Woman of Virtues
Where is the Sarah of this generation
Pastor Mike Bamiloye's Tribute to his wife
"MY DEAREST SINGLE SISTERS"
(Tribute to My Wife - Sister Gloria Bamiloye)
Proverbs 31:10-12, 23, 28, 30 NKJV
[10] Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far
above rubies.
[11] The heart of her husband safely trusts her; So he
will have no lack of gain.
[12] She does him good and not evil All the days of her
life.
[23] Her husband is known in the gates, When he sits
among the elders of the land.
[28] Her children rise up and call her blessed; Her
husband also, and he praises her:
[30] Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, But a
woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.
Yesterday, February 4th, 2015, was my wife's 51st
Birthday. And this year would be the 27years since 1988
the year we got married, when she was only 24 years
old and I was 28. Since then, we have travelled through
the thicks and the thins together, we have climbed the
mountains and descended into the valleys together. We
have faced adverse physical and spiritual situations
together. We have both confronted together, daunting
challenges that have stood and those that are still
standing against our lives and ministry.
Yesterday, she was 51 and she got phone calls and
congratulatory text messages on phone and on
Facebook page through out yesterday till late in the
night. Our two sons brought her gift - two digitally
painted pictures of her early years on film set. And I
also bought her a small teddy bear. The several phone
calls and congratulatory messages of the birthday made
us feel a large crowd of well-wishers had attended our
birthday party. Thank you all.
But what is special about this great woman is when I
remember how we started and how we have been
journeying this journey since then. And when I recall
some of the things that happen today among our single
and marriagable sisters, I can not but give praises to
the Lord God who brought this simple and humble sister
my way several years ago.
I have written this story in some of my write-ups and in
one of my books, however, there is need to recall some
of it for the benefit of some of our single sisters who
might need to learn from it. I graduated from higher
institution in 1983 and served in 1983/84. Right from
the Campus days, I had been involved in drama
ministry, all through my Youth Service, I was sending
drama scripts back into the fellowship for drama
presentations and I would travel down from Plateau
State to direct the rehearsals and participate in the
major drama presentation on Drama Night.
After my Youth Service in 1984, I was involved fully in
campus drama evangelism with the fellowship drama
group, travelling to other campuses and churches
outside the campus for drama presentation. And Sister
Gloria was among the new members that joined the
drama group.
In 1985, sometimes in early July, I proposed to her to
marry me and she told me she would pray over it. On
August 4th, 1985, she revisited my proposal and said
"Yes" to it. So, our journey began. Now, the real issue
was that, I had nothing. I had nothing physical or
material that any lady could be proud of. I had only one
single room, with one bed, one table and chair, a
standing hanger where I hanged my few fading shirts
and only one suit which I used to iron from time to time
and red tie from special occassion. Inside the single
room was my cooking stove and a dilapidated standing
fan, which had lost its foot and the head was tied facing
the bed. And of course, a precious item - my bookshelf
serving as a small library.
So, when Sister Gloria visited my abode for the first
time, these were all I had and she saw. My physical and
material possessions could never be compared to what I
was on the campus. "Bro Mike" was famous among the
fellowship as a "gym-gym" brother full of zeal for drama
and drama only. And the drama group of the fellowship
became the most influential of all the sub-groups of the
fellowship, because almost all the executive officers
became members of the sub-group, including the
President and the Vice-President and the General
Secretary of the Christian Fellowship. So I was so rich
in spiritual substance and full of great visons, but had
no enviable physical or material possessions any young
lady could be proud of.
But, when Sis Gloria entered my room, one afternoon,
she never saw all those things I mentioned but only one
thing arrested her attention: my bookshelf containing
several spiritual books, including the books of Kenneth
Hagins, Oral Roberts, T.L. Osborne, Osward J. Smith,
etc. She hasten to the shelf and shouted "Whao!", and
she sat by the bookshelf and began to look at those
precious books she had longed to have and read. Ah!. I
was happy I had what she wanted and desired. She
wanted spiritual books that would make her grow. And I
had just that! All other things never mattered to her.
I had nothing physical, but I had a great vision of the
future and she embraced that vision with all her heart
and might. When her senior brothers and her parents
were demanding from her to know the work that her
fiancee was doing that could qualify him to marry her,
she stood on my behalf to defend me before her people
that I was into drama ministry and there was a great
future ahead of us. He people could not see what she
was talking about, because I was already on full-time
drama ministry and I had no physical enviable thing
they all could hold on to. They were furious with her
and thought she must be out of her mind to have
decided to marry "a man who has no job and no
physical possession and no appreciable future". When
we informed them we wanted to get married three years
down our courtship, they revolted and my Mummy ( my
elder sister), led the war to Sis Gloria's parents to warn
them never to give their daughter to me in marriage
because I had no job to take care of their daughter. She
stood by what God had told her about me, that there
was a great future ahead of us.
The Lord convinced them all and they supported us and
we married in 1988, three years after the Mount Zion
ministry launched. And our journey to that future began.
AND 27 YEARS AFTER, WE ARE STILL ON THE
JOURNEY TO THE FUTURE.
WE HAVE NOT YET ARRIVED THERE, BUT OUR STORY
HAS BEEN GETTING BETTER
THAN WHEN WE BEGAN THIS JOURNEY TOGETHER.
Now, to my Dearest Single Sisters, a lot of us are
missing it today. A lot of us have been seriously
deceived and misled by erronenous marriage teachings
and lectures of confused marriage counsellors and
teachers. A woman was once invited to one of our
sisters' conference, invited to come and minister to our
single sisters. She mounted the pulpit and shocked us
by saying, no sisters should marry any brother who is
not materially capable of being a husband. She said she
also counselled her daughters to be gather as many
materials as possible before getting married; that her
daughters must go into mariage with enough self-
sufficiency. She ought to have got a lot of things like
fridge, electronic gadgets, dinning sets and other things
that could make her stand tall as a self-sufficient lady. I
told my wife, that the woman would never be invited to
any of our conferences again. Her teaching was
confusing.
I heard some marriage teachers taught their single
sisters to check the Bank Account statement of the man
who come proposing to them before they consider their
proposals. If the Bank Account is very lean, then, they
need not bother themselves considering the proposals.
Some sisters would go and pay visit to the houses and
apartments of the men who proposed to them, before
they could begin to consider their proposals.
A young brother who had waited for almost a year
before the sister finally said "Yes", later came back to
me after almost one year of courtship, to tell me that
the lady suddenly began to ask some strange questions
about his projections for the future and what he hopes
to achieve and possess in a year's time and what he
hopes to acquire in two years' time; the amount he
hope to have saved for the wedding in two years. And
when he told the sister that he was not sure of the
amount he could save for the wedding neither does he
have any future projection, but he is a minister of God
and she could see all the works he has been doing for
the Lord and he knows the Lord has a great future for
him as he keeps serving Him. This made the sister
began to reconsider the relationship. Then, she said
later, that she didn't think they were compatible,
because she thought he had no future plans.
Meanwhile, such sister would readily believe a lie. If the
brother had began to blow an invisible trumpet of
himself and began to paint an unrealistic picture of his
future for this same sister, she would have believed
everything. If the brother had said something like
"making a saving that would enable him acquire a jeep
in a month to their wedding; and how he would tender a
business proposal before an oil company or come up
with a business idea that could fetch him some millions,
which would afford him an opportunity of purchasing a
duplex apartment in Lekki part of Lagos, the sister
would readily believe that he had a future plan. She
would take him for a very serious-minded marriagable
brother.
We have come to a strange generation where lies sell
heavily than the truth. We are now in a season when
our young sisters believe a man by what they see of
him physically or how sweetly he could run his mouth
by saying big and boastful plans and not by what they
spiritually perceive of him. This is a season when, it is
the way you package yourself that many sisters take
you, even if the fine shirts and suits with shoes were
borrowed to be returned later.
MANY, NOT ALL. MANY OF OUR SISTERS LOVE TO
BELEIVE IN LIES TODAY.
Some sisters' choice of who to marry would depend on
where the man is working: Bank?, Oil and Gas? Real
Estate? Insurance? Constructions? And some sisters'
readiness to consider a proposal rests on the family
status of the man who proposed: is the family rich and
wealthy? Are they based in US or Canada or Germany
or Asian nations? Famous and Influential?
Today, a lot of brothers love to live on lies and
falsehood, because this is what many sisters want. I
once read on the Whatsap page of a young brother in
Christ whom I happened to know. He wrote under his
name, CEO of a Motivational and Purpose Group
company and under this are about two or three website
of his Motivational Purpose company. In one of his
write-ups, I read where he said: One day, as I was
coming from my office, I saw....." When I read that, I
wondered which office he was talking about, because, I
knew him to be working as a shop attendant or sales
man in a shop. I look at the picture he posted in his
profile, he dressed up like a Director of a corporate
organisation, but he is a sales boy working in a shop.
These are the type of lies many of our sisters love to
hear before they could consider a proposal.
What does the Bible say about responding to marriage
proposals:
Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV
[5] Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
[6] In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
A christian lady who would have a great future and
pleasant home would commit her ways, the proposals
into the Lord's hand. I THINK THIS IS THE ACTUAL
SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM: MANY SISTERS CAN'T
WAIT BEFORE THE LORD TO KNOW THE MIND OF GOD
CONCERNING WHO TO MARRY AGAIN.
MANY SISTERS ARE GUIDED INTO MAKING THEIR
MARITAL CHOICES BASED ON THE PHYSICAL
APPEARANCE OR MATERIAL OR FINANCIAL
POSSESSIONS OF THE MAN, AND NOT ON THE
LEADING AND CONVICTIONS OF THE LORD THEIR GOD.
If Sis Gloria were to consider my physical, material and
financial possessions when I proposed to her, I would
have been outrightly disqualified, because I had nothing
but the burning visions to evangelise the world through
Drama ministry. And if She were to consider my
proposal based on my future plans or projections, she
would never have considered me, because, I had no
financial, material or physical future plan or projections
at that time, but was only armed with evangelistic
visions of the work of God.
And what are the unpleasant results of all these fake
future plans and projections: because no life is secure
except the ones hidden in Christ and entrusted in His
care. Many of these future plans and projections flopped
and they are castles built with sea-sand on a sea-
shore, they crumbled fast when the foundation is not
laid on the leading of Christ and the home is set on fake
foundations and false projections. The banking industry
is not what it used to be. The oil and gas industry is no
longer like before. Considerations of your response to a
proposal should never be based on anything physical or
materials, but Godly leading and convictions after a lot
of heart-searching prayers and humble waiting upon the
Lord to know His heart on the man who proposed.
ONLY THE LORD GOD KNOWS THE FUTURE. THE
BROTHER WORKING IN A BANK OR OCUPPYING A
MANAGERIAL SEAT TODAY MAY BE DEMOTED BY
CIRCUMSTANCES AND NEGATIVE SITUATIONS
TOMORROW.
AND THE MAN WHO HAS NOTHING NOW MAY BE ON
HIS WAY TO THE TOP VERY SOON.
So, physical or material status should never be
paramount in considering marraige proposals, but the
voice of the Lord who knows tomorrow. If you desire a
peaceful home and fruitful marriage that will afford you
the opportunity to be ministerially fulfilled, don't let any
physical, material or financial things give you your
husband, let the spirit of the Lord lead and convince you
of who to marry.
You are blessed,
MIKE BAMILOYE
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