‘Can Men Live Longer?’ was the topic the Men Fellowship of Assemblies of God Church, Isolo, Lagos gave me for ministration on April 4, 2019. Two weeks before that day, my wife and I went for a wake-keep at Fountain of Life Church, Ilupeju and Satan wanted me dead, if not God…
I was excited that we arrived there twenty minutes before the programme started. My wife had hardly parked the car, when, like my usual self, never considering my age at 77, I jumped down. Akirika! Someone there told me that there was no space for me to come to the road. I looked and saw a small space I could navigate through. Stepping forward, not knowing that there was a deep gutter there. I fell headlong!
My wife had been busy looking for me, wondering whether her ‘airplane’, the ‘old soldier’, had entered the church auditorium, until she saw two men holding me. She burst into prayers, loud prayers, and also speaking the Word, while the men around were echoing, ‘Amen’. “Take him to the hospital,” the men were all saying. One of them carried me on his shoulders to our car. From the blues, emerged one peculiar person, who, according to my wife, dressed like a motor mechanic. He opted to drive the car and was obliged. After covering some distance, I regained consciousness and told them that I was alright. My wife told the strange driver to stop. Trust her, she put me through some tests, “Come down from the car if you are okay”. I did. “Walk around,” she also said. And I did. She told the driver to take us back to the Church but he rather gave her the car key and left.
After covering some distance, my wife could not trace the Church again. She started seeking for help. Uncle, the strange driver, once again, emerged from the blues. He gave her the direction and left immediately. Thank God that we had a good service and when we returned home, we went straight to a pharmacy, where I was treated.
Later that night, Ihuoma, my wife’s younger sister, called and told her that the driver of Ogechi, her immediate younger sister, told her that a soldier, who witnessed the accident, told him that I hit my head on the culvert. I told her that I did not but she did not listen to me. The next morning, we went to the hospital.
The doctor asked whether I was unconscious at any time and my wife acquiesced. I told the doctor that I was not but she laughed and sent me for brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging [MIR] scan. The first doctor, after going through the result, said that there was a slight bleeding in my brain. Another doctor said rather, that it was an old clot. I refused to be worried. I told God that I was not born, when He said, “Ye shall decree a thing and it shall be established”. I then passed a decree that any strange thing in my brain, be it ‘ancient’ or ‘modern’, should leave my body now, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
In his house, KC, my second son, while praying, thanked God for sending His angel to drive our car that night. He shared with us, when we visited him, about angelic visitations to God’s people. Reflecting on that, my wife remembered the various things that took place after the accident, and how the strange-mechanic driver surfaced, and was allowed to drive us without questioning. “Why did he leave immediately my husband regained consciousness? If he is a motor mechanic, should his workshop not be close to the Church environment, from where he drove us? Why then did he not join us, when we were going back, for him to go back to his workshop? Since I had covered some distance from where he left us, how could he have been present at the place I was seeking for direction? Why was it that I never looked at his face all through?” She rationalized. The whole scenario convinced her that it was God’s angel, who drove us!
On Tuesday evening, a day before the accident, we read from the Facebook, with much pain, that Dr. Obed, our beloved brother, the founder of Glory Tabernacle Church, Ibadan, was dead. I had ministered in that great assembly of the saints. We wondered what would become of Dr. [Mrs.] Chinyere Obed, his wife. The next morning, that fateful Wednesday morning, my wife, once again, was in deep thought about our brother, who had gone to heaven. A thought came to her on what she would do, if I should die now and go to heaven. She said that it was okay. “No,” she shouted immediately, correcting herself, “my husband will not die now. He will live long and he will make Heaven”.
That evening, the accident took place, she thanked God for her doggedness in rejecting the evil offer the devil had made to her. She felt that if she had agreed that I could die now and go to Heaven, the devil might have had his way.
Yes, God had sent His angel to help us. Uncle David said, “Goodness and Mercy shall follow me, all the days of my life”. His bodyguards, so long as he was faithful to God, were Goodness and Mercy – two angels of God. Elijah enjoyed this heavenly bodyguard too, when he wanted to die – 1Kgs 19:5-8. An angel shut the mouths of lions from harming Daniel – Dan 6:21. For sure, God’s angel drove us that day!
I could not have been alive to write this column if not God and God only. If any of my legs was broken, I might not have made it. Nobody knew any hospital I could be taken to at Ilupeju, when my wife enquired from the people around me that evening. I would have bled to death. When I hit my head on the concrete pavement of the gutter, I might have died on the spot. It was God and He alone, Who spared my life. Iron rods and pieces of glasses, which are common sight in many gutters, would have ruptured my stomach. It was God and He alone, Who spared my life. The iron rods and pieces of glasses might have pierced through my eyes, causing total blindness. It was God and He alone, Who prevented that.
The accident was on Wednesday evening but it was on Thursday that I met the doctor. It was on Friday that he read the result of my test. Anything could have happened before that day. Internal bleeding would have finished its assignment before the doctor noticed it from the MRI scan. My in-law, many years ago, had an accident on his okada and was taken to the hospital. They did not do any tests on him. He died of internal bleeding. A man riding a bicycle hit my nephew’s car some years ago. My nephew, out of kindness, took him to the hospital for treatment, not knowing that he [my nephew] had internal bleeding. He did not survive it.
If not God, I will not be breathing now. Jesus saves!
For further comment, Please contact: Osondu Anyalechi: 0802 3002-471; [email protected]