I WAS ENGAGED TO A GHOST
Benita asked me if I was sure about the relationship I was about to get into for the umpteenth time.
“I'm sure beyond all reasonable doubts that he's the one for me.
Don't you see what I see?
Don't you feel the chemistry?
Benny, you're my friend nau.
You shouldn't be doing this” I defended the relationship that was about to bud with every fiber in my being.
“I'm not saying there's no chemistry.
I'm only worried for you as my friend because I don't like the way I feel whenever I see him, especially around you.
There's this aura about him that I can't explain.
Please, have you really prayed about this and heard God well?
I'm all about your safety, Janet.
I don't want you to fall into the wrong hands” her eyes were pleading.
I was tired of explaining to everybody.
I couldn't understand why they were all finding faults with the innocent young man.
From my parents, down to my spiritual heads, siblings, and close friends, no one was saying something good about him.
I wondered if they were so blind to see how much of a good person he was.
Countless times, he would drive me to work, and back home, he would make sure that I never lacked what to eat, drink, wear, and everything I needed to stay comfortable.
He was the best guy I had ever come in contact with.
Everyone had always wanted me to get married.
I had received prophecies in the past about the kind of marriage I was going to have, and what God was set to do with it.
Now, the set time had come, and everyone was fighting it.
Indeed, I knew that it was the devil who was fighting against our divinely orchestrated union, and I resolved to fight for our love against all odds.
One night, he asked me to sleep over at his apartment.
I didn't refuse, maybe because I trusted him too much to do anything funny.
Apart from Moses in the Bible, he was the meekest man I had ever seen on earth, so I believed everything was going to be fine.
I slept there that night, but not after having dinner, watching romantic movies together with him, and finally getting sexually intimate with him.
To say I didn't see it coming would be a lie, because the invitation alone was already a sign.
I grew to love him more than ever.
However, I began to notice something.
Each time I mentioned marriage and meeting his family, his countenance would change.
I never understood why he shied away from such issues, especially his family.
The only thing he told me, was that he was from the East, and was an orphan who managed to break out of a family lineage he never wanted to be associated with again.
I was bothered, but there was nothing I could do to get further information from him no matter how hard I tried.
Not too long after, I was staring at a photo of him on my phone one afternoon, when a colleague walked into my office.
She happened to get a glance and became interested.
“Can I see the picture, please? I'm sorry to intrude”
Wondering about the thoughts that the creases on her forehead concealed, I showed her my man with a smile on my face.
“Sorry, how did you know this guy?”
“He's my fiance” I replied, beginning to get irritated by her questions and reactions.
“Oh my God! Ben?” She covered her mouth with her hands.
“Yes, that's his name. Any problem?”
Bringing out her phone and scrolling up and down while her eyes darted to and fro about the screen, she found something that she showed me.
“Here.
This is the same Ben we're talking about in this group picture, which was taken about nine years ago.
I knew him very well.
We were in the same department back then in the university.
He died in a car accident during one of the long holidays, on his way back home.
How then is he your fiance?”
If she had come without her phone, she would have left my office with a bruised cheek, but right in front of me was a proof that weakened my limbs.
In front of me was a clear photo, and an exact replica of my fiance, Ben.
“Please, do your findings and run if you have to” she whispered to me before leaving.
Run?
To where exactly.
We were already one. I couldn't run from him.
Each time we were being sexually intimate, he would whisper the words,
“You in me, I in you. We are one, my Janet.
One for a lifetime.”
Carried away by pleasure, I would repeat the words after him too, reassuring him of my love and commitment.
Of course, I knew the spiritual implication of sex, and I knew that the two souls involved would become one, but it never made any deep meaning to me until that moment.
I put a call across to him, but all of his lines were switched off.
Like a psychiatric patient on the loose, I headed for his apartment.
It was dead silent.
His cars were nowhere to be found, his doors and windows firmly locked.
I searched, called, texted, and did all I could, but still, nothing!
There was no trace of him anywhere.
Like a gust of wind, he had vanished, probably gone to where he rightly belonged.
I couldn't get a hold of myself and I didn't even care about the shame of facing my parents and those in authority after rebelling against them, all I wanted to do was find help and assurance of safety.
I had gotten myself into a pit that only one person could rescue me from– God!
I explained everything to them, leaving out no detail.
I didn't want to die.
They took me back even though the grief and anguish in their hearts were not hidden from me.
They tried their best.
I was prayed for.
I was counselled.
Yet, I kept seeing him in my dreams, I kept seeing him everywhere around me, he kept coming at night with the words,
“You in me, I in you. We are one, my Janet.
One for a lifetime.”
In my dreams, he would molest me, and whenever I woke up, I would feel him around me.
I was haunted for a long time.
He didn't allow me to get married.
He posed as my spiritual husband, and besides,who in his right senses would want to marry a woman like me with such history, if not a man greatly helped and sent by God?
My relationship with God went down the drain for a remarkably long time.
I was still in his possession.
Until I was tired and cried desperately to God for help and for mercy with my whole heart, I never got the deliverance I longed for.
But I had paid for my folly.
I had paid for my disobedience, and I paid for it with the days of my youth.
I was finally freed from the torments and torture, but I was no longer the young, beautiful, bubbly Janet you used to know.
A 58 years old woman I have now become.
No husband, no children, no grandchildren.
It's sad that a single decision altered the course of my life significantly.
But in all, I thank God that I have now been restored back to him.
If I were to turn back the hands of time, I would do things differently.
I would wait on God patiently, pay attention to godly counsel, and most importantly, avoid premarital sex with everything I hold dear.
Life!
Only God can see one through it.
