This is how God raised me from my deathbed

If you give me another chance, I will serve you with all my heart, body and soul. I don’t know exactly what my prayer will bring forth, but it is from the bottom of my heart. On that deathbed I make this covenant with God. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • Inexplicable peace and calmness comes over me, and I know in my heart that God has heard me, and that I will not die. Instead of taking my life, God will take my suffering.
  • My health starts to improve. I start to gain weight, slowly and surely. God starts leading me to other places and faces, and here, I pick up the pieces of my life. I learn that I’m not alone. That there are other women who have this virus.
  • Along the way, I have gotten many blessings. Four more sons. Two foster girls. Thousands of orphans and vulnerable children whose lives I’ve touched. Oh, and I also get a good husband, Richard, who I must now divorce.

It is around 1990. I cannot take this helplessness I feel anymore, nor my son’s unhappiness. I call God after a long, long time.

I’m not sure if I pray or quarrel with Him. “God! You know I wouldn’t have bothered you if it was only me. But there is Peter to think about.”

I think or imagine him asking me, “What do you want me to do for you now?”  

I wake up with a jolt. I sit up in bed and hastily give God my request. 

“God give me another chance to look after my child. That woman who was praying, saying that you have taken me, also said you have the final word.”

“God I know you have the final word. I’m sorry I’ve been rebellious. If you give me another chance, I will serve you with all my heart, body and soul.”

I don’t know exactly what my prayer will bring forth, but it is from the bottom of my heart. On that deathbed I make this covenant with God.

Inexplicable peace and calmness comes over me, and I know in my heart that God has heard me, and that I will not die. Instead of taking my life, God will take my suffering.

FIRST MIRACLES

At around 7pm that day, I stagger outside with the little strength left in me. I look up and see the stars. It is as if God is speaking to me. I whisper my thanks to God. I know this is my turning point, though I cannot explain how. Just like the stars, my turnaround looks far-fetched and remote, but it is there somewhere.

Four days later, I experience my first miracles. I have no new boils on my body. I also feel like Samson now that my hair has started to grow back. The following day, emboldened, I visit a neighbour I had overheard was planting. She is taking in casual labourers to do the burrowing and planting of potatoes. I must be quite a sight to behold when I ask her for a job.

She looks at me as if I’m transparent. As if she can see through my stick-thin frame. She spits on the ground, and walks back inside her house. She returns with a cup of warm milk on one hand and 50 shillings on the other. She is reluctant to give me a seat.

“Take the cup with you,” she says, “I don’t need it and cannot use it again anyway. The money is what I would have paid you if you had worked for me, but ‘ndikwenda kunyitira Ngai itemi’.”

In my mother tongue, the last phrase means, “I don’t want to be the one to finalise what God has already started.” They are heavy words, but I’m 50 shillings richer, and I count that a miracle.

STORY OF MY LIFE

I leave her compound with mixed feelings. My faith is starting to grow. Perhaps God denied me that job because he had a better one waiting for me. Or perhaps the rigours of that hard labour would have killed me.

My health starts to improve. I start to gain weight, slowly and surely. God starts leading me to other places and faces, and here, I pick up the pieces of my life. I learn that I’m not alone. That there are other women who have this virus.

When I get into HIV work, I instinctively know that this is my calling. I managed to get up from deathbed, and it is now my job to help others out of theirs. No matter of what people say, I know it’s that covenant I had with God many years ago, that turned things around and gave me a new lease of life.

Along the way, I have gotten many blessings. Four more sons. Two foster girls. Thousands of orphans and vulnerable children whose lives I’ve touched. Oh, and I also get a good husband, Richard, who I must now divorce.

Another fallout. I’ve got to start all over. Again. I don’t know how long this cycle will go on, but what I am sure of is that this too I shall overcome.