15/07/2025
She didn’t remember the last time their home felt like a home.
It had become a small two-room flat that smelled of old painkillers and stale pap.
A space where bills lay unopened on the center table, where their son coughed so often at night that she could count the seconds between each wheeze.
The boy was only seven.
Too small for this kind of suffering.
He sat on the threadbare couch, clutching his small blue inhaler like it was the only friend he had left in the world.
Her husband stood by the window, silent. One hand on his head, the other holding a piece of paper that shook in his grip.
It was the latest hospital bill. She didn’t ask to see it. What was the point? They had no money to pay it. Just as they had no money to replace the gas cylinder, so she now cooked with firewood by the back gutter.
She moved to the boy. Squatted. Touched his cheek.
"You want bread?"
He tried to nod, then his face twisted and he clutched his chest.
She rubbed his back. Whispered.
"It’s okay… breathe slowly. Just like nurse taught us."
Her husband finally spoke.
His voice rough.
"If this boy… if he doesn’t get better soon…"
She looked up sharply. Her eyes hot.
"Don’t finish that sentence."
He dropped into a chair. Covered his face with both hands. His shoulders shook once. Then again.
Was he crying? She wasn’t sure. Maybe. Maybe not. It had been a long time since either of them let tears fall properly.
That night, she didn’t sleep. She lay by the boy’s side, counting his breaths, feeling each shallow inhale scrape against her own lungs.
Two days later, she woke up with a wild idea.
They hadn’t been to church in weeks. Months, even. What was the point? She’d been too tired, too angry with God.
But that Sunday morning, she woke up before dawn. Pulled out the small bag that held her only decent dress and ironed it.
Then woke her husband.
He stared at her like she had suggested they move to Mars.
"You want to carry him to church? In this state?"
She nodded.
"Today, we’ll try God again. If we perish, we perish."
He didn’t argue. Just dressed in silence.
They reached Streams of Joy nearly late. The ushers squeezed them into the last plastic chairs at the back. The boy leaned on her shoulder, his small breaths rattling.
She wanted to leave. It was too hot, too crowded. What if he collapsed right there?
But then Pastor Jerry Eze climbed the altar. And he didn’t start with preaching.
He started talking about people who had carried long-standing afflictions. About homes where laughter had dried up. About children who had become shadows of themselves because of mysterious sicknesses.
And then he said something that broke her completely.
"There’s a mother here… you’ve lost count of the nights you stayed awake checking if your child was still breathing. I hear God say, the yoke is broken today!"
She grabbed her son’s hand. Clutched it so tight he whimpered.
Pastor Jerry continued.
"That sickness they said will drain your family until you’re ruined, I declare, it ends now! That child’s lungs are being healed, that chronic attack ends by the hand of God!"
Her husband let out a choked sob. His head dropped into his hands.
She felt heat rise from her stomach to her chest, to her throat and then burst out of her mouth in a wail. People near them turned. But she didn’t care.
“God… see us! Please see us. We’ve tried doctors. We’ve tried injections. We’ve tried loans. Please don’t let him di.e.”
That afternoon at home, the boy slept longer than he ever had in weeks.
When he woke, he asked for food. Ate everything. Then lay back and smiled. A real smile that made the edges of his eyes crinkle.
Her husband stood by the doorway. Just staring. Then slowly slid to his knees, head against the wall, whispering the same two words again and again.
“Thank you… Jesus. Thank you… Jesus.”
She joined him.
Because there was nothing else left to say.
Except that on that ordinary Sunday, inside a crowd of thousands, God had heard just one small mother’s prayer.
And answered.
And the wife turned to her husband.
"We will not hold back our testimony..."
