Soteria II: Establishing The Patterns

My second experience was surprisingly mine. I was born strong and never had any reason whatsoever to visit the hospital throughout my childhood, I never recalled having even a hospital card One day, while I was praying in my house in 2021, I suddenly started feeling offish Like something was seriously wrong with me. The unease was out of this world, The best way to describe how I felt was this; I took my car keys and drove to the hospital by myself to check myself in. The nurses took my vitals and the doctor asked me what was wrong with me, I told the doctor it feels as if my skin was on fire I was burning all over but I had no temperature and I was moving about normally without expressing any sign of distress. The doctor didn't know what to do with me. All the tests were normal and yet I insisted I was ill. She asked me if I had eaten, I said I had not. She asked me if I had an appetite, I said I didn’t. She said they will have to set a drip for me, so that I don’t faint of hunger in the hospital I said "fine". Please note that I had moved from my previous job which was a PA to a pastor somewhere in Lagos to being self-employed at this time and I had also changed houses.

The House in Ketu was rented I had moved from there into my own house during Covid-19. So I was in a totally new environment I was at the hospital all day The driver picked up my children from school and brought them to see me at the hospital. I assurred them I was fine and would see them later that night or the next day. We did their homework together and they left. The thing was, I was at peace in that hospital but the moment I stepped out of the hospital, the discomfort descended on me like a fog. I taught my online class from that hospital (If you check my X timeline you will see this testimony live as I wrote it on the day this event took place) After my 10pm class, I laid down to sleep Just then, at a few minutes to midnight, they brought in a young man called Dejo. He was wheeled in on a gurney. His mother was screaming. The boy was born with a sickle cell disorder, and he had been a warrior all his life. That day, he had a crisis, and before the mother could arrange for transportation to bring him to the hospital, he gave up the ghost I knew they were coming even before they stepped into the hospital premises That heat or fire which I had been experiencing all day on and off returned with such an intensity that I sprang out of my bed and dragged the drip line and the metal hanger it was hanging on with me.

As they were wheeling him in, I was speeding towards them. When I got beside them, I laid my two hands on him on that gurney and screamed at the top of my voice. The next thing I remembered was everybody falling down under the anointing. The doctor, matron, nurses, Dejo's mother, and I. And Dejo, the dead boy, screamed back to life. The heat or fire that I had been feeling all day inside my body disappeared instantly. I removed the drip and got up. I was discharging myself The doctor held on to me She said I cannot leave, I must come back to my room and sign a document for her that I was discharging myself. I went back, There was a queue. Those who saw what happened with Dejo and Dejo's mother all came to me (That was what I was avoiding) I started praying for the sick. They thronged in from all the wards Even the doctors and nurses, and other staff members came so that I could lay hands on them. I could have escaped, at about 1 AM I ended up leaving the hospital by 6 AM. I was able to kiss my children goodbye as they set out to school that day. I slept, woke up, and tried to figure out what happened. God sent me there because of Dejo. He knew Dejo was going to die that day. Dejo needed to die; his old body and system needed to shut down completely. I needed to be on the ground. Like a defibrillator, charging up all day so that I could pass the excess current to the young man and bring him back to life (These explanations are all mine, as I tried to make sense of the whole event) I avoided that hospital like the plague from that day. If I made the mistake of going there to see anyone, I would usually be kept there for hours praying for people. I hope you get the point I was trying to make. If you didn't I will share one more experience.

This happened in 2022. My first son was just admitted to JSS1. He went to school that day, and I got a call at about noon that he was ill I drove to the sick bay in their school to pick him up. I took him home and noticed he had the symptoms of malaria I had some anti-malaria drugs at home as a form of first aid. I gave him a pill He used it and slept. When he woke up to use the restroom, he discovered he was urinating blood. He was just ten years old and had never liked soda drinks Which was unusual because his younger ones liked soda drinks I felt it was the drug I gave him In Nigeria, there has always been a proliferation of fake drugs, and one cannot be too careful. I drove him to the hospital immediately and told them everything that happened as I remembered it He was admitted immediately. The doctors said the drug was not fake. The doctors also said the issue was not malaria. They ended up saying it was Acute Kidney Trauma.

This diagnosis was followed by a series of unnerving questions. Did someone give him a blow in the kidney? Did he fall down on his kidney? Did you beat him on his kidney? Did you use his kidney to play snooker or golf, or cricket? The more he urinated blood, the more they persisted with these crazy questions, and the young man was ill and couldn't answer any of the questions they were asking. He was admitted on a Monday, and he didn't get better throughout the week. By Friday, they had to bring in consultants. By Sunday morning, the doctors and consultants were talking about moving him to a specialist hospital in Lagos or Abuja. The urine by this time was dark red or reddish brown. They tried everything they knew. At a point, they stopped all forms of medication and insisted he must drink only water so that they could be sure it was not any of the chemicals being pumped into his body that was causing the problem. I had spent a whole week in the hospital, and I hated every minute of it. That Sunday morning, I was due to minister at a church in Lagos, and I had to get someone to sit with him and care for him while I was away. Isn't it ironic how the reality always seems so skewed?

I was going to minister to people in a church, and most likely I would pray with many for their healing, while my own son was lying on a hospital bed with this strange illness. I sat with him as the doctors discussed which hospital they had reached out to and how to move him because there was no improvement. Just then, a lady walked to the table where the matron was seated. She was in tears. The matron told her she would have to go back to her bed because there was nothing they could do to help her. I left the doctors and their deliberations and walked to the matron I asked her what the issue was with the lady. The matron said the lady came in with her sick child and was admitted because it was an emergency, and they had to save the life of the child. She said the woman's husband, however, disappeared after they gave him the bill and had not returned to the hospital for over three weeks. Somehow, the lady was able to feed herself while the hospital cared for her child without having collected a dime from them. The lady was tired of staying at the hospital as the child had fully recovered, but they couldn't discharge her because she owed the hospital a lot of money.

The lady had then resorted to emotional blackmail by crying day and night in the hope that the hospital management would let her go without settling her bills. The matron said the bill was too much to forgive. I asked her how much it was. She told me. I went to the lady and asked for her bill details. She gave me I went to the accounts department of the hospital and cleared the bill. Then I went to the lady and sent her 250,000 Naira. She began to cry in gratitude. I walked back to the deliberating doctors and specialists beside my son's hospital bed and said, "He is fine now." They looked at me as if I was crazy. Just then, my son stood up, took the glass bottle that he had been urinating in, and went off to the restroom, accompanied by a nurse.

A few minutes later, they returned with a crystal clear bottle of urine. The consultant couldn't believe it. The doctor, however, did She said she had been looking at me and wondering when I would wear my divine cap and assist them instead of just watching them. I explained to her that I had laid hands, declared affirmed, confessed, rebuked, encouraged, begged, and pleaded in the place of prayer. I was at my wits' end and the Holy Spirit had been silent, but the moment I saw the case of the other lady, I was quickened in my spirit that solving her dilemma is tied to solving my own dilemma. My son was discharged that morning. He will be clocking fourteen in 23 days and has never had such an issue again. I hope you get the point.

PS: We have been saved from corruption, but we were saved so that we can save others. When we refuse to save others by sitting on our hands, we are sometimes reminded of what it means to be sick and be in crisis. This pattern is what I am calling our attention to. That crisis may not really be your crisis; it could be the Holy Spirit calling your attention to someone who is in real crisis, so that, like Jesus, you can bear their infirmity and offer healing for their stripes.

-GSW-