One day after church, one of our junior pastors walked up to me and asked me to wait for a while. He said he had a message for me. He was one of the youngest pastors in the church and hadn’t been in the branch for long. After a while, he came back and asked me to follow him to the counseling room. I did. At the counseling room, he said, “I’ve been looking at you ever since I came here. You’re different from all the other ladies in this church and I admire that about you. I want to ask; do you have a boyfriend?”

His question took me by surprise but I answered him. I said, “No I don’t have a boyfriend.” He said, “Don’t be surprised that a pastor will ask you such a question. We are humans and definitely, a time would come that I will marry. I can’t just wake up and marry someone. I have to court someone before I can marry. Looking through the church, you’re the only woman I see and I’ve come to like you so much. I don’t know what you think about us courting.”

I smiled. I asked, “So this is supposed to be a love proposal” He answered, “Yeah, I’m telling you what’s on my heart.” I told him, “Seriously I didn’t see this coming so please give me some time to pray about it and see what God will tell me.” He retorted, “My dear, God won’t tell you anything. It’s only when you accept my proposal and ask God to bless your intentions that he’ll bless it. You can think about it, that’s ok but don’t expect God to talk to you concerning us. That’s not how God works.”

I didn’t argue. He was the pastor and knew what he was talking about.

He kept pestering me anytime he saw me in church. He would call me on phone and ask questions about his proposal. I told him to give me some time to be sure. When I felt the assurance in my spirit, I went to him and accepted his proposal. I thought a pastor would avoid intimacy during courtship but this pastor didn’t. He pushed for it until one day I gave in. Things we do for love. But at some point, he insisted that we kept our relationship secret. He said, “It’s not right for the church to know that I’m dating you. It will raise eyebrows and they’ll start asking questions. They can even suspend me so let’s keep it on the low until we are ready to marry.”

I understood his concerns. I tried as much as possible to keep everything away from my friends. They suspected it. They asked questions but I told them, “There’s nothing going on. We are just friends.” We dated for two years but I wasn’t seeing any direction in our relationship.

He looked content with the way we were—hiding and satisfying his carnal desires. At some point, I told him, “It’s been two years already. What are we doing?” He said, “I’ve been praying about us. Let’s wait on God’s time to see how he’ll make things beautiful.” Three years of relationship, still nothing. We were still in the dark. He said the same thing he said a year ago when I enquired about our future. I couldn’t take it any longer so one day, I told him, “It’s over between us. If you want me, come and see my parents and ask for my hand in marriage.”

He thought I was joking. He came around begging me to change my mind, I said, “No way. Unless you come home to see my parents.” I was tired of his lies and was not ready to go on with him again. He told me his heart was breaking and because of that, he couldn’t pray. I didn’t care. He told me he couldn’t fast to intercede for the members because of the breakup. I didn’t care. At some point, he got tired and stopped coming around to beg.

We buried our past and continued living our lives as a pastor and his church member.

A year or so later, I found a guy who was very serious about marrying me. He was the son of one of the elders of the church. His name was Thomas. He didn’t live in the country but he came around very often. Whenever he was around, he came to church. He said, “This is not a girlfriend and boyfriend issue. If we date, we’ll marry in a year’s time when I’m back in the country.” I accepted his proposal. Not too long afterward, he introduced me to his parents as his girlfriend.

I don’t know how this pastor got to know about me and Thomas. One day he called me with anger in his voice. He said, “So you left me because of the elder’s son, right?” I said, “I and the elder’s son started dating recently.” He said, “Liar! Because he’s a borga? We shall see.”

Thomas’s parents were happy the day he introduced me to them but all of a sudden, they started giving me an attitude. I didn’t get it. Not too long afterward, Thomas also started giving me an attitude. He wouldn’t pick my calls and whenever I went to their house to look for him, his parents told me he wasn’t there. I was lost. Whenever I met him in church and tried to talk to him, he did everything to avoid me. My heart was breaking. I cried many days and prayed to God about it but the situations didn’t change.

One day, I went to Thomas’s house to ask about him and they told me he had traveled back to the US. That day, I wanted to just throw myself into the river and drown. “So what sin did I commit that this guy will leave the country without telling me?”

I sent him a message on Facebook. He read and didn’t respond. Each morning when I woke up, I sent him a good morning message and later in the night sent him a good night message. He would come online to read it but not respond. I sent him a message of how my day went, how my boss treated me at work that day, and all the random stuff I encountered. He would come and read but not respond. For two months I continued sending him messages every morning and evening.

READ ALSO: I Was Only Testing Him To See If He Truly Loved Me For Who I Am

One morning he called me. I asked, “Thomas, why would you do this to me?” There was some sadness in his voice. He said, “One day, my parents told me the pastor had a message for me so we should go and see him. We went. The pastor said you came to him one day crying. He asked what the issue was and you confided in him that doctors had removed your womb and can’t give birth so he should pray for you. After revealing that secret to us, he warned us not to talk to you about it but rather take the decision we wanted.”

I screamed on the phone, “That’s a huge lie.” For close to thirty minutes I ranted on the phone, telling him everything that once existed between me and the pastor. I said, “He wasn’t happy when I left him, maybe that’s why he’s trying to pay me back in that form.” He asked, “Are you sure of what you’re saying?” I said, “Thomas, take me to whichever hospital you want and let them check me. I’m whole. I’m clean. I have nothing to hide, I swear!”

Four years down the line, I’m here in the USA with Thomas. He’s my husband and I’m his wife. We have two kids—twins. A boy and a girl. There has never been a single day that I look back and regret marrying him. This makes me believe that all good things don’t come easy. Good things are never thrown at us. We have to fight to deserve them. When I was sending him messages and he was no minding me, I remember telling myself, “If he doesn’t respond to this one, I’m done.” But the next day, I woke up and wrote another message and another one and another one until he called me that day.

That pastor nearly stole my blessings but because there is Judas that’s why there’s salvation. I’ve forgiven him but when the church found out what he had done, they didn’t waste a minute on him. They sacked him from the church. He had tried all these years to establish his own church but it’s not working. Maybe someday he’ll have the breakthrough he desires if only he owns a repented heart.

–Goldie

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