– By Tanko Shekwa’aga
Open the door! Open the door!! Open the door!!!
I could hear their hands bang on my door like an angry hammer wielded by a carpenter and it sounded like a man running away from the pregnant cloud whose labour had come. The yelling broke the peace of the silent evening and attracted more people from the neighborhood and beyond like flies perching on a spot covered with sugar.
Fortunately, I was already ‘drunk’ and my insanity made me weak that I couldn’t leave the point I was. Maybe I was fixed but I knew the obsession was strong on me. Soon, I could sense the four walls of my room becoming concise compared to how swollen my head had become. From how I felt, I bet if you had seen me, you’ll nickname me ‘Head-boy’ henceforth.
My insanity took another whirl when my laughter transformed into little ecstatic shouts just like the ‘Pentecost’ experience. My neighbor immediately tapped my brother with an ugly quizzing face, “What is he saying?” she asked. My brother gazed at her, looking pitied like he had just graduated from a psychiatric class (Chuckle).
Typical of all mothers’, my mum could do nothing but weep like Mary watching Jesus on the cross (I guess you should know the story better). As unending tears kept streaming down her soft-wrinkled cheeks, she couldn’t stop worrying her workaholic brain of losing her first “African believed child”. My father, on the other hand, was filled with fury that I had started drinking. His next action was to get an axe to break my door. He was determined to raptly find the remedy to my already embarrassing ‘show’.
I was far away, too far to know what was happening behind the scene where I was. At a blink of an eye, I heard a loud sound on my door, Ta! The door couldn’t resist the pain so it gave up and opened revealing my secret for all to see. I got interrupted, and raising my head I saw everyone standing in awe like they had just seen a ghost. They were perplexed and astonished. I had disappointed their expectations. Guess what they found me doing? I WAS SITTING ON THE BARE FLOOR WITH MY BIBLE IN MY HAND.
Smiling towards them I felt flames rising within me to speak. I became persuaded to wear the garment of Peter, sharing my quiet time experience with my family, neighbours and even the long-beards intimidating brothers who had always tossed my head for tennis in their palms.
“We are no longer slaves but friends of Jesus,” I shared. Maybe there was more to my ‘misbehaviour’ than that but I couldn’t hold back the streaming Joy of being a friend of a big God on a big throne in a big house called Heaven.
One of the long-beards brothers soliloquy loudly, “So the Bible could make someone go insane….” Then I understood that THE THINGS OF GOD ARE ACTUALLY NOT UNDERSTANDABLE BY THE CANAL BEINGS. While everyone turned to leave, I knew God had pierced their hearts and the revolution took place. Those who allowed my experience fall in the fertile part of their heart went home refreshed, revived and renewed.
What next? Testimonies sprang up
Quiet time and personal study became a lifestyle. Since then, I never got ashamed of sharing what I believed in. I understood that messages are meant to be delivered not withheld. I understood why I needed to be free to move on the wings of the spirit within me.
After that experience, my life became a direct interpretation of Jeremiah 20:9. But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name, his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.”
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