©Shalom M. David

Chief Wole Coker, a multi-millionaire, had come back from the United States of America a year ago with strange sexual desires and cravings. His wife, Mrs Bisi Coker, could not understand his strange sexual cravings and refused to indulge him. Chief Coker, feeling sex starved, decided to experiment the new ideas he had learnt on his little niece who had been brought to acquire an education under his roof.

Prisca Coker was only ten years old when her uncle started molesting her. She cried the first time it happened. Everyone in the house was away when her uncle tiptoed into her room and forced himself on her. Then he warned her not to tell any soul or else he will kill her. He promised if she kept it secret he would give her a good education and other things that will make her happy. And so he began his sexual escapades with Prisca. He tried all the new styles he had learnt on her. Sometimes he would bind her and whip her. Other times she would be the one doing the whipping. He tried everything and anything that caught his fancy. This continued until Prisca was 16 and through with high school. They had managed to keep the affair a secret from other family members. But Prisca loathed herself for engaging in immoral acts with her uncle and hated him for stealing her innocence and pride. One day, Chief Coker was admitted to the hospital.

"He has been diagnosed with serious cancer. It has eaten deep into his body. There is nothing we can do for him now since he came late. He only has a few weeks left to live." The doctor told Mrs Coker.

The whole family was sad. His wife and children rallied round their father to make the little time he had left to count. But Prisca was happy. As the cancer ate him up, she waited patiently and excitedly for his death. Surely, this was God's way of punishing her uncle for the evil he had done to her.

Meanwhile, Chief Coker on his dying bed could not stop thinking about Prisca and the harm he had done to her. He regretted abusing her. He knew what he had done to her would damage her for life. As his days drew on, he reviewed his will with his lawyer and made peace with his maker before his death.

"And to my niece, Prisca Coker," the lawyer read Chief Coker's will. "I leave 50% of my money in my Diamond account, three of my luxury cars, the estate in Maryland, the mansion in Ajah and the two plots in Victoria Island."

Mrs Coker and her three children gasped in shock as they stared at Prisca.

"What? But why? Why on earth will he leave all that to her?" Mrs Coker enquired.

"She was part of his household." The lawyer tried to explain.

"Oh, spare us that trash," Sade Coker, the eldest daughter said. "Why would he give her a large portion of his wealth? She was only his niece after all."

They all turned to look maliciously at Prisca. But she sat stoicfaced pretending not to be moved by anything. The whole Coker family were enraged with her. They spread gossip about her and called her bad names. But they couldn't stop her from her inheritance. After she had collected what was her right, she left Lagos and came to Abuja to start her life afresh.

She knew the reason Chief Coker had bequeathed so much to her. He wanted to appease her for his wrong and appease his conscience. But no amount of money he could leave for her would be able to make her stop hating him. No amount of wealth could undo the pain, the tears, the shame and hurt she went through because of him. She inherited his wealth but was thankful for his death.
After setting up some businesses with her money, she got admitted into the University of Abuja to study Sociology. She was a big girl on campus. Her wealth gave her fame, friends and popularity. She partied and hung out with friends everyday. That was when her strange sexual cravings started. She began to yearn for a much younger guy to satisfy her. One evening, while passing by the basketball court, she noticed a group of teenage boys playing in the court. She stopped and watched with interest. At the end of the the game, the boys were dispersing when one of them who was fifteen bumped into her.

"My bad, please pardon me." He apologized to her.

"Nothing to worry about", she told him.

"What's your name?"

"Bright". He replied.

He smiled as he waved goodbye to her. She smiled and waved back. The next day, she was back to watch him play. She kept coming for days till one day she invited him for dinner at Chicken Republic. She told him she was into him and wanted to be his girlfriend. He was shocked but accepted because she was good looking and rich. She was ten years older than him. She was the first to have sex with him. Having an affair with him seemed to take away the pain, hurt and shame she had gone through in the hands of her uncle. She felt more powerful and in control since she was the one doing the preying. Bright became very fond of her. She bought him many expensive things and gave him money whenever he asked for it. Time came when she was mobilized for national service. He was heart broken but she promised she would come back for him after her one year mandatory service.

During her service year in Imo State, she met Paul. Paul was the State President of the Nigerian Christian Corpers Fellowship in Imo. Paul was so interested in winning her to Christ. He kept witnessing to her about the love of Christ; the power of the blood of Jesus that could wash all her sin and pain. She kept pushing him away, he persisted until one day she broke down in tears and agreed she needed the cleansing power of Jesus.
Her life was changed. She became a new woman. She was able to forgive Chief Coker and herself. A warm peace entered her soul. Her sexual desires dried up. Her wild erotic imaginations ceased as she read God's words, heard sermons of God's grace and prayed for His help. Paul was amazed at how much she grew in the knowledge of God. He decided to disciple her himself because he sensed a great grace on her life. After a year of mentoring her, he realized he was in love with Prisca. He prayed about it and felt peace to ask her to marry him.

"I can't marry you." She told him point blank.

"But why, Prisca?"

"Because I'm tainted. I'm not good enough for you. I have an ugly past. I'm a handful of faults. You on the other hand are so perfect. You are a strong believer and I know you have a pastoral calling. I'm not the kind of woman you need. God will give you a better lady."

Paul shook his head. "Things don't work that way in God's kingdom. God has cleansed you from every guilt, you are no longer tainted. God takes the imperfect and unqualified, dusts them up and uses them for His glory. None of us deserves God's grace by virtue of our sinful nature, but He gave it to us anyway. By the blood of Jesus we are sanctified and justified. The grace of God has made me who I am today and the grace of God is also available to transform you into a wonderful vessel.

"Yes, I have a pastoral calling on my life. But I want you to join me so together we can win souls for God. Satan will always try to use your past to demoralize you, but always remember that Christ's blood has made you pure."

Prisca eventually agreed and said yes to Paul. They got married the next year. Paul became a pastor and General Overseer in Owerri. Prisca became an evangelist. She went to secondary schools and preached against premarital sex. Many teenagers turned to Jesus after hearing her. She received many invitations to speak in Christian fellowships. Sometimes, her past sex life came haunting her but she learnt to stop herself from thinking about it. One day however, a fine young man was ushered into her office.

"You don't remember me, do you?" The young man said to her still on his feet. He was dressed in an expensive blue suit.

"Well, you look somewhat familiar, though I can't really recall where we met."

The man chuckled and put his hands into his pockets. "Of course you won't recognize me. It has been 8 years since we saw each other. I was just a teenager then, now I'm a young adult."

With her eyes wide open, Prisca stood up slowly and looked over at the young man.

"Bright?"

He smirked. "Now you remember."

"Wow! It has been a long while. I never knew I would ever see you again."

"You had the choice of coming back to look for me, but you never did." Bright's tone changed suddenly.

Prisca sighed and looked down.

"You promised me that you would come back for me after your service. You promised we were going to be together again. I waited. You never came back."

Prisca sighed again and shook her head. "You were young and then I realized our relationship was wrong. I had to let go of you."

"You used me to satisfy your desires. You took away my innocence. You robbed me of my purity. You taught me dirty things and then left me hanging. Do you know how what you did affected me? Do you know how battered and helpless I became after you left? I was obsessed about you. I couldn't get over you for long until I realized you never cared about me. You had only used me and dumped me."

Prisca sobbed and wiped some tears from her eyes. "Bright, I am so sorry. How can I ever make amends for the wrong I did to you? Please forgive me."

"I can never forgive you. You think I'm just going to let you have a better life after destroying mine? Hell no. Now you go from school to school, campus to campus preaching sexual purity when you yourself are a monster. It's funny you never mention how you took advantage of a minor, how you took away his virginity, had sex with him everyday in strange positions and styles. You are so disgusting."

"Bright, I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. I was an unbeliever then and had no control over my sexual drive."

"I don't care Prisca. I'm here to take away what you took away from me. You don't deserve to be an evangelist after what you did."

He pulled out his phone quickly and gave her a video to watch. Prisca gasped as she watched it. It was a sex tape of herself and Bright recorded many years ago.

"How and why did you make a sex tape of us?" She asked.

"My friends told me you were going to dump me one day. They advised to make a video of us so I could use it against you if you did."

"But what do you want to do with this video?"

"Release it of course, so that everyone can see what a monster you are."

"No, no, Bright. Please don't do this. Don't ruin my reputation. I am no longer that person I used to be. Please, let's talk about this."

"I have nothing more to talk to you about." Bright said and walked out of the office.

Prisca was devastated. At home, she narrated Bright's threat to her husband and asked him to help her stop Bright from releasing the video. Paul and Prisca tried to reason with Bright but he was hell bent on destroying her reputation. Prisca sunk into depression. How was she going to face people afterwards?
The video was leaked and it went viral over the internet. Many bloggers published scandalous articles about her. Social media tagged her a sex maniac and a pedophile. Pastors criticized her and warned members to have nothing to do with her. She became a shadow of herself, she sunk deeper into depression.

"Why would God allow this to happen to me?" She cried when her husband was comforting her one day. "Does God not care about me? I thought He had forgiven me. The world will never want to hear me out. I will always be tagged as the lady who molested a teenager. My ministry has ended. I am tainted for life."

"No," Paul said. "Your ministry has only began. For a long time you've been hiding your past. You refused to confront it because you didn't want the world to condemn you. The devil decided to take advantage of that so he could cripple your ministry. Now that the truth of your past is out, you have to tell the world your own story. So yes, you made a mistake with Bright, but there were things that pushed you into doing it, things the world must know. You must tell the world what happened, why it happened and how you were able to move on. Tell the world you are no longer the woman who was caught in the act, you are the woman who has been washed, pardoned and forgiven. It will hurt you to confront your past, but it will set you free from the shame you've been hiding. Don't hide it anymore. Tell the truth and move on. Show the enemy that his worst can't stop you."

Prisca finally opened up about her past in a TV interview. She told the truth about how she had been abused and because she failed to heal, she turned to abuse another. She told the world she was sorry she messed up, but she had encountered the healing power of Christ and was now forgiven and healed and she was going to continue preaching about the redemptive power of God.

Many people understood and gave her support even though others continued to criticize her. She continued to speak to teenagers about sexual purity, but now she also focused on those who had already been defiled, hurt or abused. She gave them courage through her story of how God's grace could set one free and heal one's pain. Many were able to find healing and break the circle of abuse.
The end.



NOTE
Jesus said He didn't come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. It does not matter how bad you've been or what crimes you have committed, the love and power of Jesus can and will set you free if you are willing. Just say this simple prayer:

"Lord Jesus, I know I have sinned and gone wrong. Forgive me and make me whole. Come into my life and set me free. Give me the grace to live above sin. Be my Guide, Saviour and Lord now and forever. Amen."

Now that you've got Jesus in your boat, get intimate with Him by reading the Bible and praying daily. Find a Bible believing church and fellowship regularly with them to build your faith. Congratulations, you're now a new creation.

Please share this short story with others if you were blessed by it.