I remember being in a room with friends and everyone was talking about their salvation experience.
“The words of the preacher thoroughly pierced my heart and I knew I just had to give my life to Christ.”
“I had an encounter with Jesus.”
“There was something about the song that the choir was singing that just drove me to the Altar.”
On and on they went.
Me I just sat down quietly wondering, “What are these people on about?”
That’s because my salvation experience was not spectacular.
Remember I told you how my teachers used every opportunity they could find to tell me about Jesus?
Well, I hadn’t yet surrendered my heart to Him then.
But I remember one day very clearly. I was in my dad’s house. I had moved there during my A’Level exams because he felt that I would be distracted in my mum’s house. Not really sure why he felt that way but I was happy to get out of my mum’s house nonetheless.
I digress.
So there I was in my room. I felt this blackness all around me, spilling out from within.
No, it wasn’t as if NEPA had taken light. The lights were on. But there was darkness around me.
I could also feel a deep emptiness within me.
I had just finished fornicating with the object of my affection earlier in the day. The momentary pleasure gave me a high. Texting meaningless words back and forth with him left me blushing. He satisfied my body and stirred a tingly feeling within but my soul…oh my soul was empty.
To be honest, I had actually been feeling this emptiness for months but I numbed the pain.
This day, however, I came to the end of myself.
I cannot really tell you what the exact trigger was, but I knew it was time to open the door to that Man that was quietly knocking the door of my heart.
I knew I wanted more for myself.
I didn’t want to live this life of filth.
I didn’t want to remain empty while appearing to be full on the outside.
I think my teachers had finally succeeded. Perhaps God did have more for me. I wanted to find out.
So in that solemn moment, I invited Jesus into my life as I sat on the floor beside my bed.
Nothing spectacular happened, just me talking to what would have appeared to be empty space.
I made a commitment that day – to start going to church as soon as I got to uni.
And I did. I followed my friends to a Redeemed Church.
It was ok. I heard the word. Sometimes it would cause me to ruminate. Other times, it would just fly over my head.
But something was happening to me.
I remember going to Waterstones to buy my first full Bible.
I opened it and just felt confused. So I closed it.
But I will be in Church and when the Pastor says, “Let’s go to the book of Isaiah,” my friends will be there in seconds while I was still running my fingers through the index.
I was really annoyed.
Then the Pastor will quote scriptures and my friends will join in as if they were reciting poetry.
I went home, determined to know the books of the Bible for myself. I didn’t want to look clueless.
And so I started; reading from Genesis. Then I got to Exodus. It was ok. By the time I reached Numbers, I had a lot of questions. Why was this God always killing people? Why did He seem to be vexed all the time?
I asked my friends. None could give me a satisfactory answer. But I kept reading. Till I reached Revelation and I became so afraid!
While this was happening, I was still living a life of sin, neck-deep in fornication now that I lived by myself without any parents watching me.
I went to Church only when I felt like. There were times service was spent gisting with my friends instead of listening to the word.
Things started to change for me, however, when I went to visit my guardians over the Christmas holiday. They were Pastors of a branch of Christ Embassy in London. So more often than not, I was always in Church with them.
I still think it is really ironic that I was entrusted into the hands of Pastors as my guardians although my parents and entire family were muslims. Looking back, I know that God clearly had a different plan for my life.
Back to the story.
I was fascinated by this funny language that they spoke in my guardians’ church. While I simply looked on, with a slightly confused look on my face, I must confess I knew there was something powerful going on in the atmosphere.
Then when my guardian, Pastor Kay, got up to preach, there was a simple way that he shared the word of God that resonated with me.
I also got introduced to Gospel music.
Before this time, I only heard Christian songs when I got to Church. But with this family, it was round the clock Gospel music.
I really love music. You won’t believe that there was a time that I was a die-hard rap fan. That was the time of my life that I used swear words with so much ease. Did I forget to mention that? I had a thing for curse words at some point in my life.
Listening to the lyrics of the songs played as we either headed to church or back home always caused me to ruminate. I remember that those car trips caused a deep love for Martha Munizzi. There were others but her songs always struck a chord. They made me focus on the goodness of God.
Something changed within me as I spent my three-week holiday with this family but I was not aware of it at that time.
What changed?
You’ll have to wait for the next post to find out! 😀
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