Blessing

Chapter 25

269 25 ister Blessing Someone shook the unconscious figure arched on the pew, neck tilted at an uncomfortable angle. ‘What?’ Blessing mumbled. ‘This Christmas season would surely be special for you. I don’t see what else can make you smile so much in your sleep other than an encounter with the Holy Spirit.’ ‘Smile?’ Blessing asked, rubbing her eyes and trying to focus them past the intruder’s shoulder to get a better view of the place in which she had woken up. Where was she? The place could be any place in the world, but it just was not her bedroom. After being on the road for the past three days, keeping track of the beds in which she had slept in was as difficult as discerning her present environment. Could she be in Limbe, where the Women’s group had gone for a retreat? The beds in the beach house where they had lodged had not been so hard as to cause such deadness around her neck. Again, a room overlooking the sea would not pump out such fusty breath. Her neck hurt just as it had during the bus ride back to Yaoundé. But that had been some hours ago – that she remembered well. Blessing rubbed her neck and combed her field of vision, which went as far as the altar. Abruptly, like someone who had just caught up with reality, she jerked and went on her knees. She was supposed to be praying and keeping vigil in the house of the Lord, but instead she had given in to the lure of sleep. She felt like one of the five stupid virgins in the parable of the Ten Bridesmaids, whose lamps had run out of oil with the consequence that they missed the opportunity to feast with the bridegroom, for He came and found them ill prepared. Had the Lord come and gone while she was asleep? She now felt like Peter and the other disciples who had not been able to stay awake to pray with Jesus when he had needed them most. ‘Betrothed at eleven. Married at thirteen. Discarded at thirteen. Remarried at seventeen. Divorced at thirty-eight.’ The church was all she now relied on to delete the last clause from her epitaph. She just S 270 could not afford to miss the Lord when next He came. The first thing Blessing did when she moved from her knees to her buttocks, after an hour of prayer, was to look at her wristwatch. 2:30 a.m. ‘In your place I would not look at my watch. You still have at least two hours to go.’ ‘I am tired, Sister Ngum. You know I could not even make you out when you woke me from sleep?’ ‘You should have stayed home today after spending so many hours on the road. You should indeed be very tired to sleep with all the drumming and singing going on here.’ ‘Yes, I could have stayed home, but what if the Lord came in my absence?’ ‘You are right, Sister. You have to pray always, keeping in mind that the good God does not let down his faithful servants. He will answer you. He will cast aside that woman who wants to destroy your home. He will return your husband to you.’ Sister Ngum paused briefly as though weighing her thoughts. ‘But you also know, Sister Blessing,’ she said slowly ‘that if you had blessed your marriage in church, the temptation of falling into the arms of another woman would have been stronger than your husband. Anyway, you should not think about all that now. Just continue to pray and trust God. He will grant your heart’s desires.’ Blessing prayed and fasted. She waded into all her church activities and obligations. After completing the Bible study course, she quickly moved from teaching children at Sunday school to preparing candidates for baptism. Her house had also been converted into a weekly Bible study cell for Christians who lived around the Elig-Edzoa and Nlongkak neighbourhoods. Two years had gone by since Joseph had first shown up with the divorce request, but there had been no progress since then. He had not returned to make good his claim and he had not come to retract his words with the hope of salvaging what was left of their marriage. Having adopted ‘optimism’ as her new mantra, Blessing adhered more to the positive side of the situation. And when...