Edna episode 20 – finale

Edna episode 20
Subtitled: Crushed
Written by Lizzy Oyebola Oyekunle
I remembered those times while in Paris where I had to make her go through rehab.
She was so depressed that she was always moody!
She was so touchy to the name of Jesus that I had to start rebuking such spirit that had convinced her that Jesus wasn’t fair to her.
Gradually, I started from the scratch- I got her the Children’s bible stories and she started reading again while I talked to her in the spirit
I knew it was not an ordinary issue but a spiritual warfare!
Then, she grew to independently read the Bible and all and then and there, she was right in front of me, preaching to the wh0le wide world
I had won a soul for Christ!
Not just the soul of anybody at all but that of my daughter!
Oh what Joy!
Oh what Joy!
“Then, still dependent on my retroviral drugs, I started to pick up the pieces of my life again and finished studying Petrochemical Engineering from The American University of Paris before having some other degrees and post graduate studies. It was the Lord’s doing…”
“And it is marvelous in our eyes” we replied in a chorus
“Then, one day, the best thing that had happened to me, really did happen! Something that I had never experienced in my life; an experience that no other experience can beat in my life again except the salvation of my soul- my husband proposed to me!” she said emotionally and there was a whew sound in the square.
I smiled
That was really a great day!
……….
Immediately she moved to Miami, Florida for a job opportunity, I moved to Australia to meet with my husband.
I was tending to my periwinkles one day when Seyi came out through the yard into the garden to give me my beeping phone
“Who is it?” I asked
“Your baby o…Mercy” he said and I straighten up with determination
She had not called for like three days and Jean had been in touch.
I was going to lambast her
“Hello, you are not serious o baby mie. You just left us alone like that and didn’t check back. Is that how a child should treat her parents? Huh?” I started as if the words had been clogged down the pipes of my throat and there is a sudden flush down the latrine.
“Mummy ….mum…mummy….” Mercy gasped for air as she called me on and on and I wondered what it was that was the problem
“Mercy love, what is the matter with you? Talk to me please” I was agitated
My husband looked into my eyes too, sensing trouble
“Mum, Jean…it’s Jean” she cried into the phone again
My eyes w¡dened in shock
“What happened to him? Exactly what?” I asked, resting against the pole holding my pumpkin, my heart beating really hærd
“Jean?” my husband whispered, his back arched as his bent to see my face like a real gossip
I nodded and he held my hands in expectation as if he could hear what it was
“Jean says he wants to marry me mum. Like, he practically came over to my office so shockingly and popped the question.” She said over the phone, p-nting heavily
“Really!” my heart started racing- I was excited!
“Why would he do such? Has he come to really embarrass me and disgrace me and remind me of my reproach and past? Is that it?” she had started crying and I realized what the matter must have been
“Because of your health?” I asked and she sobbed
“I had to leave him and run up this terrace to talk to you mum. I had always been crushed all my life and I have accepted my fate like that. I must confess that this is like a bad opening of a fresh wound. It’s so bleeding!”
I really didn’t know what to say again!
How was I supposed to come into the situation?
“Mummy, aren’t you going to say something? Aren’t you going to call him to order and discipline him for such a prank?” she blurted out again
We were silent from our own side again
“Are you…” she was asking when we heard a male voice over the phone
“Would you leave our dear parents alone and let’s focus on ourselves? Would you?” he asked and Mercy broke down into tears the more
“But you know I can’t marry Jean. You know it. There is nothing about me that you don’t know. So why? Like why would this kind of a thing happen? Why? Why would you come to ridicule me like this?” she asked in tears and I placed the phone on loudspeaker, placed on the veranda stool as tears ran down my face
“Why can’t you marry? Exactly why can’t you?” he asked and I looked at my husband in shock
Had he forgotten that she was diagnosed of the deadly virus?
Had he?
“See, as long as a man would see a lady that has epilepsy and decide to marry her because of deep love; as long as someone could decide to marry another who has severe ulcer, asthma, sickle cell anemia and all, I don’t see why that same deep love wouldn’t cover me when I marry an HIV positive individual who has so suppressed the effects of the virus through the drugs usage and is looking healthier than someone who really doesn’t have it” he explained and my husband and I held close to each other so tightly that as the goose bumps appeared on my hands and I shivered!
“What?” She asked, obviously shocked
“It is you I have always loved and it is you the Lord is pointing at. I love you and I want you to marry me”
“But….”
“Leave all buts Mercy. Let’s forget everything about HIV and let’s talk about me. Do you still love me? Do you have a space in my heart to accept my proposal please” he pleaded, coolly
“Jean, I ….ah…oh my God!” she cried again
I stamped my feet on the ground as I was so confused myself!
“Mercy, you are a pure, beautiful V-rgin, unstained, untouched for the glory of God. If God has wiped your past away, who am I to bring it up again? I love you from my heart and it’s difficult to let you out of my Spirit!” he said again and closed my heart as if soothing oil had been poured on a wound on my heart!
“Jean! Why Jean?” she cried on and on and the remaining had become history now!
….
“He made me understand that he saw me as a brand new lady, wh0le untouched and unstained. I was so touched that day that I could not sleep throughout although I didn’t give him his answer at the s₱0t!”
“Wow” almost everyone said that or related exclamations
“I pray concerning everyone under the influence of my voice today that something glorious, something flabbergasting that would throw you off your feet and give you happy, sleepless night, God would cause it to happen in the name of Jesus Christ!”
“Amen” we all chorused as the instrumentalists accompanied our shout with their rhythmical ensemble
“Few weeks to our wedding, we were to do some premarital tests in the church prescribed hospital and I was so sad and scared that now, the wh0le church would know about what my life entailed” she said, shook her head and thereafter looked up
I remembered so well!
………..
“Miss Mercy” the nurse called us and we were ushered into the doctor’s office
He was smiling at us as we entered- such consoling smile!
We were not smiling though!
“Why are your faces this gloomy? Why?” he asked lovingly and I looked into Mercy’s face- so hopeless and frustrated
“Aren’t you happy about getting married?” he asked and Mercy stood up
“Sir, there is no need for any counseling session. I have had enough counseling sessions and I take my drugs daily. I only wanted to do this because the church demanded for it- just for formality” she blurted out and the smile on the doctor’s face melted
“I don’t get. What drugs? What counseling sessions? What I have here is HIV negative. What are you talking about lady?”
I sounded like a joke that I had to sit straight and Mercy fell right back into her seat
“Negative as how, sir? Like, could you kindly have a re-run? Please check again” I said, p-nting heavily
……………
“We tried over seven different hospitals and the test result was the same thing.” She continued from where my imagination stopped and the wh0le square was in a joyful and prayerful disarray
“I command concerning you that all the complete and incomplete works of the enemy in your life would disappear like the early morning dew!”
“Amen!” we scre-med
“I command that you mountain of sickness, addiction, terminal diseases and all kind of problems before Zerubabel, become plain in the name of Jesus!”
“Amen!” we shouted loud and clear
“I want you to repeat after me my people.”
I looked down at my grandchildren and they had fallen asleep peacefully on top of one another.
I smiled
“I am pressed on all sides” she started and we repeated so loudly
“But I am not crushed”
“And I won’t be crushed…I can’t just be crushed!” she said firmly again and we repeated in like manners
“I am perplexed” she said again and we repeated loudly
“But I am not in despair”
“I am persecuted” that came again and we said likewise
“But I am not forsaken”
“I am struck down”
“But I am not destroyed…and cannot be destroyed!” we repeated after her as we put our hands together in a joyful applause.
“We have just two more minutes to the new year. I want my husband to say one or two things to us. Please clap for my hero” she said and there was a round of applause
“Well, thank you so much my love. Please come over here. I want to give you a peck on your forehead to really show that this year is over.” He said and there was excitement in the square as people expressed themselves in different ways.
My husband looked at me and we held our hands tightly
“These children are just so wonderful!” my husband said as he wiped his tears
Chai! My so emotional husband!
“With this peck, I seal our marital bliss for the year 2015 and hope for greater bliss in the coming year.” He said as he pecked her forehead and people clapped with such thrill and delight
“To the best parents in the world- the ones I had grown up to call mum and dad, who would continue to be and who are now my in laws, it sounds weird right? Mum and Dad, you know it’s you I am talking about right? Please raise your hands for recognition” he announced in his sonorous voice into the mic and I looked into my husband’s face- my eyes w-t with tears as we stood up and all eyes turn around us to see us
We felt just so proud of ourselves!
“Thanks for bringing me up in the most holy faith. Thank you for giving to me, one of the most virtuous angels on earth to wife. It’s been bliss all along” he smiled
“God bless you on and on and everyday” I scre-med and I was shocked when everyone said amen!
I never knew they would hear me
“I am really speechless because Mercy has said it all. But, I would like to enjoin you to rise up quickly when you fall! Don’t stay down! Don’t stay grounded! If you fall as is likely unavoidable for human beings, quickly rise up! If you remain there and different trailers and tractors and big vehicles press you down…that is when you are really crushed!”
I nodded as it sunk!
“Mercy, through God’s grace stood up when she fell and God visited her with things she never even planned for to the extent that he healed her of a terminal disease but her foster parents especially the dad who is my own biological father fell and didn’t think it to rise up again until he met his final doom! His wife killed him and thereafter killed herself! So painful!” he said, shaking his head in regret
I sighed deeply too as I remembered how I saw the news plainly printed in one of the Nigerian Dailies when we were in Paris.
Mercy moved to the mic and held her husband by the wa-ist
“Well, glory be to the Lord!”
“Amen!” we replied
“Let’s teach us a new song before we all go…”
The keyboardist started the lead and the duo joined as they sang beautifully
It is finished
The battle is over
It is finished
There’ll be no more war
It is finished
The end of the conflict
It is finished
And Jesus is Lord
We kept on repeating the song in a harmonious way until after about two minutes later, we heard from the podium in front of us
“It’s 12am, 1st January, 2016 and it’s definitely a new year. Happy new year” Mercy announced over the mic and there was uproar as people started exchanging pleasantries.
Fireworks flew up in the air, forming different celebrative images.
The noise of the bangers and firecrackers filled the wh0le house that I had to quickly sit down to pull my sleeping grandchildren to myself.
As I pulled Iranlowooluwa close to herself, I felt someone so hot and w-t against my skin
“Jesus! Urine!” I exclaimed to myself and my husband gave me a knowing look
I smiled and shook my head
“It’s not what you think my dear.” I laughed and pulled my children to my chest
“I didn’t say anything. Did i?” he asked, smiling in a funny way
“My baby is not a wee-wee boy o. he told me he wanted to use the loo. I was the one that delayed him. So, don’t even think about that at all” I continued
He clapped his hands together and twitched his mouth in a funny way
“I kuku didn’t say anything still” he said and we both laughed together gladly
“The devil has had his head…” I said, looking into my husband’s face for the response
“…crushed!” he replied but as his response was landing, two other voices joined and we had to turn back to see them- the hero and heroine of the day!
“Sure! The devil has had his head crushed dear parents. Happy new year!” they said almost together.
We laughed at the harmony of their just concluded sentence and I pulled them near, held their hands as we formed a small circle as we sung happily the song we had just been taught!
It is finished
The battle is over
It is finished
There’ll be no more war
It is finished
The end of the conflict
It is finished and Jesus is Lord!
The End
Glory be to God!
I hope you have been blessed greatly.
Remain victorious with the devil under your feet.
Note: edna (Crushed) is half fictional/half non-fictional