MY CHOICE NOT HIS

He was charming. He had magic in his tongue when he spoke. He was soft and caring. He was intelligent and quite knowledgeable. Mehn! he knew a lot. Then there was that sense of humour and that romantic macho-man aura he exuded. Gosh! And guess what? He knew how to make the strongest of ladies go weak in their knees. 

But I wasn’t moved by all of these when I first met him…at least, not yet…

We became friends during a global pandemic. I was alone. Trapped over here in Kwara State, where I schooled. With my parents several miles away, looking for ways to smuggle me over, despite the lockdown. Well, we know how all that went.

Anyway, my roommate had gone to stay with her people, still in Ilorin and  I was the only one in my room. It seemed like I was the only one in the world at some point. Church, which warmed my heart, and which I willingly gave  all my time to,  now resumed online, so there was nowhere to go. 

I was left with plenty of time and yet I hardly knew what was happening in the world at that time. Now why was that? Simple, the only point of contact I had with the world, which was my phone, got spoilt at that very sensitive and crucial season when I needed it the most.

So I basically just slept, woke, ate, read my Bible, stared at the peeling paints on the walls of my room and talked to myself. Until of course, this young man showed up in my life. We had been acquaintances before the abrupt break, but during the lockdown, we had each other for company. As I had no phone to connect to service online, he invited me over to his place and that became my church. 

Gradually we became quite close and I went to his place even when service was not ongoing. I'd stay in his place till about 8pm: gisting, seeing movies, laughing, cooking and eating together. We broke boundaries of time, place and even boundaries of words: because if you heard the things he said to me, you’d think I was his girlfriend.

I got several warning signals in my heart but I warded it off with the “he's-only-a-friend” catchphrase. And then, it all began happening. Gradually I fell. All the while telling myself nothing was happening. Gradually he started taking decisions for me:  like what I should eat, how I had to  begin working out because according to him, I was having flesh in unwanted places. He would show me pictures of ladies he thought had better bodies than I did and put pressure on me to drive myself. 

Friends who saw me working out tirelessly will look at my perfect body and say “what else are you looking for? If only we had the kind of body you had.” But I paid no attention to them. His voice was the ruling voice in my head now. Not even that of the Holy Spirit. 

I had to be good enough for him. After all, he assured me with beautiful pick up lines like “I care about you a lot. You are the little baby of mine.” You know, his LBOM. He even went ahead to say I was more important to him than food. And in one of his strange jokes, he would say “I can’t  wait to pay your bride price.” He could say all of these In a single charming breath, on a long 3:00 am to 4:00 am call. But he always said all of these, in-between jokes. We never did have a serious conversation about all of those enticing words he filled my ears with, and he never did ask the big question either.

Then the prayers started. I didn’t know how much he had gotten to my head. I would pray “Lord, take away my imperfections so I could be good enough for him”. One day, on my  toilet seat, where I usually held those lonely prayer meetings, I cried again with the same prayer request and this time, God answered. All the silence broken! He asked me crystal clear “Do you love him?” “Yes!” I screamed. “I really do”. Then he said softly “Perfect love casteth out all fear”

Oh how I rejoiced! I rejoiced because I thought the interpretation of that scripture was “your love is perfect. So you shouldn’t fear.” I lived with the delusion of this wrong scriptural interpretation. Then one day, I decided to read the full scripture. 

1John.4.18 There is NO FEAR IN LOVE; but perfect love