember me in her prayers if it was God’s will.

A few months later, this junior pastor proposed and even asked me to pray about it before saying yes. He gave me scriptures and asked me to fast about it. I did it for a week before I said yes to him.

Tilly didn’t understand why and accused me of already having eyes for the young pastor even before he proposed. I told her, “We’ve been in the world before and saw what the world did to us. Once we are here, I don’t see what’s wrong with giving ourselves wholly to what God has for us.”

I didn’t think deeply about her feelings towards my relationship with the pastor. If you had told me she was jealous about it, I would have called you a liar. She exhibited signs that said she wasn’t pleased, but I closed my eyes to it and interpreted it as a sister looking out for my good.

One day, I went to see my pastor boyfriend, and he wasn’t happy to see me. He said, “Why didn’t you tell me you have a boyfriend?” I asked, “Me? A boyfriend? How?” He answered, “The one who travelled abroad?” I asked him, “Have you been talking to Tilly?” He answered, “That’s not important. Answer the question.”

Yes, I had a boyfriend who travelled abroad and forgot about me. That was ages ago. I don’t talk to him and don’t even have his number. Though we didn’t break up, I don’t see him coming again and telling me we are still in a relationship. I explained that to him, and he asked, “What about the pregnancy you had with him? What happened to it?”

Then it clicked. Tilly had been telling this pastor stories about my life because she was the only one I talked to about that pregnancy that didn’t even happen. My menses delayed for a week, and I thought I was pregnant, so I talked about it with her. Later, when my menses came, I talked to her about it, and we even laughed about the fact that I was scared.

I told him, “I can look at the man on the cross and say it to your face that I’ve never been pregnant. Not in this life and not in the previous one. We can go to the hospital and check if that is possible.”

From there, I went straight to Tilly’s house and confronted her. She said, “I didn’t go there to tell him anything. He said he prayed about you and was seeing things that were not good, so he asked me about your life. He’s our pastor. I couldn’t lie to him.”

“You lied to him! Am I still dating Fiifi? Why tell him I have a boyfriend abroad? Did I ever get pregnant? So why tell him I did?”

She responded, “I didn’t tell him you did. I only told him what I know about you.” I looked at her very well and saw the mean light in her eyes. I asked, “Do you hate me this much? When did it start?”

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I’m not forcing myself on the pastor. He said he needed time to pray about us, so I’ve given him all the time he needs while I also pray my own prayers. But I’m not praying about marriage or even about the pastor. I’m praying to thank God for revealing the kind of person I called a friend. I’m asking His will to be done in my life and hoping His will doesn’t include marriage to the pastor. Ate meni so, because what is all this?

—Mary

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