This thing about us.

And our penchant to Godify.

Even the most normal of processes where our own intelligence and experience should rule supreme.

Like this dear friend of mine in Canada.

Who was ready to 'settle down'.

As she put it.

She started dating this guy who she met at church.

A handsome, soft spoken, and well dressed professional.

In six weeks.

She was already talking marriage with him.

I told her to take things easy and get to know him.

She said she is walking on God's time and not the time of man.

I told her that once you are captured by the urgent desire to marry, all you will see are the reasons to marrry and not the reasons not to marry when you date somebody.

She said that God is the one to authenticate the particulars of the man as her destiny husband.

And because of that she had given God three different tests for Him to confirm if the man was the man for her.

First one.

He should not ask me for sex, and when I ask him for sex, he should say there is time enough for that when we marry and insist we wait.

She did it and the man said exactly what she told God she wanted the man to say.

She was ecstatic.

Second one.

She asked God that if the man was her destiny husband, he should send her a bouquet at work out of the blue with twelve red roses and 12 white roses, and a card saying 'You are my life.'

At work a bouquet arrived from him with the note as she asked for and the exact number of roses.

She was blown away.

Third one.

She asked God that when she asks the man what name they should give their first child if it is a girl, he should say, that they should name the girl after her.

She asked him and he answered as she wanted.

She was in awe of God.

And like that everything went into full gear.

The traditional marriage was done in Nigeria in their absence.

The white wedding was done in Canada.

And she moved into his.

Life moved on as it should.

After several years of silence.

I got a call from her.

Where she told me that she had got my number from a mutual friend and wanted to find out how the experience of relocating to Nigeria is.

Since she believed my long absence from Canada meant I had relocated back to Nigeria.

We spoke expansively.

And when I asked her about her husband since she kept on mentioning schools for the kids and nothing about him.

She sighed deeply before she said.

"Jude, if you know what that man made my eye to see, you will thank God that I am alive today talking to you. If I tell you that I married the devil himself in human flesh, please believe me. Intellectual babanlala demon. Expert abuser who will never touch you so he doesn't end up in prison but will beat the living daylight out of your mind, sorrow and spirit and be using his mouth to tell you, when II finish with you, I swear you are the one that will kill yourself with your own two hands, go and ask what happened to my first wife..."

"First wife?"

"Juuuuude! He was a widower with two children in Nigeria, who were staying with his in-laws and I had no idea. His first wife killed herself."

"Wooow."

"It reach to woow. Ahhhhhhh! He showed me shege!"

I was shocked.

Then I asked still stupefied.

"But what about the tests?"

She kissed her teeth.

Then said.

"Which stupid tests? Someone that insisted that I name our daughter after his mother after saying that rubbish that we will name her after me."

"Really?"

"Yes really. Me I just want to come back to Nigeria and get as far away as possible from him now that the divorce is finalised and I have full custody."

"I am so sorry."

"Thank you my brother. I am happy to be alive for my children. And I believe that as long as I hold on to God, when I get to Nigeria, inspite of my four children, he will direct me straight to my true destiny husband..."

Lagos

Jude Idada
August 21, 2022