“…that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”
Hebrews 6:12 NKJV
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Chapter 17
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That same July 2017 I attended a conference – ROTH (Return Of The Helper Conference) organized by Bidemi Mark-Mordi.
During the time for testimonies a woman testified about how she had been a widow for the 10 years and at the previous year’s conference she told God it was time for a change.
And believed him for her spouse. This year she was returning married to the glory of God.
I bowed my head down in conflicting thoughts as I wrestled with God.
This time God was digging into the recesses of my heart.
He said “Frances ask me for your marriage”.
I struggled to ask.
Somehow on the inside of me I was scared that God would fail me again.
I had asked at the previous prayer meeting in May 2017 but it seemed like my fear at God’s unwillingness to give me my husband was still there and this time God wanted to address it once and for all.
He kept tugging at me and I kept weeping.
I didn’t want to take the risk to ask and say “Father I want to come back to the next ROTH conference married”. What if He doesn’t do it?
What if I come back single?
Wouldn’t it be better not to ask?
I wept and wept as He kept dealing with me. No one knew why I was crying.
Finally I dusted off my heart break and asked: “Lord I ask you for my husband. I want to come to the next ROTH conference married”.
Hope brimmed in my heart again.
At the end of the conference I told my friends/sisters from our women ministry that I was coming back to ROTH 2018 married. They laughed. They didn’t understand what had happened to me. God had shifted something in me and unlocked hope again.
When I got home, my brother told me God had led him to pray for my marriage that very day too.
It would seem thay heaven was really interested in getting my desire to me. What I didn’t understand was why I had to do so much work spiritually for it to happen. But now looking back I understand that there must be a man standing in the gap of the earth for heaven to also move. Both work hand in hand with each other.
“So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.”
Ezekiel 22:30 NKJV
I was studying my Bible the next day when I saw “this kind goeth not out except by fasting and prayer”.
I was also led to Esther’s story and I saw that she had called for a dry fasting for three days in order to court the favour of the king.
From all that had been happening, I knew that there was something that had to go out by fasting and prayer and then now I felt God was calling both I and my brother into a dry fast for three days.
Both of us had never done a dry fast without water ever.
But we prayed and asked God for strength, knowing that a lot was at stake here and we began the fast on Wednesday.
We fasted for three days with prayers every midnight. My brother had asked God for strength and in those 3 days continued to go to work and function as a normal person. I on the other hand stayed home all through barely managing to get up to read my Bible and pray.
But God was our strength.
We prayed every midnight and on the last night, we felt God was leading us to tender our request before Him.
I wrote that I wanted my marriage to be on December 9th (traditional marriage) 23rd (white marriage) 2017.
My brother wrote his own prayer point and we sealed the prayers thanking God for breakthrough.
But that wasn’t the end. The walls of Jericho still had to fall down flat.
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YOUR TURN:
1: Have you ever felt like the road to your marriage is wrought with a lot of battles?
Don’t give up.
Some marriages are mighty tools in the hands of God and the enemy tries to bring his forces against it.
But it doesn’t matter; be encouraged: victory belongs to Jesus!!
“Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”
Romans 8:37 NKJV
JOYFUL NEWS:
1: Did you know that my first full fiction book ENIOLA just came out?
The book has been such a blessing to lives.
ABOUT ENIOLA:
Eniola is an abused girl who knows nothing but hate for the word ‘Love’. Is Love being raped by a boy she loved with all her heart along with four older boys who he brought to ‘open the way’?
Gloria is a scared child. She is 23 but in many ways still feels like the 13 year old Daddy rubbed vaseline on her bom-bom the night he told her they would make the ‘ultimate game machine noise’. They indeed made a noise that night; the noise was her scream in the dead of the night as Daddy raped her as proof of his love for her.
10 years later and still no one hears her screams for help as she is trapped in low self-esteem, an insane urge to masturbate along with a man who visits her dreams in the night to have sex with her. Is there hope for redemption for her soul?
Lyna is a girl who is mad at the world along with her two uncles who started it all. She wants more; she wants more with girls but mama’s priest says she would go to hell. She is frightened but cannot be good on her own.She likes her girls. Is there any hope for redemption for her?
Frances is a girl from a broken home. She wants love but ends up getting it from the wrong places. With abuse trailing her from the man who says he loves her and blood on her hands from two abortions – the result of the love she seeks… could there be any hope for her?
Is there love and redemption for broken girls and damaged women?
Is there new beginnings for the girls who cry at night?
Can Eniola find love again? Find out in this thrilling story of ‘abuse, pain, hope and healing’… ENIOLA.
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You can purchase your copy of “ENIOLA” on @okadabooks here
We also open up hard copy orders today
Follow me on @hephzibahfrances on Instagram to be in the know!
God bless you!
#ThankYouJesus
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