I'm tired.
“I’m tired.”
“Don’t be.” Pastor Mike laid a hand on my shoulder. “The moment you stepped over that threshold, the evil spirits who locked up her womb, making her barren for the last seven years left.”
An icy hand gripped my heart. “The evil spirit?” I whispered.
“They wanted to kill her for her victory.”
“My wife.”
“Yes.”
Joy meandered its way successfully through the forest of fear in my heart. “Is she alright now, can we go home?”
“They will return.” he smiled. “Stopped worrying Bright. I have known you for more than six years, and I’ve never seen you like this.”
I shook my head. “The devil got too close this time.”
“Go, we will begin the twenty-four day fasting tomorrow. Do not return here, not even for service until the eighteenth day.”
I frowned. “Are you sure she can fast for twenty-four days? She hasn’t been eating well. She--”
“Go.”
“I left.”
Day 18
“I don’t know what I would have done without you, Mama--”
“Go and bring our wife home. I can feel it in my bones. She’s alright now.” She laughed in Onyinye’s beautiful face. “Mummy is coming home.”
The first person I saw when I walked through the church gates was my wife tied to the foot of the cross. I had witnessed many deliverance sessions where the sufferer had to be tied down because the evil spirits were restless. Yet, the sight of my Chiaza strapped to the wood like an animal sent cold shivers running down my spine. The sound of the singing voices of the church choir faded away as I dropped to my knees before my wife.
Source
“Chiaza,” I whispered in a broken voice, not at all like my own.
“The evil spirits refused to leave,” Pastor Mike said behind me.
I stared at her dull features, the hairstyle I had carefully made eighteen days ago was like a land cultivated by a hardworking farmer and left to rot.
“Why?” I whispered.
“They would have killed her, but God gave her strength on the seventh day.” The Pastor’s wife held out her hands. “See my body and that of the prayer warriors, we haven’t eaten or bathed since she came in here. The church has been under siege.”
My eyes never left my wife. The sight of her chest rising and falling with every breath gave me hope. “What do we do now?”
“There’s no one like God. Return in seven days, and she will be better than before.”
“Amen!”
The whole assembly of prayer warriors screamed and I jerked in fear.
“We will have to flog the evil spirits out of her,” Pastor Mike said.
I stared in disbelief. “What?”
“Violence is the only way, and it’s not the first time we’ll do it. You’ve have heard testimonies.”
I shook my head. “No, no not my wife.”
"The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and so shall we get your wife back. Go and return and you will see for yourself what the Lord has done,” Pastor Mike urged.
“Watch,” the Pastor’s wife said. “Chiaza, your husband is here.”
I turned. My eyes went wide in disbelief as Chiaza opened those beautiful eyes. “Bright,” she whispered.
I dropped to my knees and reached out.
“Don’t touch her. You will wake them up!”
“Let’s go,” I whispered.
“It remains just six more days.” Chiaza smiled. “You and my children should wait for me.”
I nodded.
“Mama, flogging and fasting. I just don’t feel comfortable.”
“But it’s your church. No one dragged you there--”
“Yes, but--”
“And you’ve seen people plagued by evil spirits strapped to that cross before, and it didn’t bother you then.”
It was 9.00 am in the morning and I should be at work, but since I left my wife at the church for the second time just four days ago, I was not at peace.
“Those people did not just give birth to twins, and fall ill thereafter!”
“You’ve waited four days, what it two more days for God to complete her healing?”
“What is twenty-four days for a God who took seven days to create all things to heal a small pregnant woman?”
With that, I marched down to the church. I was determined to put an end to the craziness. If Chiaza was going mad, she could do it at home with me and the children.
There's no one like God
To my surprise, the church gates were closed. I pulled on the lock hard. That was unusual as I’d heard the prayer warriors shouting and casting throughout the night. My whole body shook with fear causing the lock to slip from my slack hands and clatter to the gate with a clunk.
A sound at the back of the church drew my feet in that direction. At that moment, no thought crossed my mind, as I was pulled forward almost against my will. I saw the pastor’s wife first. She held a bowl of something I couldn't see from where I stood.
“We need more water--” she broke off and the bowl crashed to the ground when she saw me.
I looked past her and froze. My Chiaza lay unmoving at the foot of the cross.
“Chiaza.”
I ran to her side, my insides scattering like hot water poured into an army of soldier ants- directionless, leaderless and aimless. Dropping to my knees, I pressed my head to her unmoving chest.
She’d died hours ago.
Slowly, deliberately, I stalked over to a terrified Pastor Mike. “You never told me we serve a God who flogs.”
Religion is the service and worship of God or the supernatural.
To define it in its simplest terms, postnatal depression is a depression that follows immediately after the birth of a child.
It is quite common in many parts of Africa and all over the more many cases are reported. An estimated more than 1.5 million cases per year is recorded in Nigeria. It is treatable in months and many women recover and go on to birth other children successfully.
In the part of Africa where I come from, it is believed that depression is a lazy, white man's illness. A hungry African man whose first thought upon waking is how to feed his children cannot be depressed.
But depression is real.
As the statistics shows, postnatal depression is also real. But in Africa, many attribute most illness to generational curses and ancestral witchcraft.
Awareness on depression and treatment is slowly being raised by some groups, but not fast enough to avoid disasters like The God Who Flogs portrays.
Religion can be a force for good and bad. Like my mother used to say- 'Anything done in excess is a bad thing.'
Thank you for taking the time to read The God Who Flogs if you enjoyed it, please, upvote, comment, and resteem. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend and very much appreciated. Thank you