Thanksgiving Chronicles Day 6: Crushed but not broken

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Ps 34:18

These photos taken in Accra, Ghana in July 2006 not only reminds me of dashed hopes but how God has come through for me in my darkest and weakest moments.

It was 3 months after our wedding and I had just had a miscarriage. Nobody wants a miscarriage but if it’s going to happen let it be private. Mine started at work and while my husband was out of town. I will forever be grateful to our staff nurse at work who pulled all her connections to get me checked up at LASUTH that afternoon and my senior colleague who drove me home in his car. The situation got worse while he was driving me home and I has bled all over the back of his car. When I felt I needed to push, he’d stop the car and let me and would not let my mum clean the car for him when he dropped me off at home that night. Thankfully and coincidentally my parents were in Lagos that evening. We had suffered another family bereavement earlier that year on my Dad’s side and they were coming to attend the burial. Mum and Dad had to watch me go through that pain and lose that pregnancy that evening. It was a very painful experience for us all and even though Dad was forming strong man, we could see through him. I remember mum saying, she felt like her world had crashed before her very eyes.

I didn’t go back to work for days and just stayed indoors prepared to wallow in the pain of that loss for as long as it takes. Thank God for another colleague and office Aunty (Aunty Rashidat) who God used to give me the kick out of that dark place. She rang to let me know an opportunity had come up for me to attend and present at our Regulatory Affairs Regional conference in Accra. I wasn’t going to agree but she gave me some tough love talk over the phone that afternoon and I packed my bag and off to Accra I went. I believe that week was when I started to shine in my career at Nestle.

The next year was going to be tougher, I was pregnant and my mum sadly passed away 5 months into my pregnancy. My husband had lost her mum many years before we got married so we knew we were not likely to have the usual grandma support when our baby arrived. It was even made tougher by the emotional roller coaster of joy and grief at the same time. But God in his infinite mercies raised so many people. So many names come to mind, Mrs Oni (my mum’s best friend) who gave me the stomach massage of my life (lol!), Aunty Yemisi Agbaniyaka who was by my bedside throughout the labour till delivery and whose house became our family house in Lagos, Mrs Fadipe, my mum’s friend turned mother in law as I call her who nursed me and the baby for 2 full months in her home, my Aunty Dayo who left her busy pastor’s wife schedule to look after me for some days. They all literarily ran a rota including my grandmother –Iyetaye.

I am so grateful to God for all these people but the most surprising for me of them all was Mama Oluwole – a complete stranger that God brought into our life for that critical season. How God orchestrated our steps to cross have not ceased to amaze me.

It all happened on a Sunday morning about a month after Mum’s passing. We were in church and there was a call for testimony. I automatically switched off and told myself God has not done anything for me. He even allowed my mum to die young. What’s there to testify about? Then there was this strong push inside me to go and testify about how God had answered a prayer me and my mum had prayed before her passing. I resisted and ended up going forward at the tail end of the session. When I got back to my sit, I was still busy being angry with God for pushing me to do that when one of the ushers approached me. She whispered that a woman on the other side of the church would like to see me after the service. What for? I don’t know she said.

Anyway, I met this elderly but gracious woman after the service. She said as I was walking forward, the Holy Spirit ministered told her to take that lady walking to the altar and be a mother her. What? I didn’t believe and I thought, uhm this woman doesn’t know what she’s saying and she’d soon get tired. Oh no she never got tired, she took that responsibility seriously. She invited us to her home. We got there and it was this big mansion and we soon found out her husband was a retired Ambassador. She had everything she needed and honestly she had nothing to gain from me. Mama would come and bath my baby daily morning and evening except when my Aunty did it. Mama got the church naming ceremony procedures all sorted.

She was always on the watch for every milestone of the baby and had the remedies for every baby need I had never thought of. She became part of our lives and vice versa. Talk about Isaiah 49:23 playing out in my life. ‘Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers.’ 20 months into our relationship, we got our visa and were going to relocate. Throughout that week, I called mama over the phone to give her the news but her line would not go through. We went to the house and they were not around. I was worried and no one seemed to be able to tell us their whereabouts. Then on a Sunday few weeks later Mama surfaced in church looking for me. She had news for me and I had news for her. She went first, happy but also feeling a bit sorry for what she had to say: Her husband had been called to be king in their hometown and they would be moving. I also had news, our HSMP visa had come through and we would me moving.

God had that season all planned ahead of time. There was going to be a difficult time ahead but he had planted the right people at the right places at the right time to be there for me, to hold my hands, to support me, to uphold me, to comfort me so much so that even though I was crushed, I could not be broken.

Thank you father for the mysterious ways you strengthen your children. Your light and your love shines through even in the darkest places.