Benson and his wife don't sit next to each other during Church services.
Even when going to Church services, they go in different vehicles; and when they travel in the same car, it is usually a very quiet and uncomfortable ride.
Benson sat at his usual spot in the Church service; the fourth line on the far left row. His wife sat on the center row.
The Pastor took to the podium.
*"Husbands, stop wasting your time praying"* the Pastor began.
The congregants got alarmed. No one expects to hear a pastor saying prayer is a waste of time.
I am not here to discourage you to pray, but to encourage you to pray right.
Husbands, stop wasting your time praying if you are not treating your wives well.
You come to church driving your expensive cars, giving your offerings and tithes, active in Church, some of you are Church leaders; but how are you treating your wife?
You may look good to us Church members, but it is your wife and children that know who you truly are" said the Pastor.
Benson turned to face his wife. She looked at him. Benson could see her eyes.
Her left eye swollen from the blow he gave her last week when she confronted him about his alcoholism, pornography use and mischievous behavior.
People couldn't tell she had a black eye because of the make up she had on, so well done.
The Pastor continued, "People have perfected the art of cover up. Here in Church, so many are hurting but you wouldn't know.
People come here wearing their nice clothes, shiny smiles, they are active in ministry but hurting a lot in their marriage.
"We have become numb and plastic, brushing things under the carpet. But today we shall heal; and shall address those wounds we hide."
The Pastor cleared his throat and continued, "Many of those who are hurting their spouses are using the church to hide.
They think that because they give offering s and tithes, because they make public prayers, because they read the Word or because they hold a Church leadership position that they are right with God. God is also interested in what you do in your marriage and in your family.
The Word says that when you treat your wife badly, it hinders your prayers. Men, you claim to be prayerful?
Hear this, "Your first ministry is your home. Stop trying to blackmail God with your service in Church yet you are mean and hurtful towards your spouse."
Many of the members of the congregation got restless and unsettled.
The Pastor continued, "Many of those who are being hurt by their spouse hide their pain and want to project an image that all is well to validate that they are blessed and in control.
Some of you are active in Church to run away from the pain in your marriages".
The congregation was silent. Some straightening their ties, others fidgeting with their Bibles, adjusting their sitting position.
This pastor was preaching truth and it was uncomfortable.
The Pastor continued, "The husbands are not the only ones guilty here... Wives, don't you know the Bible says when your husband found you he found good virtuous woman and you brought favour?
Then why are you the source of your husband's headache and stress? Have you been so toxic that you have turned your prayerful husband into a prayer-less one?
Do you make him regret marrying you because you bring more complications than he had before marrying you?
How you treat your husband can be a stumbling block in his walk with God or an environment that encourages growth.
Many of you wives married your individual husbands primarily because of their relationship with God, so why are you now destroying their relationship with God instead of celebrating and nurturing it?
Why are you being a burden to your husband emotionally, spiritually, socially, sexually and financially instead of being one who brings favour?"
Benson's wife looked at her husband. Benson looked at her, and she looked away.
The Pastor paused to drink his glass of water.
And he continued, "When I am thirsty, I drink a glass of water.
When your spouse gets thirsty, will you allow God to use you to bless your spouse?
You've been told many sermons that focus on you as an individual, that God will make you prosper as an individual.
I am here to tell you your blessings are tied to people, you are blessed to be a blessing to others. Our God is not an individualistic God.
Your blessing is tied to your marriage, your family. It's not about you; it is about Jesus and Jesus is about love.
What good is it to prosper and be successful when you have no love? It is all vanity.
God cares about your family, how you treat your spouse and children" Silence. Silence. Silence...
"Yes, we pray. But what kind of prayers does your spouse pray because of you?
When your spouse prays, is it largely to cry to God because of the hurt you bring?
Is it to plead with God to change you from the monster you've become?
Is it to plead for grace to deal with how difficult you are? Or is to give thanks for you?"
Silence. Silence as grave yard
"Are you really prayerful? Do you really value prayer? What is prayer?
Then why is it that many of you find it easy to come to us pastors for us to pray with you as an individual, you find it is easy to pray in public, in a Church service or Bible study, but find it so hard to pray with your spouse?
Isn't that telling of what is going on in your marriage? Don't you know that the more you pray with your spouse the stronger your marriage will be?
But how can you find it easy to pray with a spouse you hurt or who hurts you?"
The Pastor paused and looked at the congregation. Eyes staring at him.
"I challenge you. I challenge you to pray with your spouse and to treat your spouse well. You must save your home, your marriage, your love!
Husbands, you are the head of the home. I challenge you to stand up and go to where your wife is and pray with her as a start of a more prayerful chapter in your marriage.
Don't do it because I asked you to but because you want to. Your choice"
One by one, the husbands present stood up.
Benson stood up too.
Benson walked to where his wife was.
The face of Benson's wife overwhelmed with love, she looked on as her husband walked to her.
She almost stood up but he gave hand gestures at her to stay seated.
Benson reached where she sat. Their eyes met.
Benson knelt down. He stared at her then kissed her swollen left eye.
"I am sorry" he said.
"Can I pray with you?" He asked.
She got up from her seat and knelt down too.
There, on the floor as the Church service was still ongoing, husbands prayed with their wives.
Benson prayed kneeling with his wife.
They prayed for forgiveness, for thanksgiving, for love, for renewal, for peace, for direction; for their marriage.
Marriages were healed.
If You have been blessed by this message please share. You might just be saving a marriage at the verge of being broken.
Lovely message
The higlighted parts, absolutely on point!
This pastor needs to be invited to Nigerian churches and not the individualistic preachings we hear. If all is not well with your family/marriage, all is not well.
Something tells me that the pastor will be booted out after the first invite sha
BuddhaPalm: "As women are a considerable, or, at least, a pretty numerous part of company; and as their suffrages go a great way towards establishing a man’s character in the fashionable part of the world, which is of great importance to the fortune and figure he proposes to make in it, it is necessary to please them.
I will, therefore, upon this subject, let you into certain arcana that will be very useful for you to know, but which you must, with the utmost care, conceal and never seem to know.
Women, then, are only children of a larger growth; they have an entertaining tattle, and sometimes wit; but for solid reasoning, good sense, I never knew in my life one that had it, or who reasoned or acted consequentially for four-and-twenty hours together.
Some little passion or humour always breaks in upon their best resolutions.
Their beauty neglected or controverted, their age increased or their supposed understandings depreciated, instantly kindles their little passions, and overturns any system of consequential conduct that in their most reasonable moments they have been capable of forming.
A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humours and flatters them, as he does with a sprightly, forward child; but he neither consults them about nor trusts them with, serious matters; though he often makes them believe that he does both, which is the thing in the world that they are proud of."
------ Lord Chesterfield, March 9, 1748 (In a letter to his son)
ninety5: Hi everyone, hope y'all safe. I am going to hit the road straight up.
My wife's sister, 24, visited us two days before the lockdown in Lagos and was hoping to travel in the next three days. Unfortunately for her, the lock down thwarted her plan.
Now, my wife, together with our 3 year old boy, always leaves the house during the day to go gossip with her friends, living only her sister and me at home.
The problem is, my wife's sister has been looking at me somehow, like she wants me to have sex with her. The other day she saw me and was smiling like I gifted her some money, like a fish. Yesterday, she wore a blouse that left her n.pples dangling back and forth as she walked around the house.
Guys please, I am in a dilemma. And, good god, the girl is finer and hotter than her sister, the gossip.
What do you want me to do?
No insult please.
Instead of you to tell us you want to sleep with your SIL, you are telling us she is smiling like a fish.
MsDoris: Man Devastated As He Loses Wife On Their First Wedding Anniversary (Photos) . . There is nothing as painful as losing a beloved one. It is an experience no one wants to have.
A Nigerian man identified as Tuleh Spanix Terhile has been thrown into mourning after losing his beautiful wife, Vivian, to the cold hands of death.
The most heartbreaking thing about her demise is that she died on the very same date they got married but a year after.
The couple happily got married on 27th April 2019, unfortunately, the day they were supposed to celebrate their one year anniversary, 27th April, 2020, the wife died.
The cause of Vivian’s death wasn’t mentioned but she’s said to have left behind a baby girl.
Her late husband took to his Facebook page to mourn the loss of his wife.
Davash222: Another was when me and 3 other babes had to see a doctor together regarding something going round the hostel then...we all had to open something for the doctor to inspect. Whew! That was traumatic
What could be going round the hostel then Una fucck infected person?
Farki: I don't know why the people in charge of education in Lagos are thinking like illiterates. First the age limit on admission now it's banning people from online classes because of stupid reasons which are partially the government's fault.
Fuel is cheaper because of the lockdown and won't the family use their generator for other uses? Does she think you need a mega generator to power a laptop or small computer?
The teachers are online with the students so the concerns about students 'being exposed to pornograhy are weak and silly'.
If they are concerned about online bullying they can easily report the students responsible. It's not like Lagos State government was doing anything about bullying in real life where older students see it as their right to bully younger ones. Do these people know how the Internet works at all?
Overall weak silly excuses, I'm disappointed.
Any school that wants to proactively engage their students is free to do so.
Don't just coin it 'third term' and expect the students to pay.
The school could ask for a little fee for subjects per hour. E.g. N1,500/hr for a subject and add it to their 3rd term bill.
Tripitaka: Have you dated a girl who is a product of incest? Have you dated a girl whose brother raped the mother for ritual purposes? Have you dated a girl who grew up to find out that her actual dad is the family driver, but the pregnancy was passed on to the "willing dad"? Have you dated a girl whose own father has been sexually abusing? Have you dated a girl whose mother's nude pictures are all over the internet because she was caught shoplifting?
I believe your answer would be "No", as you would have included these in your narrative.
The families in your narrative can hardly be classed as "troubled" as I would like to think that your experiences are the peculiarities of your average Nigerian family. The average Nigerian family where diabolism and fetishism is real; where cohabitation is in vogue because the government outlaws abortion and your parents would insist on you living with the man who impregnated you even if he has no interest in marrying you; where young widows are still oppressed by their late husband's relatives; where poverty and unemployment is the norm hence a 40yr old unemployed man is nothing out of the ordinary.
The women you have been with are not from troubled families, at least in my opinion. They are simply from Nigerian families.
Magnoliaa: By saying a teen forced into child marriage is emotionally intelligent. You can Google the adverse effects of such marriages on the emotional wellbeing of a child. It stunts their education and development.
You compared that to and say it's greatly better than women having choices.
So are those young girls in the North emotionally intelligent?
I was referring to the olden days(which I thought you were making reference to). Family life was simple and so, their marriages. Some were 'successful' (and longer) according to their terms.
The majority of child marriages aren't successful, they don't have to end in divorce.
And in present times, even younger people divorce more than older people. https://www.wf-lawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts/ There's a lot of extensive studies you'll have to dig through... This is just one. I'll share some screenshots below.
How are you so sure SHE did something/contributed to his decline? If you'd asked what happened originally, that would have been balanced.
The man is a cheat and a drunkard, and you blamed the woman for what she did to turn him that way. I'm saying what if she'd tried to get him help? What if she'd tried to find ways to deal with his infidelity?
I understand. I choose whatever man I want (based on what he does/how he is). I can choose to continue being with same man no matter how he acts, that's me accepting the 'consequences' of my choice, but there's no where am I making that man be who he is. He's what he is independent of me, and I choose to be with him. I may influence or inspire him and all that, but he's solely responsible for his actions.
Well, you posted on a forum with diverse people having different mentalities...
Pardon me, I am tired of going back and forth.
I have in no way made light of teens who were forced into marriage. I have however been privileged to interact with a few and they made good their lives with sometimes tough choices and no whinning.
Everybody (male & female) is responsible for their choices, actions, reactions and should be willing to face the consequences of each one.
When people of different mentalities see my posts, I expect them to jump and pass.
I don't go to Islamic section and start talking against polygamy, it would be foolish of me.
cococandy: 1. The wife can analyze what went wrong first. That’s sensible. However, what went wrong may not be explainable in a simple language that either of them understand. Their life might just be going well as it had always been from the beginning yet one of them will become a drunk and a cheat. Life is more complex than Nairaland back and forth posts.
2. It doesn’t mean that she did it, as was implied by your first post asking what she did to turn him into a drunk and a cheat.
3. I thought we agreed on personal responsibility. The same way married women are supposed to be responsible for their actions and choices and the consequences thereof , so should their men.
1. There must be something wrong for a sane husband to go insane. For every action, there is equal and opposite reaction. It is to decipher if it is an action or reaction and deal accordingly. The wife might analyse, give him time to change and even separate as a message to the husband.
2. It is not necessarily the wife's 'fault'. It can be a new stuff he picked up to 'belong' or whatever.
3. Of course, the men are responsible for their actions, reactions and would deal with the consequences. Just how I think XYZ saying they cheated because their spouse did is crap.
For all it's worth, I was responding to this after I responded to Mr. 'Sir' before I switched to mobile on my other moniker and the thread degenerated.
Magnoliaa: 1. This is a huge downplay of the problem of child marriages in the world. And to prove what?
You say they are unfortunate and forced. How can this ever be a good thing?
2. I think you lumped this together with the kind of marriage system contracted in the olden days, where the families come to discuss about their kids. But don't leave out the fact that these kids liked each other first, from afar without zero contact. These one are emotionally intelligent because they started working at 15, 16, learnt values earlier in life and mature quickly because of the extended family ties and other positive factors. E.g, parents could pick a spouse for their wards because they were, well, PARENTS. In every sense of the word. Now times have changed and people are finding themselves independent of those who gave birth to them.
3. But such successful cases of early marriages are few.
4. Your initial post blamed the woman for the change in the man's behaviour. Like, he doesn't have any morals or principles guiding him. Anything going wrong is automatically the woman's fault.
5. You can't also conclude that the woman isn't doing/hasn't done anything to salvage the marriage.
6. It's not her job alone.
1. How did I downplay child marriages when I even said they were unfortunate? Or does unfortunate have another meaning?
2. I am talking of child marriages as it happens in the North. Not cultures where teens get married.
3. Do you stats to prove that marriages contracted between young people are prone to divorce more than older people?
4. Did you follow the convo? The lady said it is difficult to submit to a drunkard and a cheat. Hence my question to her: Why did she marry one? And if she did not marry one, what did she do/contribute to make him one or simply put, what happened?
5. At NO point on this thread did I even assume that.
6. 100% agree with you; I did a thread recently comparing a Christian husband to Christ and I have always been very vocal that I hold men and women to same standards/morals. When men post their issues here, I address them; when wives post their issues, I also address them and teach women to be responsible for their choices. Which is why my threads are majorly to women and what to look out for. I still remember a thread recently on women differentiating between the men that worth them and the men that want them.
Let me also make it clear that I speak to Christians. Non-Christian couples can do as they deem fit (I am not saying only Christian marriages work before another dimwit quotes me).
merahki: You have got to be freaking kidding me right now I told you before, there is something affected about your posts. Let me just hope you are putting up a front. Because if this is truly you? Then I just don’t know what to say at all
Put up a front that women should choose their husbands well?
Or a woman is too infantile to take responsibility for her own choices? Or was she forced to marry a man?
Girls unfortunate to be in cultures where they are forced to marry in their teens are even more emotionally intelligent than so called 30s who have 'flexed', 'seen' it all and 'made' all the money.
Abi a woman chooses a good man and he turns up drunk and a cheat one day. The wife would not analyze what went wrong first?
We don't have same guiding principles so 'my posts might seen affected to you.'
merahki: Darling, you need to flex your wings, discover yourself, travel, earn a living/make your own money, get a degree, and another, form your own independent opinions and grow, before you start thinking about getting married. I tell you this as if you were my younger sister. But alas, marriage You want to have all your kids before 30? Okay Anyway it’s your life, and good luck.
That you see marriage as a bondage to 'settle' into doesn't mean other women aren't getting married and doing exploits.
I know several women married in their twenties, done with kids before 30 and doing well and thinking of how they can change their society.
They married well and enjoying the support of a good man.
mrblessed: Why are you so obsessed in foisting your opinion on her, even though she has clearly written what her preferences for her ideal man are? This is against the backdrop of her clearheaded attempt to explain what she means, in case you find it incomprehensive. It is as if your cracked lens are the only legitimate, credible, device to understand and measure yardsticks for choosing partners. Even more confounding, your obstinate insistency is ridiculous because the points she provided are unambiguous and self-explanatory. Who on earth doesn't know what a "hardworking man" and one who has the "fear of God," mean?
Let me give you the benefit of doubt and answer you this time; I haven't noticed you quoting me before;
@Bold: Can you provide the quote I 'foisted' my 'opinion' on her?
Mariangeles: Most men are intimidated by very intelligent women.
You see most nairaland males write about how dumb most females are with words poorly put together, you can barely make out anything, and you begin to think to yourself "the nerve...the audacity...by what standard does this simpleton measure intelligence? His?" The truth is men are more comfortable with a woman less intelligent than them to make them feel important.
@Bold:
First off, it is quite 'unintelligent' to compare intelligence. So a lady who already has the mindset of 'I am more intelligent than this guy' lacks emotional intelligence.
Secondly, an intelligent/reasonable lady would not be comfortable with a man who expects her to dump down to make him feel good. If she does end up with such, it means her intelligence is a waste.
LordKO: Yes, all reasonable women (people) are intelligent. It takes a combination of sound intellect (intelligence), selflessness (good morality) and meekness (good psychological health) to make sound judgement - sound judgement is equal to fairness. Fairness is the hallmark of reasonableness/conscientiousness.
Hmmmmmmm.
100%
I think OP should revise topic to reasonable women and adopt this definition in the opening post.
MMotimo: I don’t know that they necessarily make the best wives (everyone has their faults) but I can tell you that they can make your life easier in many ways. They can plan, they can offer advice, they are resourceful, they are able to do all kinds of different things for the good of their family. Even in this pandemic, a lot of such women are at the forefront of tackling how their families will survive by managing resources and keeping the home running as smoothly as is possible in the midst of a global plague.
Whenever challenges come, an intelligent woman by your side is truly “half the burden shared” because you know there are 2 heads working for a sound solution versus only you.
Not so intelligent women make good wives too, as long as the husband has enough intelligence to compensate for the wife’s inadequacy and as long as such women are aware of their limits and don’t destroy everything by insisting on making decisions they are not equipped to make.
CollinsWeGlobe: After more than two months of quarantine — my beards are like that of Rick Rubin, my tummy is big, depression every day, my thought about life would be different now and I still have two more months to stay indoor.
I’ve been quarantined for 9 weeks (63 days). Today is Orthodox Easter so I stepped out of the house to receive fresh air.
Check out soon of my photos below.
3rd to the last plate and 4th to the last plates are
sassysure: Emotionally. Don't even give such moments a chance to sprout cos when it does that and grow to maturity, u may not like the seed it will bear.
Nib it immediately.
I have seen complaints about husbands not eating. It's a serious thing o. As long as u did the right thing and he still refuses to eat. Report him. U are covered and if its the olden days, he will bring one hen to appease you. And if u are wrong, u get soft landing.
Family › Re: Heal Your Marriage by bukatyne2: 10:02pm On May 02, 2020
