Catherine Jinadu

13 May 2021

New Covenant Church Worldwide

Dearly Beloved,

Warm greetings!

I’m sending you a story I find totally inspiring. It can transform our marriages, our children and the way we walk with God I know it will bless you richly.

It reminds me that LOVE NEVER FAILS and that love COVERS a multitude of sins.

May God bless you and inspire as we journey together.


Imagine you are a young bride not yet twenty years old. Your husband is in the elite SAS. He is away fighting. How you miss him.

How you pray for him to be safe. Your father is in same that regiment. You are praying for him too.

You are very devout. You love and worship your God with all your heart, your mind and your strength.

You are high born; your grandfather is the King’s Counsellor. That’s why your house is so close to the Palace. You feel lonely but hopefully the war will soon be over and the two men you love will be back home safe and sound.



You have just finished your monthly cycle so in obedience to the law given through Moses* you have taken your ritual cleansing bath. It’s late and you prepare to settle down for the night. Suddenly a frantic banging on the gate of your compound shatters the peace. Your heart beats faster. You send your security man to discover what is happening. He comes back with an astonishing message,

“The King wants to see you NOW!”



The King! Surely he is in Rabbah fighting with his men. You had no idea he was in Jerusalem. It must be bad news – is it your father? Is it your husband? What has happened? You dress hurriedly and the King’s bodyguards accompany you to the King’s private chambers………



You may have guessed by now that we are talking about Bathsheba, she who was stunningly beautiful both inside and out. Her husband was Uriah. Her father Eliab and her grandfather Ahithophel, confident and counselor to King David.



What is so shocking about this rape is that King David was revered and admired by all Israel as a ‘man after God’s own heart;’ the hero of heroes, giant killer, the man who danced before the ark, the man who worshipped God continually, the one anointed and set apart by the prophet Samuel. At this time David was at least twenty-five years older than Bathsheba. He had many wives and nineteen sons.



After the King has satisfied himself you are sent away like a common woman. You are distraught, defiled, betrayed, humiliated and confused. This is the worst day of your young life; your beauty prostituted.


Can you begin to image her distress?



It gets worse. Next month you miss your period. This is really worrying but hopefully it will come next time. You are sick and nauseous. This is a disaster. The penalty for adultery is death by stoning. You were innocent but who will believe you? How can you face Uriah, your father and your grandfather?

Everyone will believe that somehow you seduced the king. No one will believe that godly King David could fall so badly unless you had somehow tricked him.



You have no one to confide in. You are in shock. So many emotions bombard you as you run and rerun an action replay of the event.



You send a message to the king. “I am with child.”



He does not reply. Sometime later you hear that Uriah has been recalled from the battlefield and has been summoned to see the King. You are faint with relief. Now Uriah will come to you and you can relate the whole sordid story. Will Uriah believe you? All the troops held King David in high honour.

He had at least nineteen wives and many concubines why would he need someone else’s wife?



You wait all day for Uriah to come but he does not appear. This is dreadful. The king must have told him the truth and maybe your husband never wants to see you again. You do not sleep that night.

Another day! Perhaps he will come today. All day long, sick with anxiety you wait. He does not come.


Then you hear he has been sent back to the battlefield. You are desolate. To whom can you turn?

Agonizing days later the news comes that your beloved husband has been killed in battle. You are allowed seven days to mourn before the king’s bodyguards come to take you into the Palace.

You are to become the King’s twentieth wife.



This is part one of BATHSHEBA: AN EXERCISE IN FORGIVENESS



For many years I have been intrigued and inspired by the story of David and Bathsheba. The more I investigate it the more I more at the power of forgiveness. It’s an amazing tale of loss and devastation but it ends with outstanding rewards from God. It is a story that can inspire each one of us to never give up on our identity; to fight back and, like Job come through with a double blessing.




In part 2 we will discover how the Spirit of God helped and rewarded her and how she triumphed over adversity to become the beloved and honoured wife of David’s old age. And there is SO MUCH more…

We can read the first part of this story in 2 Samuel 11.

[b]With love from
Mummy Kate

Courtesy- Rev and Pst. Mrs Kayode Olufemi Bajomo- & NCC- IJU CENTER Family [/b]i

Catherine Jinadu

David and Bathsheba (Part 2)

BATHSHEBA PART 2 FORCED MARRIAGE


Young women in Old Testament times married at a young age. Bathsheba was probably fifteen or sixteen when she was married to Uriah so we can assume she was not yet twenty years old when King David took her. We can work out that King David was at least forty five and that his eldest son, Ammon, was at least twenty five. (This is important, as we shall see later)



Put yourself in Bathsheba’s shoes: you have been taken by force by the supposedly devout David. You, who were ritually clean, have been defiled, and humiliated and cast off. Now you are pregnant, not with Uriah’s child but with the child of the King. You may face death by stoning, or worse, burning.

If this is not trauma enough you now learn that you are a widow. The one person who could protect you and comfort you, the man you love with all your heart, is dead. This is sorrow upon sorrow: deep anguish of soul. You cry day and night. You do not yet know that your husband was killed on the King’s instructions.



You are isolated in grief but even this delicate time is cut short. Your grandfather appears,

“Bathsheba, the King wants to marry you. You have seven days to mourn and prepare. Bathsheba, what is going on?”


You are aghast. So it’s either death by stoning or marriage to the very person who violated you. There is no way out. You are numb. This is not what you want. Grandfather does not know that you are pregnant but soon he will find out with devastating consequences.


You never want to see King David again, let alone be married to him. He is a fallen idol, a fake. Everyone thinks he is totally sold out to Yahweh but you know differently, he took you knowing full well who you are: the wife of Uriah, the daughter of Eliam, two of his most faithful warriors. Not only that but he was fully aware that you are the much loved granddaughter of his counsellor, Ahitophel. He not only violated you but your husband, your parents and grandfather.


Let’s pause a moment: how would YOU feel? Me, I would be beside myself with grief. I would also be white hot angry. ‘You David, have made me pregnant. You, David, have nineteen wives and an army of concubines, not to mention innumerable children. So now you are making me trophy wife number twenty! What kind of a happy home is this? Everyone thinks you are a great man of God but I know you are not.” I would be tempted to despise him.


It was a very miserable and unhappy young lady that entered the King’s Palace. We have no record of the wedding. Perhaps there was never such a sad bride, weakened with weeping;


nauseous with morning sickness, hopefully oblivious to the hostile glances of the older wives.


But there is comfort. She is carrying a child. She feels him kick and wriggle. She sings to him; talks to him, prays over him and feels an overwhelming tenderness towards him. She imagines him to be the child of Uriah. There is another consolation; the prophet Nathan. He is indeed a great man of God. He seeks her out. He comforts her. He becomes her friend.


The months pass. She gives birth and is full of joy. The child is beautiful. David has not come near her since she entered the palace. Shortly after the wedding he left for Rabbah to take charge of his forces there. Now victorious, he is back. His first call is to see his latest child. He takes the baby in his arms. He is a proud father. He comes every day for a week then abruptly the visits stop. It’s then that Bathsheba is aware of a strange silence in the palace. Her maids tell her that King David is lying prostrate in his chamber; he will neither eat nor drink. He is weeping and crying out to Yahweh.


Bathsheba is mystified but her baby consumes and comforts her. He is utterly delightful but then – calamity! The child is sick, very sick. She calls for Nathan but when he arrives Bathsheba can see that the prophet is deeply distressed. He makes a strange request: he would like to bring the king to see the child. ‘Since when does the king need permission to come?’ Bathsheba wonders. When he arrives accompanied by Nathan she is aghast. He is disheveled, his clothing torn. He is gaunt. To her astonishment he falls prostrate before her and weeps. He does not address his wife but cries out to God with heart rending sobs,

“Have mercy upon me, O God…..

Blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

And cleanse me from my sin.

I acknowledge my transgressions,

And my sin is ever before me….

Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed…

Blot out all my iniquities…”

He cannot continue, Nathan gathers him up and accompanies the weeping king back to his chambers.

Much later the prophet returns. He asks Bathsheba to sit while the maid attends to child.

Looking deeply into her eyes he says,

“Bathsheba, our king has sinned greatly against you and your entire family. It is not only what he did to you, but it was the king who ordered that your husband should be sent to his death on the battlefield.”



Genesis 38:24 “Judah was told ‘Tamar, your daughter in law…..is with child through harlotry .’ So Judah said, “Bring her out and let her be burned.’”

Psalm 51 NKJ


NEXT PART 3

FORGIVING RAPE, ADULTERY, BETRAYAL, MURDER and the death of your firstborn son.

The rewards of forgiveness


With love from

Mummy Kate.

Courtesy: NCC- IJU CENTER (Pastor Mrs. Margaret Oluyemisi Bajomo