The Night my Life Changed Forever!

I would have lost heart, unless I

had believed

That I would see the goodness of

the Lord

in the land of the living Ps 27:13

It was past 11pm I picked up my phone again and called. This time the line went through. What a relief!  I was happy the lines were going through at last! Hello, where are you….  I was already talking then I heard another Hello! I realized it was another person’s  voice, before I  could stop to ask who is this? The person on the other end blurted out in Hausa language ‘the owner of this phone has been involved in an accident’ I felt sick in my stomach for want of better words to describe what or how I felt. I was still trying to digest, understand or make sense of what I just heard; when I heard another voice at the background saying “just tell them he is dead”. Bang! It was like being hit by a volcano! I lost it and began to scream. Words simply cannot describe what I experienced that night. My life as I knew it had just ended.  The person on the other end of the phone was a police man, the phone was my husband’s and the dead man they were referring to was my husband.

That was the night of March 31^st 2012. The night my husband died. Off course I didn’t want to believe them. My husband couldn’t leave like that he was too alive to be dead. A pastor, child of God couldn’t just die like that. Not after all the prayers for safe journeys and long life. Not when he still had so many unfulfilled dreams and desires. Not when I and my children need him so much. Where was the promise in Ps 91:16 where God said he would satisfy us with long life? And the many other promises we had believed and prayed for, what happened?

What do you do?  You wake up one day and before the day ends your entire life as you know it comes to an end? All you ever believed in and hoped for slips from under your feet in a moment, causing you to hit the ground writhing in pain. What hit you has the magnitude of an earthquake or Tsunami. While we all recognize that death is as much a part of life its self, we never really think it will come knocking at our door. Yes it happens to others and every day thousands of people die but we never expect to wake up one morning and lose a loved one that day. So when it happens it’s a rude shock!

I tried to pick up the pieces of my life and put them back together but like ‘Humpty Dumpty’ I just couldn’t put it back together again at least not on my own. However as I deliberately made efforts to live again, pray, read my Bible and just breath taking one step at a time God began to work in amazing ways in my life. I could laugh again, sing again, dance again, feel again and live again. I realized the Lord had been there all along even when I felt he wasn’t; He was reaching out to me asking me to trust Him in this. Because I was blinded by pain I couldn’t feel Him or see Him or even hear Him but he was always there never leaving me, loving me and walking with me through the valley of the shadow of death.

On the scale of 1 to 100 the loss of a spouse is considered to result in 100% stress but I have come to realize that no matter how deep our despair, how intense our pain or how unpleasant our experiences God can and does bring healing, restoration, and hope! ‘I would have lost heart, unless i had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living’ that hope that I will yet see the Lord’s goodness kept me.

Maybe you are like me in those early days. I want you to believe God is good and he will carry through and restore hope and purpose. There is good and joy in your tomorrow because God is already there waiting for you. You will surely see the Lord’s goodness. You will laugh again friend, I know you will.