We kicked off with the dance and drama competitions, and trust me, everyone was psyched up and already seeing themselves carrying the trophy home.

Platoon 6 was no different. We had rehearsed, we had hyped ourselves, we had built expectations. Then the results came.

We didn’t win.

Not first, not second, not even third.

Omo! 😭😂 We were PAINED.

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And as if the loss itself wasn’t enough, the banter from other platoons started raining heavily (#DiariesOfAPlatoonSixMember 😂).

But something interesting happened.

We didn’t allow the loss to turn into bitterness.

We didn’t stop participating.

We didn’t start hating other platoons.

We simply picked ourselves up and moved on to the next competition.

Volleyball and football came. We participated. We gave it our best, but unfortunately, we didn’t make it to the final rounds.

At this point, you would think we had learnt our lesson and gone home. 😂But then came the Pageantry competition: Miss NYSC and Mr Macho, and this one brought a completely different kind of energy.

Everybody was ready to feed their eyes with masculine figures with excessively oiled bodies (God abeg!😂). We were SAT. 😂

For Platoon 6, we had made a resolution:

Regardless of what happened, we were going to cheer our contestants loudly, proudly and wholeheartedly. And that was exactly what we did.

We screamed, we shouted, we hyped, we cheered.

We made sure our contestants knew that they had an entire platoon standing behind them.

Then came the announcement…

MISS NYSC: PLATOON 6!

The place erupted.

We had finally won something! 😂😭And the joy was different. Not just because we had won, but because after all the losses, we had finally experienced a collective victory.

Looking back at all these competitions, I realised that camp taught me two things about community.

1. You can lose without becoming bitter.

Our losses could have made us withdraw, resent other platoons or stop participating altogether. Instead, they pushed us to keep showing up.

Sometimes, life will hand you losses while someone else is celebrating a win. The question is: Can you celebrate someone else's victory without allowing their victory to make you hate your own journey?

There is room for everyone to win

2. We truly can achieve more together.

Our contestants didn't have to carry the pressure alone. They had an entire platoon cheering them on.

And sometimes, that is what community does.

It doesn't necessarily remove the difficulty. It simply reminds you that you don't have to face it alone.

Life becomes so much more meaningful when you have people who will cheer for you when you're winning, encourage you when you're struggling, and still stand beside you when the results don't go your way.

Maybe that is one of the beautiful things about community:

You don't always win together, but you can always stand together.

And sometimes, that's the bigger victory. ❤️

Platoon 6 members and alumni’s in the house, say “Hi” in the comments😌👇

Before camp, I'd heard all the stories: bad food, rough hostels, brutal drills. So I braced myself: "Just survive three weeks."

But guess what?

The food has been good. The hostel, surprisingly decent. Water supply? Amazing. The drills though? Exactly as advertised. 😂

I've developed a very personal (and unhealthy) relationship with the trumpet. It blows the exact moment I want to rest. 😩

But the biggest lesson so far isn't about food or drills, it's about perspective.

I'd already formed opinions about camp based on other people's experiences. And there's nothing wrong with listening. People's stories can prepare you. But someone else's experience is still someone else's experience, shaped by their own circumstances. It doesn't have to become your reality.

🪴 Let people's experiences inform you, not define your expectations.

🪴 Be cautious, but still willing to experience things for yourself.

Sometimes what everyone warned you about isn't as bad as they said. Sometimes, it is. Either way, you get to form your own perspective.

So I've decided to share my journey here:

Welcome to my NYSC Camp Diaries. 🇳🇬

To the ex-Corpers in my network: What's ONE thing you were warned about that turned out completely different from what you expected?

Let's gist in the comments. 👇🏽😂

#Substack #NYSCSeries

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Two Years Later

I still work at the same hospital.

Same building, same entrance, same smell of antiseptic that greets you before you’ve fully walked through the door.

But everything else has changed.

I am not the same woman who stood in that corridor two years ago with a clipboard pressed to her chest and a feeling she couldn’t name.

I have grown.

Not in the loud, obvious way that announces itself. In the quiet, settled way that you only notice when you look back at who you were and find that you can no longer fully locate her. The questions that used to keep me up at night have found their answers — not all of them, not perfectly, but enough. Enough to stand on, and enough to move forward from.

I have found my footing.

And more than that — I have found my purpose.

I remember the afternoon it all began — the way the air smelled, the way the light fell across the corridor, the way a man walked out of a theatre removing his surgical cap slowly, as though easing himself back into the ordinary world. I remember thinking something felt marked about that moment. Like a page being dog-eared by an unseen hand.

I was right about that.

I just didn’t know yet what the marking was for.

I speak to young women now. Regularly, intentionally, in whatever space opens itself — the fellowship at my church, the teenage group on Friday evenings, the informal gatherings that start as one person asking a question and quietly become something larger. I sit across from girls who are navigating love and faith simultaneously and finding that the two don’t always move in the same direction at the same pace.

I tell them the truth.

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I tell them that being a Jesus girl does not exempt you from the process. That healing doesn’t arrive faster because your theology is sound. That you are allowed to love someone genuinely and still be required to let them go. That good and appointed are not always the same category and learning to tell the difference is some of the most important spiritual work you will ever do.

I tell them that doing relationship God’s way does not guarantee the ending you imagined. It always results in a purpose-aligned one.

But it guarantees that nothing is wasted.

Not one moment. Not one prayer. Not one goodbye said with a trembling voice into a phone you wished you could put down.

Nothing.

Naomi got engaged three months ago.

I was the first person she called. She rang at 6:47 in the morning — I know because I looked at my phone in confused alarm — and when I answered she was already crying happy tears before she had said a single word. I sat up in bed and laughed and cried with her for twenty minutes before either of us said anything coherent.

He is a good man. A God-fearing, intentional, show-up-consistently kind of man. The kind Naomi had been quietly, faithfully believing for without making it the loudest thing about her.

I was her maid of honor.

I stood beside her at that altar and watched something I had once imagined for myself happen for my best friend instead, and I want to be honest — there was a moment, just a moment, where something bittersweet moved through me. Not envy. Just the particular, complex feeling of loving someone else’s answered prayer while yours is still in transit.

I let it pass.

And then I was just happy. Fully, genuinely, uncomplicated happy. Because Naomi’s answered prayer was not a commentary on mine. God does not have a limited supply.

I heard about Tolu through Chidinma.

We met at the hallway, and decided to catch up on each other's unit.

“Guess what…,” she said while we were speaking, “Dr Tolu is now a leader in my church. It felt so good seeing him get ordinated as one of the church leaders on Sunday”.

“He joined my church a year ago and has been faithfully serving in the workforce. I'm so happy for him”.

She moved on to the next topic without pausing.

I stood very still for a moment.

And then I smiled — quietly, privately, the kind of smile that belongs only to the person wearing it and to God.

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You answered it, I thought. The prayer prayed on a floor, in the dark, with tears still drying on my face. The prayer that asked for his restoration even while releasing the relationship. The prayer that said fix him, Lord — even if he’s not going to end up with me.

He had answered it.

Of course He had.

I finished my shift that evening with something warm sitting in my chest that I couldn’t fully name but recognized immediately.

It was the feeling of having your faith confirmed.

Not in a dramatic, undeniable, everyone-can-see-it way. In the quiet, specific, only-you-and-God-know-what-this-means way. The way that doesn’t need an audience. The way that simply settles something.

I whispered thank You on the way to the car park.

And meant it more than I had meant almost anything.

I am not in a relationship.

I want to say that plainly, because I think there is a version of this story that ends with a new man appearing in the final pages as evidence that obedience pays off romantically, and I want to resist that version. Not because I don’t believe God has someone for me — I do, quietly and without anxiety. But because the ending of this particular story is not about what came after.

It is about what was learned during.

And what I learned is this:

Love is not always the destination. Sometimes it is the curriculum. Sometimes God places someone in your path not to stay forever but to teach you something about yourself, about Him, about the kind of woman He is still making you into. And the measure of that love’s value is not whether it lasted but whether it left you more whole than it found you.

I left Tolu more whole.

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Not because the relationship was perfect. Not because it ended painlessly. But because it asked questions of me that I needed to answer. Because it refined things in me that comfort would have left untouched. Because it gave me a testimony that has sat across from confused, searching, hopeful young women and offered them something real to hold onto.

And because it sent a good man back to God.

That is not a small thing.

That is everything.

I still pass those theatre doors sometimes.

On quiet afternoons when the ward is calm and the light falls across the corridor at a particular angle, I walk past them and remember. Not with longing — not anymore. With something gentler than that. Gratitude, maybe. The specific kind that comes from understanding, finally, what something was for.

The thing about answered prayers is that they don’t always arrive with labels.

Some come in scrubs. Some walk out of operating theatres with tired eyes and steady hands. Some stay. Some teach you something irreplaceable and then release you — both of you — into the larger story God was always writing underneath the one you thought you were living.

And sometimes the most answered prayer of all is the one you didn’t know you were praying.

The one God was answering the whole time.

Not with the person you asked for.

But with the person He was making you into.

I am still here.

I am still believing.

I am still whole.

And I have learned — finally, fully, in the way that only lived experience can teach — that this is enough.

More than enough.

What love didn’t say was never that it wasn’t real.

What love didn’t say was simply: not yet. Not this one. Not this way.

But I am here.

And I am whole.

And I am still believing.

And that, I have learned, is more than enough.

✍️ Author's Note

Hi, Friends🤗

We've finally come to the end of Tolu and Chioma's story.

Thank you for reading What Love Didn't Say.

Drop a comment below and tell me what stayed with you (I really look forward to seeing your feedbacks☺️). And subscribe so you never miss what’s coming next because trust me, there is so much more coming.

If What Love Didn't Say blessed you, share it. Someone in your circle needs this story right now and doesn't know it yet. Restack, share the link, send it to your group chat, post it on your story.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for staying till the end.

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Nobody tells you what heartbreak feels like when you chose it.

When someone leaves you, there is at least the comfort of a clear narrative — you were wronged, you are healing, the pain has an obvious address. But when you are the one who walked away, when the ending was your decision, your obedience, your hand on the door, the grief comes without that clarity. It just comes. And you have to hold it without the luxury of an easy explanation.

Being a Jesus girl did not exempt me from the process.

The ache didn’t discriminate because my intentions were pure. My heart didn’t heal faster because my theology was sound. I had done the right thing — I was certain of that — and it still hurt in the specific, physical way that only loss can hurt. The kind that sits in your chest like something dense and immovable that you carry through your shift and your meals and your conversations and your prayers.

The first week was the hardest.

Not because anything dramatic happened — nothing dramatic happened. That was almost the problem. Everything was just quietly, persistently less.

For the first time in months, my phone was no longer a source of anticipation. It had returned to its former life as a device that existed solely to deliver MTN notifications about my data subscription running low, church broadcast messages, and the occasional call from a family member who needed something specific and hung up immediately after receiving it.

No “Good morning, how did you sleep?”.

No “You looked really beautiful today, by the way”.

No “I was just thinking about you”.

Just MTN. Faithfully, consistently, MTN.

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I stared at a notification about my data bundle one evening and thought, “So this is what heartbreak actually feels like”. Not the cinematic kind with dramatic music and rain. Just this. A quiet phone. An empty parking lot after a shift. The particular absence of someone who had made ordinary moments feel like they meant something.

It is one thing to grieve someone who is far away. It is another thing entirely to grieve someone who you get to see and work with, basically everyday.

I managed. Barely. But I managed.

And then, as if God had looked down at the situation and seen that I was barely holding it together each day, He works through my matron.

"Nurse Chioma," she said, "we'll be rotating you to the medical surgical unit. You've been in O&G (Obstetrics & Gynecology Unit) for almost six months now, and standard practice is four to five months per unit, so as much as I'd love to keep you with us, I'll have to move you this time."

“Oh, what a life saver you are, ma” I thought to myself.

I wanted to present her with a bouquet of the finest roses available in this city. I wanted to write her name in my journal under the heading “Instruments of divine intervention” and underline it twice.

Instead I said, "Okay ma, thank you ma," with the calm nod of a woman receiving routine information.

I reported to the medical surgical unit the following Monday.

And for the first time since everything ended, I could breathe at work without bracing for the sight of someone I was still learning not to reach for.

Friday came with mixed feelings. “Another boring weekend” I thought, and stood up to prepare dinner when I heard a knock at my door. I opened my door to see an excited Naomi.

She came over uninvited, unannounced, armed with food and the particular energy of a woman who had assessed the situation from a distance and decided her presence was no longer optional.

We sat on my small sitting room floor, takeout between us, and I told her everything. The dream. The garden. The flower. The message I had sent and the phone call that followed and the things Tolu had said that had nearly undone every resolve I had carefully built.

She listened without interrupting. Which, for Naomi, was an act of significant discipline.

When I finished, she was quiet for a moment.

Then she said, “Chioma. Look at me.”

I looked at her.

“There are no mistakes in God’s economy. Do you hear me? Not one. Not the corridor, not the date, not the months, not the heartbreak — none of it was outside of His plan. All of it — all of it — is working. Even now. Even this Friday evening on your floor.”

I looked down at my hands.

“Romans 8:28 doesn’t say some things,” she continued. “It says all things. All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Not the comfortable things. Not the things that make sense. All things. That includes the ones that feel like loss.”

“It feels like loss, Naomi,” I said quietly.

“I know,” she said. “It is loss. Real loss. And you are allowed to grieve it. Being a woman of faith doesn’t mean you skip the grief — it means you grieve with hope. There’s a difference.” She reached over and held my hand. “But hear me: nothing that happened between you and Tolu took God by surprise. Not one moment”.

I exhaled slowly.

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“Every believer’s life moves according to a grand plan,” she said. “Not a rigid script — God is too creative for that. But a plan with purpose woven through every thread, even the ones that look frayed from where we’re standing.” She squeezed my hand. “You obeyed, Chi. You chose God when it cost you something real. That is not a small thing. And He is not going to waste it.”

We sat in silence for a moment.

“Now eat your food,” she said. “Because it’s getting cold and grief is not an excuse to waste jollof.”

We burst out laughing, and went on gisting about everything as usual.

After Naomi's visit, I asked God for grace to heal, and like other times, He answered me.

It was about six weeks after the breakup that the first one came.

It was a Sunday. Service had just ended and the sanctuary was doing what it always did in the final minutes — that slow, pleasant dispersal of people finding each other, conversations starting, children being located, bags being gathered. I was making my way toward the exit, still carrying the worship in my chest the way you carry a good song after it ends.

"Excuse me — Sister Chioma?"

I turned.

She was young. Sixteen, maybe seventeen, with the particular energy of a teenager who has decided to do something brave and is moving quickly before she loses the nerve. She was holding her Bible with both hands, fingers slightly tight around it, and she was looking at me with an expression that was equal parts nervousness and determination.

"Yes?" I smiled. "That's me."

"I'm Zara," she said. "I attend the youth fellowship. I've been — " she paused, steadied herself "I've actually been watching you for a while. Not in a weird way," she added quickly, with the self-awareness of someone who had realized mid-sentence how that sounded.

I laughed softly. "I didn't think so. Go on."

She relaxed slightly. "You taught at the workshop last month. The one about purpose and identity. And I don't know — something about the way you talk about God, about life, it feels real". She looked down briefly, then back up. "You seem approachable. Like someone who would actually tell me the truth."

Something in me settled warmly at that.

"I'd like to think so," I said. "What's on your mind, Zara?"

She glanced around, then back at me. "Can we sit somewhere?"

We found a quiet corner of the sanctuary, two chairs facing each other, the sounds of the dispersing congregation becoming background noise around us.

She took a breath.

"It's about relationships," she said. "And doing it God's way." She looked at me carefully, like she was deciding how honest to be. Then she decided. "Because honestly? Everyone around me is saying the God way is boring. That it's unrealistic. That waiting and boundaries and all of that is old-fashioned and that nobody actually does it, not even Christians anymore. And some days I believe them, and some days I don't, and I just—" she stopped. "I don't know how to hold onto something when everyone around you is telling you it doesn't make sense."

I looked at her for a moment.

At sixteen or seventeen, sitting in a church corner on a Sunday afternoon, asking a question that most people three times her age were still avoiding.

Lord, I thought quietly. You sent me a whole teenager and she is asking all the right questions.

I sat back.

"Zara," I said, "I'm going to tell you something that nobody cleaned up for me. Are you okay with that?"

She nodded, leaning forward slightly.

And I told her my story.

I told her that the God way is not boring — it is costly. And costly things are never boring. They are just hard in ways that comfort cannot prepare you for.

I told her that the pressure she was feeling from the people around her was real, and that it would not go away, and that the question was never whether the pressure existed but whether she had something more solid than the pressure to stand on.

I told her that doing relationship God's way might seem foolish to the world, because the wisdom of God is foolishness to men, but in the end, it speaks for itself.

She listened with the particular attention of someone hearing something they needed without knowing they needed it. Her Bible was still in her hands. At some point she had stopped gripping it quite so tightly.

When we finally stood to leave, she looked at me with eyes that were quieter than when she had sat down.

"Thank you," she said simply. "I feel like I can breathe again."

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I watched her walk back toward the youth group gathering near the entrance, and I stood there for a moment in the quiet of the emptying sanctuary.

This, I thought. This is what it was for.

Not just Tolu finding his way. Not just my own healing. But this — a seventeen year old girl in a church corner on a Sunday afternoon, asking the bravest question she knew how to ask, and leaving with something real to hold onto.

I hadn't lost a relationship.

I had gained a testimony.

And God, faithful as He always is, had already found someone to send it to.

***************

Tolu's POV

I threw myself into work.

Not in an unhealthy way though— I was already a man who gave medicine everything it asked for. But in those first weeks after Chioma's message, the theatre became more than a place of purpose. It became a refuge. In there, everything had clarity. A problem, a solution, a team, a outcome. There were no unanswerable questions in a surgical theatre. There was only the work, and the work was enough to occupy the part of me that would otherwise have too much space to think.

Outside of it, I was quieter than usual.

My colleagues noticed, a few asked if I was alright, with the careful, sideways concern of people who respected my privacy but wanted to leave a door open. I told them I was fine. And I was, mostly. Just quieter.

The apartment felt different in the evenings.

The particular difference of a space that had briefly held the warmth of someone's presence and was now adjusting back to being just yours. I noticed it most in small things. The chair she had sat in. The container I had brought pancakes in, still on the counter. The YouTube recipe screenshots still sitting in my phone's camera roll that I couldn't quite bring myself to delete.

I didn't delete them.

But here is the thing that surprised me most:

Even in the heartbreak, I didn't stop.

That night — the night after her message, after the phone call, after the most honest conversation I had ever had, I had told God I wanted to try. And something in me had meant it in a way that wasn't entirely about Chioma. Something older and more specifically mine had been reached in that conversation. And losing her didn't reach in and take it back.

If anything, it deepened it.

I think part of me had expected that if things ended, the motivation would end with them. That without Chioma as the reason, the reaching would stop. But it didn't. If anything, the ending stripped away the layer of it that had been about her and left behind the part that was simply mine. My own hunger. My own unfinished business with a God I had walked away from in a season of pain and never properly returned to.

She had been the light that illuminated the door.

But the door had always been there.

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I started with the online services again. Consistently this time, not occasionally, not when it felt convenient, but as a deliberate practice. Every Sunday morning, without negotiation. I would make coffee, open my laptop, and show up.

It felt strange at first. Like returning to a language you once spoke fluently and finding that your tongue remembers more than you thought. The worship was familiar in a way that lived in my body rather than my mind. The Word landed differently than it had in my drifting years.

I began to pray in the mornings.

The kind that doesn't always have a specific request but simply maintains the connection. I'm here. I'm listening. I'm trying. Some mornings it felt natural. Some mornings it felt like learning to walk again after a long time of keeping still. Both kinds counted.

I began to read the Bible again. Slowly, the way you sit with something you are relearning to trust.

Weeks passed like this.

And something began, gradually and without announcement, to shift.

The first Sunday I walked into an actual church, I almost didn't go through with it.

I sat in my car in the parking lot for a full ten minutes. Watching people file in — families, young couples, individuals with Bibles tucked under their arms, children being redirected from interesting things on the ground toward the entrance. The ordinary, unremarkable traffic of people arriving at a place they belonged.

I didn't know if I still belonged.

That was the honest fear. Not that God wouldn't receive me — I had been reading enough to know better than that. But the more human fear of whether I would recognize myself in there. Whether the person who had once served and shown up and believed with his whole chest was still accessible somewhere inside the man who had spent years keeping his distance.

I got out of the car.

The service had already started by the time I found a seat near the back. The worship was mid-song — something I half recognized, the melody familiar even if the arrangement was new. And something happened that I had not anticipated and was entirely unprepared for.

I felt it.

Not an emotion manufactured by the moment — Something that arrived in my chest and simply settled there, quiet and sure, like something returning to its right place after a long time of being elsewhere.

Home.

That was the word that arrived, unbidden and precise.

Not the building. Not the denomination. Not the particular style of worship or the specific church or the stranger sitting three seats away from me who was singing with his eyes closed.

Just — home. The sense of having returned to something that had been waiting. The particular warmth of a place that knows you even when you have been away long enough to feel like a stranger.

My eyes filled unexpectedly.

I didn't try to stop it.

I just sat there, in the back row, and let something that had been held for years quietly release. No dramatic testimony. No public moment. Just a man in the back of a church, eyes wet, hands open, finding his way back to something he had left behind in a university examination hall years ago and had been carrying the absence of ever since.

The pastor preached. I don't remember the entire sermon, but I remember the feeling more than the words. The feeling of being spoken to. Of the distance between me and God not being as vast or as permanent as I had quietly assumed.

When the service ended, I sat for a moment after most people had filed out.

"I'm back," I said. Quietly. To nobody in the room.

And the quiet that answered felt like: I know. I never left.

That evening, I called my mother.

We talked for an hour about work, about family, about nothing specific. But at the end of the call, before I hung up, I said something I hadn't said to her in years.

"Mama, I went to church today."

There was a brief silence on the other end.

And then she said, softly, with the particular relief of a woman who had been praying a specific prayer for a very long time: "Thank God."

Two words. That was all.

But I heard everything inside them.

I thought about Chioma that night.

Not with longing — or not only with longing. With something closer to gratitude. Because she had been the one. The one who had asked the right question in the car on a Sunday afternoon months ago. The one who had loved me clearly and faithfully and had still chosen God over the relationship when it cost her something real.

She had prayed for me.

I knew that without being told — I knew it the way you know certain things about certain people without needing the evidence. She had prayed for me even while walking away from me. And those prayers had found me. In an online service on a quiet Sunday morning. In a parking lot where I almost didn't get out of the car. In the back row of a church where something in me finally, quietly, came home.

She had been part of my story.

Not the ending of it.

But a sacred, necessary, beautifully placed part.

And wherever she was, whatever God was building in her season, whatever purpose was unfolding in the space where our story had closed, I hoped she knew.

It wasn't wasted.

None of it was wasted.

"“Thank you” I thought. To her. To God. To whatever grace had seen fit to bring a clipboard-carrying midwife across my path on an ordinary hospital afternoon that turned out to be anything but ordinary.

Thank you! I whispered with my eyes shut

✍️ Author's Note

Chioma found purpose, Tolu found his way home, and somehow, no one got lost. Someone shout glorayy!!

But before we close this story completely, there is one final thing left to say. The epilogue drops on Friday. Subscribe so you don't miss it.

Restack, share the link, send it to your group chat, post it on your story.

I love you all, and there's nothing you can do about it. 😌❤️

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I woke up slowly.

Not with the sudden jolt of an alarm or the groggy confusion of an interrupted sleep. Just slowly, gradually, the way you surface from something deep, awareness returning in layers, the room coming back into focus one detail at a time. Thankfully it was the weekend and I was off.

The curtains. The ceiling. The early morning light finding its way through the edges.

And then, before anything else, the dream.

It came back to me fully and immediately, the way only certain dreams do; the ones that don’t fade at the edges when you open your eyes but stay vivid and precise, as though they were never quite sleep at all.

In the dream, I had been standing in a garden. And there were flowers everywhere — beautiful ones, the kind that stop your breath when you see them. And I had reached for one. A particular one. It was stunning, its colour, its form, everything about it was exactly what you would want a flower to be.

But when I tried to place it where I intended, when I tried to fit it into the space I had been keeping, it appeared it didn’t belong there. Not because it was flawed. Not because it was less than what it appeared to be. But because it had been grown for a different garden entirely.

It was good.

It was just not good for here.

I lay still in my bed for a long time after, staring at the ceiling, holding the weight of what I had just understood.

A person can be good, I heard, not audibly, not dramatically, but in the way you hear something that has been said directly to your spirit rather than your ears, and still not be good for you. These are not the same thing. And confusing them is not wisdom. It is sentiment.

I closed my eyes again.

Not to sleep. Just to sit with it.

Because this was the clarity I had asked for. On my knees, on that floor, with tears on my face and my heart completely open — I had asked God to lead me clearly. To give me not what felt comfortable but what was true.

And He had answered.

Not with a verdict about Tolu’s character — Tolu was a good man, genuinely, and nothing God had shown me suggested otherwise. Not with a condemnation, not with a warning about danger or deception. Just a simple, quiet, devastating truth:

Good is not the same as appointed.

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I had spent months asking God if Tolu was the one. And maybe that had been the wrong question. Maybe the question was never is he a good man, I knew the answer to that. Maybe the question was always is he your man — and the answer to that, delivered gently in the language of a garden and a flower that belonged somewhere else, was no.

Not yet.

Not now.

Maybe not ever.

I didn’t cry immediately. I just lay there, holding it, turning it over carefully the way you handle something fragile that you already know is going to break something when it lands.

He isn’t saved, Chioma. Not in the way that counts. Not in the way that builds a home. Not in the way that leads a family. He was returning — something in him was reaching, genuinely, I believed that. But reaching is not arrived. And I could not build a foundation on a journey that had not yet found its destination.

I had always known this.

I had just been hoping God would tell me it was enough.

He hadn’t.

I got up. Made tea I didn’t drink. Sat at my small table in the early morning quiet and stared at nothing for a long time.

The decision had been made in the garden. All that remained was the doing of it.

And the doing of it was going to be the hardest thing.

I prayed for courage for the next few days. Not for direction — I had that now. Just courage. The specific, practical kind that lets you do the right thing even when your hands are shaking and everything in you wants to find a reason to delay just one more day.

I knew I could not see him in person.

I knew myself well enough to know that. If I saw his face, if his eyes found mine the way they always did, if I heard his voice directed at me in that particular way he had, I would weaken. My conviction would meet his presence and one of them would lose, and I was not confident enough to bet on conviction.

So I chose distance.

I chose a message.

I stared at my phone for a long time before I began typing.

The words, when they finally came, came quietly:

Tolu,

For the past few months, I have never ceased to thank God for bringing you my way. You have been nothing short of kind to me. You have shown me care in ways that words cannot fully describe.

Thank you for waiting after long shifts just to drop me off. Thank you for the meals you made and brought for me. Thank you for the sacrifices you made quietly, the effort, the presence, the patience.

You are a good man, Tolu. And I do not say that lightly.

But sometimes, what looks right to us is not always aligned with what God sees ahead.

As much as I care about you, and as much as I would love to continue, I do not believe God is in support of this union. And if God is not in it, then no matter how promising it looks now, it most likely will not fulfill God’s purpose for our lives.

I believe God has better plans for both of us, plans beyond what we can currently imagine. It may not feel like it now. It may hurt. But I trust that obedience will make sense one day.

Because of this, I cannot continue the relationship.

I will always be grateful for you.

Chioma.

My hands trembled before I pressed send.

And just like that, months of memories traveled into silence.

I waited.

Thirty minutes became an hour. My heart was louder than the room. I kept checking my phone, had it delivered, was he typing, was he angry, was he —

Hours later, my phone rang.

His name lit up the screen.

For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.

I answered.

“Hello…”

The sound of his voice broke something inside me that I hadn’t known was still whole.

He was quiet for a few seconds. And then…

“Chioma.” Softly. The way he always said my name, like it meant something specific to him. “I know.”

I pressed my lips together.

“I know I don't fit into the full picture of your dream man right now. I know you have always had a vision — the kind of man you've prayed for, the kind of home you want to build, the spiritual standard you've held onto for years." His voice was measured, careful, like a man choosing every word deliberately. "I know I don't currently check every box”.

He paused.

“But if there is one thing I am certain of, it’s my love for you.”

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My eyes filled.

“I know what lust and love is,” he continued. “I don’t confuse one for the other. What I have for you is not lust, Chioma. I genuinely love you.”

That sentence nearly undid me.

“Ever since I met you,” he went on, his voice steady even as I could hear the weight underneath it, “you’ve brought light into my life. At the beginning of this year, for the first time in a long time, I prayed. I thanked God for showing me His love by bringing you my way.”

I closed my eyes.

He prayed.

“I am not the same man I was six months ago,” he continued. “You have changed in so many ways I can't explain”. A slight catch in his voice. “I know I am not there yet. But I am moving. And I am asking you, please don’t close the door while I am still walking toward it.”

The tears I had been holding came quietly.

“Tolu—”

“Just give me a chance, Chioma. That’s all I’m asking. Not a lifetime of patience, just a chance. Let me show you that a man can change. Let me prove that what started because of you can become something real and independent of you. I just need time.”

I breathed slowly before I spoke.

“Tolu, I hear you.” My voice was barely steady. “And I want you to know I do not take any of what you have done lightly. Not one thing. The cooking, the prayers, the effort you have put into becoming better — I recognize all of it. Every single bit of it.”

He was quiet, listening.

“And it is not wasted,” I continued, each word costing me something. “It will never be wasted. Every step you are taking toward God right now, that is going to pay off. It is going to count. But Tolu…” I stopped, steadied myself “it is going to pay off for the woman God knows would align with your purpose in life. The one He has been preparing this version of you for. And she is going to receive a man who has been through the fire and came out as gold. She is going to be so loved.”

Silence.

Then, very quietly: “But I want it to be you.”

Something broke open in my chest.

“I know,” I whispered. “I know you do. And if I am being honest with you, because you deserve my honesty, a huge part of me wishes it could be me too. But wanting something and being assigned to it are two different things. And I have to trust what God has shown me over what my heart is telling me to hold onto.”

He didn’t respond immediately.

I could hear him breathing on the other end — slow, measured, the breath of a man gathering himself.

“So there’s nothing I can say,” he said finally. Not as an accusation. Just a quiet arrival at understanding.

“It’s not about what you say, Tolu. It’s not about what you do. You have said and done everything right. This is not a reflection of your worth — please hear me when I say that.” My voice broke slightly. “You are a good man. You are going to be an incredible husband. And the woman God has for you is going to know it.”

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Another long silence.

When he spoke again, his voice had changed — still pained, but settled. Like a man who has been in a storm and has finally decided to stop fighting the wind.

“I want to plead with you not to do this,” he said honestly. “I won’t pretend I don’t. The thought of losing a future with you, the thought of that genuinely breaks me.”

He exhaled.

“But I also want you to be happy. Truly happy. The kind you deserve.” A quiet pause. “So as much as every part of me wants to keep pressing, I think you deserve the best. And right now, in this moment, maybe I am not yet the best that you are believing God for.”

His voice dropped to something barely above a whisper.

“But Chioma, whatever happens, wherever life takes both of us, just know that I will always love you. That part doesn’t have an expiry date.”

And in that silence, I felt the full weight of obedience.

This was not the ending of something toxic. This was not the closing of a door that should never have opened. This was the ending of something genuinely beautiful — something real, something kind, something that had held me carefully and treated me well.

And that made it so much harder.

It would have been easier if he had argued. If he had been defensive or cold or dismissive. If he had given me something to hold onto as justification.

But he hadn’t.

He had honored my decision with a grace that made the goodbye more painful than any fight could have.

When the call ended, I sat completely still.

The tears came quietly. Not the dramatic kind. Just the slow, steady kind that arrive when grief is real and has nowhere else to go.

Not regret.

Grief.

Grief for the future I had imagined. For Saturday mornings in a kitchen that belonged to both of us. For the version of us I had allowed myself to picture on quiet nights when hope felt like enough.

Grief for a love that was real but not aligned.

That night, I didn’t have elaborate words. I knelt, and I whispered the simplest prayer I knew:

“Lord, please make sense of this obedience.”

Because choosing God had not felt victorious that day.

It had felt like loss.

Pure, quiet, unglamorous loss.

But somewhere underneath the grief, beneath the ache of a goodbye said too softly to feel final, I held onto something I had learned in the garden that morning:

Not every love story is meant to be completed.

Some are meant to refine you.

Some good men are not your assigned men.

And the hardest act of faith is not always walking into something.

Sometimes, it is walking away from something good, trusting that God’s no this time is not a punishment, but a protection for a purpose you cannot yet see.

✍️ Author's Note

Who else was really hopeful God gave a positive response? 😩

Could it be that their relationship was assignment-tailored from the beginning and not romantic based?

Who else is glad the seeds of God's love have been sown in Tolu?

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I held it together on the way home.

I sat in that bus with the city moving past the window and I held everything carefully, the way you carry something fragile through a crowd. I held it all the way to my front door. And then I closed it behind me, and something in me gave way.

The quiet, complete collapse of someone who has been holding on for long enough and has finally found a private enough place to stop.

I didn't make it to my bed. I sat on the floor, back against the door, and let the tears come. The kind that simply arrive because they have been waiting and the waiting is done.

I don't know how long I stayed there.

Long enough for the room to go fully dark around me.

Long enough for the weight of everything to settle into something I could finally name.

And when I could find words, I did what I always did.

I talked to God.

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It didn't start as a prayer. It started as a conversation — the kind you have with someone you trust enough to be completely undone in front of.

"God."

Just that, at first. Just His name, said the way you say the name of someone you need, from a place too deep for formality.

"We talked about this."

My voice was barely above a whisper. My knees were pulled to my chest, my back still against the door, tears still falling quietly.

"I prayed. I have always prayed. From the very beginning, before any of this, before Tolu, before any of this, I prayed. I told You I didn't want a situationship. I told You I didn't want something temporary that would cost me more than it gave. I told You I didn't want to go through heartbreak after heartbreak trying to find something You already knew the address of."

I stopped and breathed.

"And I kept that. I guarded my heart. And even when I met Tolu for the very first time, I prayed. That night, on my knees, I prayed. I asked You to remove it if it wasn't from You. I asked You to let it die if it wasn't ordained. I gave You every opportunity to close the door."

My voice broke slightly on the last word.

"And the door didn't close."

I wiped my face slowly.

"So I don't understand what is happening. I don't understand what this is. Because I followed the process. I prayed the prayers. I asked the questions. Well, most of them, maybe not all of them, maybe not the right ones soon enough — but I was trying, God. I was genuinely trying to do this the right way."

The room was very quiet.

"I love him."

Saying it plainly, without context or qualification, without the careful framing I had been wrapping it in for weeks. It hit differently at that volume, in that darkness, with nobody else to perform composure for.

"I love Tolu so much, and You see that. You see all of it. You see how I feel and You see how hard I have been trying to hold that feeling in the right hands (Yours) rather than just following it wherever it wanted to go."

I rested my forehead on my knees for a moment.

"And as much as I want to continue this, as much as everything in me wants to just choose him and trust that love is enough, I know better. I know the weight of a future. I know the weight of a union. I know what it means to build something with someone, what it requires, what it costs when the foundation isn't right. And that is why I am not just choosing what feels good. That is why I am here, on this floor, asking You to lead me."

I exhaled.

"Please grant me clarity. Please. Not what I want to hear, what is true. Not what will hurt less, what is right. Grant me clarity and guide me, because I genuinely do not trust myself to navigate this alone. My heart has a conflict of interest and I know it."

I sat with that for a moment.

And then something shifted in the prayer, quietly. Away from me and toward him.

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"Tolu is hurting, Lord."

My voice changed when I said it. Softer.

"He is Your son. You love him more than I am even capable of loving him. He trusted You once with something that mattered deeply to him, and he walked away from that experience with a wound he has been carrying quietly for years. He didn't tell many people. I don't think he tells anyone easily. But he told me tonight. And I heard it."

Fresh tears.

"I cannot fix that. I cannot convict him or comfort him in the way that wound actually requires. I don't have access to the part of him that needs to be healed. Only You do. So I am asking You, please, let the light of Your word reach the part of his heart that closed years ago in that university room when the results came back wrong. Let Your love get into the places his logic has been guarding. Heal what broke. Restore what drifted. Bring him back, not for me, not so that this can work out the way I want it to, but because he is Yours and he deserves to come home."

I meant every word of it.

"And even if he is not meant for me," I continued, and the saying of it cost me something I didn't have a precise measurement for, "even if this is not the ending I have been imagining, I still want You to fix him. Because he is a good man. A genuinely good man. And good men deserve to know You. He deserves a peaceful home and a beautiful life and the kind of love that only a man anchored in You can truly give. So fix him, Lord. Settle him. Restore him. Make him into the man you want him to be. Not for me, but for You. And for whoever You have written into his story."

I sat in the quiet that followed.

The kind that comes after you have said everything you needed to say and released it to hands larger than your own.

I was still sad.

I was still uncertain.

My heart still ached with the particular, specific ache of loving someone and not knowing if love is enough.

But something in me was lighter than I had been when I walked through the door.

I got up slowly, washed my face, changed my clothes, climbed into bed with the weight of the night still around me but no longer entirely on me.

I closed my eyes.

"I trust You," I whispered. One last time. Into the dark. "Even now, even here. I trust You."

Then I slept, and surprisingly this time, God spoke.

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*************

Tolu's POV

She stepped out of the car and I watched her walk away until she was out of sight.

Then I sat there for a moment, hands still on the steering wheel, engine still running, staring at nothing in particular, replaying all that had just happened.

Watching her face in those final moments — the way her eyes held everything she was processing, compassion and confusion sitting side by side in them like two people who had just been introduced and weren't sure yet what to make of each other, that had cost me more than I had budgeted for. It took everything in me not to reach across and pull her into a hug so complete that all the questions would have to wait. It took everything in me to just sit there and let her feel what she was feeling without trying to manage it.

I wished she could see my heart.

Not metaphorically. Literally. I wished there was a way to open my chest and show her what was in there, the size of what I felt for her, and the sincerity of it

“Pull yourself together, Tolu” I told myself.

I had one more surgery.

I don't know how I did it — how a man carries a conversation like the one we had just had into a sterile theatre and sets it completely aside. But medicine had trained me to compartmentalize in ways that were sometimes a gift and sometimes simply a postponement. I scrubbed in, focused, and did what I was trained to do with the steady hands that had never once betrayed me when it mattered.

But the moment I stepped out of that theatre, everything I had set aside came rushing back.

I drove home faster than usual, with the particular urgency of a man who needs to be alone somewhere private before whatever is building inside him finds its way out in the wrong place.

I got through the front door, dropped my keys, sat down.

And stayed there.

I don't know when I started talking. It wasn't planned. It was less like prayer and more like a man alone in a room finally saying out loud what he had been carrying for years.

“I can't lose Chioma. I don't want to lose her, please” I said, with face staring at my ceiling with hopes that I was being heard by the God I had forsaken.

"I know I left," I said. To the quiet. To whoever was listening. "I walked away and I told myself I had good enough reason. And maybe I did. But I've been sitting here watching this woman You made — and I don't know how to explain what that's doing to me. You can punish me in any other way, but not with Chioma"

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I thought about Chioma. The way she lived, the way she loved, and how she always carried an aura of Joy. I thought of the way she had looked at me tonight with compassion and confusion sitting side by side in her eyes, processing everything I had just told her without once making me feel like a case to be solved.

I exhaled.

"I was hurt," I said simply, without dressing it up.

"I was committed. I gave You everything I had — my time, my service, my trust. And that year broke me in a way I didn't know how to recover from. So I stopped bringing You the details of my life because I stopped believing You were particularly interested in them."

The room was very still.

"But then there's Chioma."

Something shifted when I said her name.

"If You made her, if this woman is the product of a life genuinely surrendered to You — then I don't know how to argue with that. Because I have never met anyone like her. And what she carries is not personality alone. It comes from somewhere, and with her level of consecration, I think it comes from You. "

I leaned forward, elbows on my knees.

"I want to be honest about something. I'm interested in this kind of consecration. Part of this is because I love her and the thought of losing her breaks something in me I don't have a name for. I won't pretend otherwise."

"But there's another part. A part that has been watching her and asking questions I didn't know I was still capable of asking. Questions about what it would look like to actually come back. Not for her. But genuinely to try again."

I stopped.

"I think I want to try."

I hadn't said those words before. Not to anyone. Not even to myself.

"I don't know what that looks like yet. I don't know if I have the faith to have faith right now. But I think I want to find out."

I thought about the man I wanted to be.

Not the doctor — I was already that. But the other one. The one who could stand at an altar with clear eyes and make promises he had the spiritual backbone to keep. The one who knew how to lead a home with something deeper than competence. The kind of man worthy of the kind of woman God had already made Chioma.

"Make something of this," I said finally. Quietly.

"Whatever You can do with what I'm giving You right now, take it. Make me into someone. The kind of man that fits the life I actually want. The kind of man worthy of what You already built in her."

I sat in the quiet a little longer.

And for the first time in years, the quiet didn't feel like absence.

It felt like something beginning.

✍️ Author's Note

It's getting heated, guys. 🥹

What do you think God's response to Chioma is?

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We’re often so focused on what we don’t have yet that we fail to pause and count the blessings we’ve already received. Yet if we looked closely, we’d realize that many of the things we now call “normal” were once the very things we cried to God about.

Yesterday, I officially completed my nursing internship.

As we celebrated at our send-off, my mind drifted back to where it all began.

There was a season when it felt like everyone else was moving while I remained in one spot. My colleagues had begun their internships. Some were already months into theirs, while I was still submitting application after application, praying, waiting, and wondering when my own turn would come.

I remember going online just to look at pictures of my desired. I would imagine myself walking through those corridors, wearing my scrubs, caring for patients. It was simply a picture in my heart. I had no idea how it would happen. In fact, my attention was fixed on hospitals within the state I live, considering the fact that we didn't know anyone at my desired hospital who could help out.

Then God did what only He can do.

He made a way where I couldn’t see one.

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When I eventually resumed, the Holy Spirit reminded me of something I had completely forgotten. During my sign-out from school, I had casually told a friend, “I’d love to do my internship in Abuja.”

It wasn’t a long prayer meeting. It wasn’t a carefully written list of requests. It was just a passing statement.

Yet God heard it.

That moment reminded me that we truly have a Father who cares about every detail of our lives. Even the seemingly casual desires of our hearts are not hidden from Him. If they align with His purpose for our lives, He is more than able to bring them to pass.

During our orientation, we were told that outstanding interns would be recognized at the end of the program.

I got home that day and prayed a simple prayer.

“Lord, it took so much to get here. Please help me finish well. Help me be one of the best.”

Yesterday, I watched God answer that prayer too.

I was recognized as one of the best interns (clock it for Jesus😌🤏).

Standing there, receiving that recognition, I knew it wasn’t simply a reward for hard work. It was evidence of God’s sustaining grace.

Because there were days I was exhausted.

Days when I cried myself to sleep after work.

Days when every part of me wanted to give in.

On those days, my prayer wasn’t, “God, make me exceptional.”

It was, “God, please strengthen me. Help me love my patients well. Don’t let my exhaustion make me become someone You didn’t call me to be.”

And every single time, He supplied the grace I needed.

Looking back now, I realize the greatest testimony isn’t even the award.

It’s the faithfulness of God through every stage of the journey.

From waiting... to receiving... to enduring... to finishing well.

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If there’s one thing this season has taught me, it’s this:

🪴Count your blessings

Don’t become so consumed with the prayers that are still unanswered that you overlook the ones God has already answered.

The life you’re living today may very well be the life you once begged Heaven for.

And if God has been faithful before, He will be faithful again.

He has never failed His own.

And He never will.

P.S: I'm officially a Senior Nursing Officer (SNO) and congratulations are in order. 😌

Hey Lexi, play me Gratitude by Anendlessocean

My first visit to Tolu's apartment had been nothing short of wonderful.

I hadn't expected it to affect me the way it did. I had gone in alert, boundaried, prepared for anything, and left with more love than I had arrived with.

He had been warm without being overwhelming, and very attentive without being suffocating. That night, I knelt by my bed and whispered “thank you to God” with a smile I couldn't turn off.

Things seemed to be falling into place so quickly. And I was loving every single bit of it.

It was on a Thursday evening, a few days after the visit, that Naomi called.

Naomi had been my friend long enough to know when I was holding something. We had met during our first year of nursing school, bonded over a particularly brutal anatomy exam, and had been each other's sounding board for everything since. She loved God fiercely, spoke plainly, and had zero tolerance for the version of me that tried to package things neatly before presenting them.

"Chioma," she said, the moment I picked up. "Where and how have you been?” She asked.

“I’ve been around oo, busy with work. And yes, I'm very very fine” I said, with a lot more emphasis

“You sound different" She said

"Different how?" I replied

"Happy-different. Suspiciously happy. Oya start talking."

I laughed. And then I talked.

I told her about Tolu. About the corridor, the surgical cap, the fourteen-word exchange that had somehow become a before-and-after in my life. About the cinema date, the cooking lessons, the oat pancakes delivered to the hospital parking lot. About the phone calls that stretched past midnight and never felt long enough.

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"Wait—" Naomi interrupted. "He learned to cook for you?"

"He sends me YouTube recipe screenshots."

"Chioma." She said excitedly

"I know" I said, blushing behind the phone sheepishly.

"That man is serious."

"I know," I said again, quieter this time.

I told her about the first visit to his apartment. How I had rehearsed exit strategies on the way there. How I had catalogued every inch of space between us on that sofa, alert and ready and how he had done nothing that required any of my preparation.

"I had genuinely planned to end things on the spot if he tried anything," I admitted. "I had the whole speech ready in my head."

"And?"

"He only hugged me briefly, and even ensured I left his place before sunset”.

There was a brief silence on the other end.

"Okay," Naomi said. "That's actually really lovely."

"It was."

"So things are good."

"Things are really good," I said. And then, because it was Naomi and she would hear it anyway: "Things feel really good. Like, genuinely good. Like pieces fitting together without being forced."

"Hmm," she said.

I knew that hmm. That hmm was not a neutral sound coming from Naomi. That hmm was the sound of a question forming that she was deciding whether to ask yet.

She asked it.

"Chioma. Are you sure about him?"

I paused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean—" she chose her words carefully, the way she always did when she was being serious without being harsh— "everything you're describing sounds beautiful. He sounds wonderful, genuinely. But I know you. And I want to ask you something and I need you to answer it honestly."

"Okay."

"What is God actually saying about him?"

The question landed quietly and i didn't rush to answer it.

"I feel peace," I said finally. "That's the honest answer. I feel a kind of peace when I'm with him that I haven't felt before. When we talk, when we're together, there's an ease there that feels different from anything I've experienced. I just feel at home with him."

"That sounds really nice," Naomi said. And she meant it — I could hear that she meant it. "But Chi—"

"I know what you're going to say."

"Let me say it anyway." She responded.

"Peace is real, and I'm not dismissing what you feel. But peace is not the same thing as alignment. You can feel at ease with someone and still not be walking in the same direction as them spiritually. Feelings of peace can come from comfort, from compatibility, from the fact that someone treats you well and makes you feel safe. And all of that is good. But it is not the same as God saying this is the one."

I was quiet.

"Have you actually heard from God about him?" she asked. "Not felt, not sensed. Heard."

I thought about the prayers, the kneeling, the waiting for a verse, a stirring, something unmistakable and the quiet that came every time — not troubled, but not conclusive either.

"Not clearly," I admitted.

"Then keep waiting," Naomi said. "Chioma, I love you. And I'm saying this because I love you. This isn't a situationship, it isn't something you can walk away from without cost if it goes wrong. This is a lifetime decision. The person you marry will influence your faith, your children, your home, the direction of your entire life. Peace is a good sign. But it is not the final word. Make sure you hear from God before you go any further."

The line hummed quietly between us for a moment.

"I hear you," I said.

"Good." And then, because she was still Naomi: "Now tell me more about the oat pancakes."

I laughed hard and replied "I knew you'd still be interested in the gist now. But honestly, Naomi, they were really good. Babe, Tolu dey cook fire, no jokes"

"A doctor who cooks and respects boundaries," she said. "Lord, show me where these ones are being distributed." She said, and we both burst out laughing.

We talked for another hour about nothing and everything, the way we always did. But when I set the phone down afterward, her question stayed with me.

What is God actually saying?

Not what I felt, not what made sense, not what looked good or felt right or ticked the boxes I had spent years compiling.

What was God saying?

I sat with that for a long time.

I didn't have an answer yet.

But I knew, quietly and with a certainty I couldn't fully explain, that I needed one before I went any further.

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Here I am, a week after, about to visit Tolu at his place for the second time. I had been praying about the whole relationship since I spoke with Naomi, but every conversation with Tolu over the phone seemed to give an assurance that I was in the right.

This time, I didn't rehearse boundaries on the way there. I didn't feel the same level of alertness. After all, the first visit had been harmless.

We sat on the same sofa. A different movie played in the background. This time, the space between us was smaller, and his arm rested around me naturally, as if it had always belonged there.

I didn't move away.

Halfway through the movie, everything shifted in one quiet motion.

He turned toward me.

Gently lifted my chin.

And before my thoughts could catch up, his lips were on mine.

It wasn't aggressive.

It wasn't forceful.

And that made it heavier.

For a moment I froze. Not because I was afraid. But because I hadn't decided. And there is a particular stillness that comes not from fear but from the sudden awareness that something is happening that you didn't choose, and that you aren't stopping.

When he pulled back, he exhaled softly.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I just… I love you."

The room felt different after that.

I left shortly after, and the ride home was not like the others. I was quieter than usual. The city moved past the window and I watched it without really seeing it, my mind turning the same moment over and over like a stone in still water.

I hadn't resisted.

I hadn't stopped it.

I hadn't spoken.

On the bus, I closed my eyes.

"God, I'm sorry."

No dramatic tears. Just a deep, quiet awareness that something had crossed a line — a line I hadn't drawn clearly enough, which meant part of this was mine to own.

When I got home, I knelt.

"I should have been clearer," I prayed. "I should have said something."

That night I sent him a message, simple and direct.

“Hi, Babe. Thank you for today. However, about the kiss… please I don't want that to happen again”.

He called immediately. His voice carried something I hadn't heard in it before — restraint, and underneath it, genuine remorse.

"I'm really sorry," he said. "I noticed how quiet you were shortly before leaving. I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable."

No defensiveness. No irritation. Just sincerity. And that sincerity softened something in me even as I held the boundary firm.

"I never want to disrespect you," he added. "Can we talk about it properly when we see?"

"Yes," I said. "We can."

Monday came and Tolu resumed work. After my shift, I called him, and we decided to meetup in his car.

“Hi, sweetheart” he said, as he softly pulled me in for a brief hug.

“You look a bit tired. How was your shift?” he asked

“It was stressful, babe. But I'll rest once I get home”.

“Sorry, my love. I wish I could take you home and make your favourite pancakes for you. But sadly, I have 2 more surgeries to perform. Is there anyway I can help?”

“Don’t stress babe, I'll be fine” I replied.

He looked at me softly, and said “I love you, sweetheart”.

“Oh God! What will I do with these beautiful eyes of his” I thought to myself.

"I've been thinking about what you said," he began.

He looked genuinely troubled — shoulders slightly lowered, tone careful and honest.

"I don't think kissing is a big deal, Chioma," he said. "It's not sex. We're not doing anything extreme. We're two people who love each other."

I listened.

"It's something people do in relationships. I genuinely don't see how it's wrong."

I took a breath.

"Just because everyone does something doesn't make it right," I said quietly.

He nodded and listened.

"As long as we're not married," I continued, "any form of intimacy crosses a line. It may seem small, but it opens doors. And I know myself well enough to know that if I don't close a door clearly, my emotions will slowly push it wider."

He leaned back slightly. "Sweetheart, I honestly don't see it that way. God understands love. He knows our hearts."

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That sentence settled in the air between us.

God understands love.

He believed it. Genuinely, calmly, without performance. And that unsettled me more than an argument would have. Because this wasn't a disagreement about behavior anymore. It was a disagreement about conviction.

And then, quietly, like a light coming on in a room I hadn't thought to enter, Naomi's voice returned to me.

Peace is not the same thing as alignment.

I looked at him.

"Tolu," I said. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"I asked you on our first date if you were a Christian." I paused. "But I never asked what you actually believe. Being a Christian and being a believer, those aren't always the same thing, although they were meant to."

He held my gaze. Said nothing yet.

"Do you believe in God? And have you given your life to Him?" I asked. Quietly. Without accusation. Just the question —the one I should have asked months ago.

He opened his mouth. Closed it.

Then he finally spoke.

"I believe God exists," he said. "I don't doubt that. But faith — the way you carry it, the way it shapes your decisions, the way you talk to Him like He's in the room—" He paused. "That's not where I am. I'm not a faith person, Chioma. Not in the way you mean."

The silence that followed was unlike any we had shared before.

I felt something shift in my chest, like furniture being quietly rearranged in a room you thought you knew perfectly.

"What happened?" I asked. Because I needed to understand. I didn't want to react to a headline without knowing the story behind it.

He exhaled slowly, like a man setting down something heavy he had been carrying for so long he had forgotten it had weight.

"During my undergrad days," he began, "I was on fire. Genuinely. I wasn't just attending church — I was in the workforce, serving, showing up, giving everything I had. I led Bible study. I prayed. I fasted. I was the person people came to when they needed someone to believe God with them."

He paused.

"I was also one of the brightest in my class. Consistent. Hardworking. I wasn't playing around with my academics — I took both seriously. Faith and excellence. I genuinely believed you could honour God and still be outstanding, and I was living proof of it. Or so I thought."

His jaw tightened slightly with the particular tension of someone revisiting something they have not fully made peace with.

"There was a particular year, my third year precisely. I had worked hard. I had prayed hard. I had done everything right by every standard I knew. And somehow—" he stopped, exhaled again— "I failed. Not because I was careless. Not because I had stopped trying. The results came out and I was carrying over. I had to repeat the year."

He looked down briefly.

"Do you know what that does to a person? When you have been faithful, genuinely faithful, and it still goes wrong? When you have trusted God with something and the outcome looks like He wasn't listening?" He shook his head slowly. "I didn't just lose a year, Chioma. I lost something I didn't know how to get back. Something broke in me that I didn't have language for at the time."

He was quiet for a moment.

"I didn't storm out of church dramatically. I just… stopped going quietly, one Sunday at a time. And nobody said anything significant enough to pull me back. And eventually the distance became the default."

He looked at me then — directly, honestly.

"I know how it sounds," he said. "I know that's not how faith is supposed to work — that it's not a transaction, that God's ways are higher, that the delay wasn't necessarily a denial. I know all of that now. I've had years to process the theology of it." He let out a quiet, humourless breath. "But knowing it and feeling it are two very different things. And for a long time, I could only access the knowing. The feeling was just… gone."

He folded his hands.

"I've started watching online services recently. However, I want to be honest about what that means — it's not like I've arrived anywhere. I'm still finding my footing. Still trying to figure out how to want something I once had and lost and am not sure I know how to hold again."

He looked at me steadily.

"That's the truth. All of it."

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I heard every word he said, and I believed him.

That was the thing — I believed every single word of it. The brokenness in his voice wasn't performed. The weight he carried as he spoke wasn't manufactured for my sympathy. Tolu was telling me the truth, maybe for the first time completely, and I respected that.

But respect and peace are not the same thing.

And as he spoke, something in my mind had already begun moving, fast, quiet, unstoppable — turning everything over, holding it up to the light, asking questions I wasn't ready to answer out loud.

Can I do this?

Not can I love him. I already knew the answer to that. I was sitting across from him loving him even as the questions ran. But love was not the question anymore.

Can I build a life with someone who is not yet where God needs him to be?

Because I had not been vague with God about this. I had been specific. For years, in the quiet of my room, on my knees, in the margins of my journal, I had told God exactly what I was believing Him for. Not just a good man. Not just a kind man. Not just someone who treated me well and made me laugh and showed up with oat pancakes.

A kingdom marriage.

That was the phrase I had used, more times than I could count. A marriage that reflected something larger than the two of us. A home where God was not a Sunday habit but the actual foundation — the thing every decision was weighed against, every conflict was brought to, every season was navigated through.

I had prayed for a man who would take his place as a priest in his home. Who would lead not by authority alone but by example. Who would know how to pray for his children, how to point his family toward God not just in words but in the daily, ordinary texture of how he lived.

Tolu, as he sat across from me, honest, wounded, trying — did not currently fit that picture.

And I didn't know what to do with that.

“But what if he changes?”

The thought arrived hopefully. I held it for a moment.

And then, underneath the hope, a quieter and more uncomfortable question:

“If he changes, will it be because he loves God? Or because he loves me?”

Because those are not the same thing. A man who returns to faith for a woman has not returned to faith. He has returned to the woman. And what happens to that faith when the relationship is tested? What happens when love is not enough to sustain the performance? What happens to the marriage, to the children, to the home, to everything built on that foundation, when the foundation was never really God but was always, quietly, me?

I didn't want to be someone's reason for returning to God.

I wanted God to be his reason.

And I couldn't manufacture that. I couldn't pray it into him. I couldn't love it into existence.

But then…

Another thought, softer and more unsettling than the others:

“What if this isn't about marriage at all?”

“What if God had not brought Tolu into my life as a husband but as an assignment? What if the purpose of this connection — the corridor, the corridor glance, the fourteen words, the oat pancakes, all of it, was not to lead to an altar but to lead him back to God? What if I was the vessel, not the destination?”

I sat with that for a moment.

And then I felt something sink.

Because if that was true — if restoration was the assignment and not marriage, then I had already complicated it. I had already let the lines blur. I had already let a peck become familiar, already let his arm around me feel like home, already given parts of my heart that an assignment does not require and probably cannot afford.

If God had sent me to help restore him and I had used that access to fall in love instead, then I hadn't just misread the assignment.

I had failed it.

“Lord…”

The thought stopped itself before it became a full prayer. Because I was still sitting across from Tolu. Still in the middle of a conversation he had just made himself vulnerable in. And he was looking at me, waiting, with the steadiness of a man who has said the hard thing and is now simply waiting to see what it costs him.

I loved him.

That was still true.

But I was no longer sure what that love was supposed to do with itself.

And I was beginning to understand that I could not figure that out in this room, in this moment, with him looking at me like that.

I needed God.

Not the quiet I had been calling peace.

Not the comfort I had been calling confirmation.

I needed to actually hear from God clearly, specifically, without the noise of my feelings filling in the spaces where His voice was supposed to be.

I looked at Tolu.

"I need some time," I said.

He nodded.

"Faith isn't a part of my life," I said quietly. "It is my life. And right now I have more questions than I have answers. I need to take this to God properly and I need space to do that."

He didn't argue.

He didn't push.

He just looked at me with something in his eyes that I chose not to examine too closely in that moment — because if I did, I might stay. And staying, right then, was not what either of us needed.

"Take all the time you need," he said.

So I left.

Carrying love in one hand and confusion in the other, not yet knowing which one God was going to ask me to set down.

That night I knelt again, longer than usual, with less words than usual.

"God," I whispered finally, with tears trickling down my eyes "I need You to lead me clearly. Because I love him. And I don't know what to do with that alongside everything I now know."

The quiet that came wasn't the peaceful kind.

It was the kind that means: keep waiting. This isn't finished yet.

I stayed on my knees a little longer.

Because loving someone is one thing.

Walking in the same direction is another.

And for the first time, I was no longer certain we were facing the same way.

✍️ Author's Note

Guys, this ship is in the middle of a great storm. 😩

The waves are high, the waters are uncertain, and our captain and first mate are standing on opposite ends of the deck.

Do you think this ship deserves to keep sailing? Or should we let it sink?

Does love alone keep a ship sailing through a storm like this? Or does a ship need more than love to survive?

I had grown fond of Chioma in a way I hadn’t been prepared for.

Not the surface kind of fond, nor the comfortable warmth of someone you enjoy spending time with and would miss if they were gone. Deeper than that. The kind that quietly reorganizes your priorities without asking permission. The kind that makes you want to become better at things that matter to someone else, not to impress them, but because their values have somehow started to feel like yours.

I found myself thinking about what she needed before she asked. Planning things with her comfort in mind. Cooking, actually cooking, learning, improving, not because I particularly enjoyed standing over a cooking burner, but because showing up with something warm I had made with my own hands felt like the most honest thing I could offer her.

And in between all of that, when I was driving home after a visit at the hospital or lying in the quiet of my apartment before sleep arrived, I found myself imagining things I had never seriously imagined before.

The two of us at an altar.

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Her in something beautiful, me in something I had actually ironed. Both of us with teary eyes and too much love to hold behind our faces, exchanging vows in front of people who had prayed for this moment longer than we had.

I hadn’t felt this way before. Not like this. Not this safe, not this sure, not this quietly, stubbornly certain.

I remembered the first time I gave her a peck and the way she almost completely zoned out afterward, going still in that particular way of someone whose body had reacted before their mind had caught up. I had tried so hard not to laugh. I genuinely tried. The second time was less dramatic. By the third, it had found its own easy rhythm between us, the way close friends greet, except that with Chioma, it never felt ordinary. It felt very special.

Every conversation we had left me with a feeling I struggled to name accurately. The closest I could get was this: it felt like the kind of love I had read about but quietly assumed was embellished. The kind that doesn’t demand or perform. She carried something in her, an ease, a warmth, something that generated love beyond anything I had words for.

I had found my woman.

And I was not letting go.

“You’ve never seen my place,” I mentioned one afternoon while we sat across from each other at our usual eatery. I kept my voice casual, like the thought had only just occurred to me, which it had not. “You should come over one of these days.”

I watched her face register it, that quiet, careful consideration she did whenever something new was being proposed.

“I’d love to invite you to my home, sweetheart. If that’s fine by you. We’ll watch a movie, and of course—” I leaned forward slightly, affecting the expression of a man with complete confidence in what he was about to say “you get to witness the pro chef Tolu perform his full cooking magic.”

She looked at me with the expression I had come to love specifically. The one that said she found me amusing and was choosing not to fully show it. “Of course I’d love to. But abeg o, don’t burn down the house. So they don’t come and blame it on the stranger who visited.”

I laughed. “Is Friday afternoon fine by you?”

“Absolutely.”

“Friday it is.” I pointed at her with the gravity of someone making a serious announcement. “And don’t forget to come with your tummy completely emptied. Because you are about to give it a total makeover.”

She stared at me for a moment. “Why do I have a very bad feeling about this?”

We both burst out laughing.

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Friday arrived and I was, if I am being honest, more ready than any grown man should admit to being.

I had cleaned the apartment the evening before. Then again Friday morning. Not because it was dirty, I kept a tidy space. But because Chioma was coming and my tidy space suddenly felt insufficient. I rearranged things. Reconsidered the lighting. Looked at my living room through the eyes of someone seeing it for the first time and made several small, unnecessary adjustments.

I had also planned the meal carefully. Nothing too complicated. I was skilled now, not reckless, but enough to show that the cooking lessons had not gone to waste.

Before I started the food, I did something I hadn’t planned but found myself doing naturally.

I sat down quietly and prayed.

It wasn’t formal. It was just me, in my kitchen, talking to God the way you talk to someone you’re not entirely sure is listening but hoping very much that He is.

“I know I haven’t really been a true Christian and all, but please, I need your help. Chioma will be coming over today and I'm nervous, help me not to mess things up. Help me treat her right. Help me to honour her the way You would want me to.”

I sat with that for a moment afterward, slightly surprised at myself. Then I got up and started cooking.

When the food was nearly ready, I ordered her ride and opened the tracking app. Watched the little icon begin to move through the city toward me. There was something almost ridiculous about how that felt, the quiet, building anticipation of watching a moving dot on a screen. But the closer it got, the more something in my chest lifted.

It felt the way it feels when a friend you haven’t seen in a while is almost at your door. Except more.

The car pulled up.

She stepped out looking exactly like herself, effortlessly beautiful without trying, in a way that still managed to rearrange something in my chest every single time.

I smiled and pulled her into a quick hug and peck, light and easy. I was deliberate about keeping things at the right distance. She had come to my home, and I wanted every part of that to feel safe.

“Welcome, sweetheart,” I said.

“Thanks, babe”.

She looked around as she came in, taking it in quietly the way she took most things in with attention.

“It’s tidy,” she said finally.

“I live here,” I said with a playful smirk.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect,” she admitted, smiling.

I laughed and went back to the kitchen.

The hours that followed were some of the easiest I had spent in a long time.

We ate, she was genuinely impressed, which I registered with more internal satisfaction than I showed. We started a movie and talked through most of it, laughing at scenes at regular intervals. She took a few pictures because the lighting was good and I let her, watching her hold her phone up with the easy comfort of someone who had stopped performing and was simply present.

I even decided to photobomb her videos and pictures, until finally, she decided to turn me into the camera man as a punishment for my sins (Lord have mercy😂).

We took several selfies, some looking really dope, and others looking like two adults who had decided to play away every iota of seriousness left in them.

I watched her relax incrementally.

I noticed the moment she stopped being alert, the slight shift in her shoulders, the way she leaned back into the sofa without thinking about it. It was quiet and small and she probably didn’t know I saw it.

It mattered to me more than I could explain.

When the clock edged toward evening, I muted the television.

“It’s getting late,” I said. “I’d love to take you home myself, but your place is far and I can’t drive at night. Let me order an Uber for you.”

“I totally understand, babe. Thank you so much”.

“Stop thanking me, sweetheart. It's my job as your fiance”.

And as we stepped outside, before she got into the car, I stopped and turned to her.

“Thank you for coming, honey. I love you” I said.

“I love you too, my pro chef” she replied.

I pulled her into a hug, with a huge smile plastered to my face.

I meant it to be brief. It was warm, unhurried, and I held it for just long enough to say what I didn’t have better words for in that moment. Then I let go.

That night, alone in the apartment that still faintly smelled of everything I had cooked, I sat for a while in the quiet, feeling an empty void that only Chioma could fill.

I thought about her face when she walked in. The way she relaxed without realizing it. The hug, and what it had cost me to keep it exactly what it was supposed to be.

I thought about the prayer I had prayed that morning. About asking God for help treating her right.

And I thought about the thing I still hadn’t told her. The incomplete answer I had given in the car on our first date, wrapped in just enough truth to pass. The part of me that didn’t know how to sit in a church on a Sunday and mean it. The part that had prayed this morning more out of instinct than habit and wasn’t entirely sure what that meant.

She deserved the full truth.

I knew that.

I just didn’t yet know how to give it to her without the risk of watching that door close behind her eyes again, this time permanently.

So I sat with it a while longer.

And told myself I would find the words.

Soon.

✍️ Author's Note

Can Tolu just tell Chioma the truth already??

Who else has a bad feeling about this? But the story is really getting more juicy and dreamy (Mercy, Lord😩).

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The anchor runner was incredibly fast. The moment the baton landed in his hand, he took off, overtaking runner after runner. The crowd cheered louder with every stride.

But then something unexpected happened.

Instead of stopping at the finish line, he kept running.

Teachers began to shout, his teammates waved frantically, and in the end, someone eventually had to run after him to stop him (wahala no too much😂).

He had become so consumed with outrunning everyone else that he forgot where the race actually ended.

Image from Pinterest

As amusing as that scene was, I wonder how many of us are doing the same thing with our lives.

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We’re constantly running. Chasing the next opportunity, the next achievement, the next trend. And somewhere along the way, we forget to ask a simple question:

“What does success actually mean to me?”

One thing I’ve come to realize is that no matter how much effort you’re putting into becoming a better version of yourself or creating the life you dream of, there will always be someone who seems to be doing more than you.

You finally catch up with one person, and then you discover another who’s further ahead. Then another.

If your definition of success is built on keeping up with everyone else, you’ll spend your life running a race with no finish line.

And that kind of race doesn’t lead to fulfillment. It leads to exhaustion.

That’s why I’ve come to believe that success is deeply subjective.

The life that fulfills me may not fulfill you, and that’s okay.

For one person, success might be building a thriving business. For another, it’s having the freedom to be present with family. For someone else, it’s making an impact in their community, raising children with intention, advancing their career, or simply living a life of peace and purpose.

None of these definitions is wrong. They’re just different.

I’ve learned that it’s important to intentionally define what success means to you. Write it down in your journal if you have to.

Because there will be days when someone else’s achievements make you question your own journey.

On those days, don’t let comparison become your compass.

Go back to your definition.

Re-evaluate it.

Remind yourself why you’re on the path you’re on.

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I’ve found that having a personal definition of success brings an incredible amount of clarity. It shapes the decisions you make, the opportunities you say yes to, and just as importantly, the ones you walk away from.

Not every good opportunity is your opportunity.

Not every trend deserves your attention.

And not every race is yours to run.

So before you chase the next thing, pause.

Ask yourself:

“Does this move me closer to the life I’ve defined as successful?”

Before you go, I'd love to hear from you.

🪴How have you defined success in this season of your life?

🪴Has your definition changed over the years, or are you still figuring it out?

Share your thoughts in the comments. I'd genuinely love to read them.

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There was no official declaration, no ceremony marking the transition. It happened the way most real things happen: gradually, quietly, and then all at once.

Something simply deepened.

We began going out to eat after our shifts. Sometimes it was a small restaurant near the hospital, sometimes it was just takeout eaten inside his car in the parking lot, after a hectic shift.

We would sit side by side, shoulders almost touching, laughing over stories from work. He would imitate his colleagues with the kind of accuracy that suggested he had been quietly observing them for far longer than was strictly necessary. I would tease him about how seriously he took everything. And in between the laughter, there were moments of small, steady glances that lingered a fraction longer than before.The kind that simply say “I see you, and mean it”.

It felt easy.

Too easy, almost.

I noticed that. I filed it away in the part of my mind that notices things without yet knowing what to do with them.

One afternoon, as we sat finishing a meal, the question that had been circling quietly in my mind for weeks finally found its way out.

“Tolu, what are we?”

It came out softer than I intended. More vulnerable than I had planned.

Tolu didn’t hesitate.

“I want to marry you, Chioma.”

Just like that. No stuttering, no “I think” or “maybe someday” or any of the careful hedging men use when they want to say something without being held to it.

“There’s this peace I feel with you, Chioma. I’ve tried putting a name to it, and there’s just one word that keeps coming to mind. It’s love. I love you with all my heart, Chioma” he continued, his voice steady and unhurried. “I’m not looking for something temporary. I don’t do short-term. I want something that will last. And I see that with you. With us.”

The word *marry* echoed somewhere inside me long after he said it. Butterflies arrived immediately, the kind that come with images attached. Aso-ebi fabric in colours we’d argue over. Family introductions and the particular chaos of two Nigerian households meeting for the first time. A shared apartment. Saturday mornings in a kitchen that belonged to both of us.

I tried to stay calm..

“We don’t need to rush anything, Chioma,” he added, reading me the way he had quietly learned to. “We can take things a step at a time.”

And just like that, with no fanfare, no formal ceremony, no dramatic pronouncement I became the girlfriend of the great Dr. Tolu Adeyemi.

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I let that settle for a moment.

*His girlfriend.*

I smiled at my ceiling for longer than I will publicly admit.

That night, I went straight to my room and knelt beside my bed before I had even taken off my shoes.

*”God,”* I whispered, smiling without realizing it. *”Is this it?”*

I waited. For a verse. For a stirring. For something clear and unmistakable that would either confirm or redirect.

What came was quiet.

Just quiet.

I didn’t feel troubled. But I didn’t feel fully at ease either. It was a strange middle ground, like standing at a door that wasn’t locked but hadn’t been opened. Like waiting for permission from a room that hadn’t yet said come in.

I noted it. And then, because everything between us still felt natural and good and right in all the ways I could measure, I got up, got into bed, and chose to continue.

We had been officially together for a few weeks when Tolu called one evening, his voice carrying the particular ease of a man settling into a comfortable conversation.

“Sweetheart,” he said, “I’ll be starting my annual leave next week.”

“Oh, wow.” I sat up slightly. “For how long?”

“Six weeks.”

*Six weeks? That’s a long time,” I said, keeping my voice warm and even. “But I’m really happy you get to properly rest.”

And I meant it. I did. I was happy for him.

I was also, quietly, nursing an ache I hadn’t fully expected; the particular dull weight of knowing I wouldn’t see him in the corridors, wouldn’t catch him stepping out of theatre with that satisfied exhaustion on his face, wouldn’t have his car in the parking lot waiting at the end of a shift.

*So this,* I thought to myself, *is what it feels like to be in love.*

“Don’t worry, Chioma.” His voice came through the phone like he had somehow read every word of that thought. “Nothing is going to change. I’ll visit you more frequently than you can imagine. I can’t even think about not seeing my pretty babe’s face for six whole weeks.”

I laughed.

“You say that now,” I said.

“I mean it,” he replied. Simply. The way he said most things that mattered.

A comfortable silence settled between us for a moment.

“So,” I said, “what are you actually planning to do with all this free time? Six weeks is a long time for someone who takes even a meal seriously.”

He laughed. “Resting. Sleeping. Trying not to miss the hospital too much.”

“That cannot be all.”

A small pause. Then, with the particular reluctance of a man admitting something slightly embarrassing, “I actually wish I knew how to cook more things.”

I paused. “Doctor Tolu cannot cook? This will definitely make a great headline on Channels news”.

“Famous Nigerian doctor finally opens up on poor cooking skills as opposed to his great professional skills” I read out loud, and we both burst into laughter.

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“I can cook stew,” he defended immediately. “And one or two soups. Survival level.”

“What would you want to learn?”

“Anything decent,” he said. “Something that doesn’t make it look like I’m just managing life.”

And just like that, something new began.

He started sending me screenshots of YouTube recipes at odd hours. *Is this realistic? Should I try this one? What is thyme actually used for?* I found myself guiding him through measurements and techniques and shortcuts with the easy authority of someone who had grown up in a kitchen that took food seriously.

*Don’t rush the onions.*

*Let the beans soften properly.*

*Flip the pancake when the bubbles form.*

The first time he attempted oat pancakes, he called me midway through, his voice carrying the particular tension of a man watching something go wrong in slow motion.

“They’re sticking,” he said.

“Lower the heat,” I said. “And patience, Tolu. It’s a pancake, not a caesarean.”

He laughed. I heard him exhale and slow down.

That afternoon, he showed up at the hospital parking lot with a container in his hand and the expression of someone who had done something they were quietly proud of and was trying not to show it.

“For you,” he said.

Inside were oat pancakes. Golden, neatly packed, slightly uneven at the edges in the way that homemade things always are. Beautiful in the specific way that effort makes things beautiful.

I took a bite.

“Tolu.” I looked up at him. “This is actually good.”

He looked boyishly, unguardedly pleased, genuinely happy that it had worked. “I followed instructions,” he said simply.From that day forward, lunch became something I looked forward to in a way that had nothing to do with hunger. Bean porridge one day, stir-fry another, refined pancakes the next. Each meal arriving with the same quiet message underneath it:

*I am willing to grow.*

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He wasn’t trying to impress me with money or extravagance. He was learning, trying, showing up with small improvements and a container of something warm. And something about that, the ordinariness of it, the intention behind it, moved me more than grand gestures ever could have.

Then one afternoon, as we sat talking, he paused mid-sentence and looked at me.

“You have the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen,” he said.

I laughed, deflecting the way I always did when sincerity arrived without warning. “Nice lines, Doc.”

And then, before my mind had caught up with what was happening, he leaned forward and kissed me. Quick, soft, casual. A peck. Brief enough to be almost nothing.

My body froze.

“Thanks for the compliment,” I said lightly, because it was the only thing I could locate in that moment.

But internally, something had jolted, sharp and immediate, like a system rebooting.

*Did he just—*

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t intense. By the world’s standards it was barely anything at all. Just a peck. The kind exchanged freely and casually, without much thought given to what it means or where it leads.

And yet.

As I stepped out of his car later, my thoughts were moving faster than I could organize them. I replayed it. The way he leaned forward. The ease of it. The assumption underneath the ease that this was acceptable now, that we had arrived at a place where this was simply what happened between us.

Part of me wanted to address it immediately. Another part dismissed it before I could. *It was just a peck. Everyone does it. It wasn’t inappropriate.*

So I let it slide.

The second time, I wasn’t as shocked.

By the third time, it had become familiar.

And that the familiarity was what unsettled me most. Not the peck itself. But how quickly I had adjusted to it. How smoothly it had moved from jarring to expected without me ever making a conscious decision to allow it.

Something inside me began to feel uneasy. My body seemed to long for more.

“Do people who greet with pecks at meetings also feel the same?” I asked myself

I knew what was happening. A line was being redrawn. Not erased, just moved slightly forward. And I knew something true about myself: if I did not define a boundary clearly and out loud, my emotions would slowly begin negotiating on my behalf. And emotions are not reliable negotiators. They have a conflict of interest.

I began asking quiet questions I didn’t voice aloud.

*If this continues, where does it lead?*

*If I don’t address it now, will I have the strength to later?*

My mind was alert. My emotions were comfortable.

And comfort, I was learning, can be dangerous when it dulls conviction. When it makes the gradual feel normal. When it whispers *you’re fine* loudly enough to drown out the quieter voice saying *pay attention.*

I was standing at a crossroad that didn’t look like one. No sign, no fork in the road, no obvious moment of decision. Just the slow accumulation of small moments, each one reasonable on its own, adding up to something I hadn’t fully agreed to.

I told myself that if something were truly wrong, God would shout. He would block it. He would disturb my peace in a way I couldn’t ignore or explain away.

Or was I wrong?

✍️ Author's Note

Dear readers, thank you for sticking with me. Don't forget to like, restack, and of course, drop your comments.

Do you think Chioma is overthinking things? But let's be honest, Tolu's effort is admirable. Innit??

Leave a comment

The senior student completes everything perfectly.

The assignment is submitted.

The score is excellent.

Everyone is impressed.

But something important has been lost.

The child got the answers but missed the learning.

The child passed the assignment but cannot explain it.

The child advanced academically but never developed the capacity that the assignment was meant to build.

And one day, when the child is asked to solve a similar problem independently, there is nothing to draw from because the process was skipped.

This was the scenario given by Pastor Dolapo Lawal in his sermon titled “Learning how to prophesy”.

As I reflected on this, I realized that truly, many believers are doing the same thing spiritually.

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When Adam fell, a wall of separation stood between man and God.

But because of His love, God sent Jesus to tear down that wall. Through His death and resurrection, we were reconciled to the Father and given direct access to Him.

Then Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit, the greatest gift to the believer.

The Holy Spirit was not sent merely to visit us occasionally. He was sent to dwell in us, guide us, teach us, comfort us, and reveal the mind of God to us. Yet many of us have unconsciously rebuilt the very bridge that Jesus came to remove.

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We have become so dependent on spiritual intermediaries that we sometimes forget that God Himself lives within us.

Again, pastors, mentors, and spiritual leaders are gifts from God. Their role is to equip believers, not replace the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life. But somewhere along the line, many believers stopped developing spiritual capacity for themselves.

• Instead of praying, they immediately look for someone to pray on their behalf.

• Instead of studying God’s Word, they wait for someone to tell them what God is saying.

• Instead of learning to discern the leading of the Holy Spirit, they move from one prayer house to another searching for answers.

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A young lady is facing a major life decision. Before she spends ten minutes seeking God, she has already called five people asking, “What do you think God is saying?”

A man is troubled by a challenge at work. Rather than searching the Scriptures and praying for wisdom, he begins searching for the next prophet with a special revelation.

Another believer receives a gentle conviction from the Holy Spirit but ignores it because it didn’t come from a popular preacher.

The irony is that the same God they are seeking through others already dwells within them.

The same Holy Spirit speaking to the pastor is available to every believer.

The same Father answering the prayers of spiritual leaders is willing to hear yours.

God never intended for us to live on borrowed convictions, borrowed revelations, or borrowed intimacy.

🪴There are things He wants to teach you personally.

🪴There are lessons He wants you to learn through fellowship with Him.

🪴There is confidence that comes from hearing God’s voice for yourself.

Yes, seek counsel.

Yes, honor spiritual leadership.

Yes, learn from those ahead of you.

But never become so dependent on others that you neglect the Helper who already lives within you.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy is not that believers seek help from people.

It is that many have forgotten the Gift God has already given them.

Before you run elsewhere, pause.

Pray.

Study the Word.

Listen.

The answer you are searching for is not far away.

It is already within.

It was independence week, which meant a public holiday was in sight. Doctors and nurses had begun quietly consulting their duty rosters, each one secretly bargaining with the schedule gods for a free day.

Sadly, i was not among the lucky ones.

I was placed on morning shift on Friday - independence Day. I accepted my fate with the quiet dignity of someone who had learned that God’s plan and personal convenience rarely held a meeting before making decisions.

My phone rang on Thursday evening, and of course, it was Tolu. 3 hours of conversation had gradually graduated to a prescription of 3 times daily, with each session lasting a minimum of 2 hours of random gists and career talks.

“Hello, Mi Amor,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice before the teasing even landed. “How’s work going to be tomorrow?”

“Laugh all you want,” I replied, rolling my eyes directly at my phone screen. “I am not pained. At all.”

He burst out laughing.

“I’m sorry,” he said, still smiling through the word.

Then a small silence settled between us; the comfortable kind we had already learned to share without filling unnecessarily.

“Chioma.” His voice shifted, just slightly.

“Can we go out tomorrow? After your shift. Nothing dramatic. Just… time together.”

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Under any normal circumstance, my answer would have been no. A firm, unhesitating, pre-emptive no. The kind that arrives before the question has even finished forming, because I had trained it to. I had built careful walls around my time and my emotions. Part conviction, part caution, part the introversion I had long since stopped apologizing for. Those walls were not built out of fear. They were built out of wisdom, or at least what I had decided wisdom looked like.

But before my usual defenses could gather themselves and form their familiar line —

“Okay,” I heard myself say.

I blinked.

Okay? As in, okay? Just like that?

We ended the call shortly after, and I sat completely still, staring at my phone like it had betrayed me.

Why had I agreed?

There had been no pressure. He hadn’t insisted. It was a simple, quiet invitation. And yet my yes had arrived without resistance, without the usual internal negotiation, without the tightening I had come to rely on as my first line of discernment.

I searched my heart for discomfort, warning, or the familiar guardedness that had protected me more than once.

Nothing.

Just peace.

The uncomplicated, unearned kind.

That night I prayed anyway, because peace without prayer is just comfort, and comfort can be deceiving.

“God, if this is a distraction, remove it. If this is not aligned with You, let it fall apart before it even grows.”

The day arrived.

I packed a simple floral gown to change into after my shift. As the morning moved through its usual rhythms, I found my thoughts running quietly ahead of me, rehearsing scenarios I was probably overthinking.

“What if he tries to hold my hand?”

“What if he leans in for something I haven’t given permission for?”

I had already decided, clearly and without sentiment: if he crossed a line, any line, I would leave. No negotiation, no emotional compromise, no letting the moment talk me into something my convictions had already answered.

**********************

Tolu's POV

She said yes.

I genuinely did not see that coming.

I had rehearsed the invitation carefully, kept it light, kept it low-pressure, gave it just enough casualness that a no would land without awkwardness for either of us. Because I had fully expected a no.

Chioma carried herself like a woman who had thought carefully about her boundaries and saw absolutely no reason to negotiate them for anyone, which I respected completely and which had also prepared me for a polite, firm redirection.

Instead she said okay, simply, without deliberation.

I ended the call, set my phone down, and sat with that word for an embarrassingly long time.

Okay.

She had said okay.

I arrived at the hospital car park the next afternoon telling myself I was calm.

I was not calm.

“Tolu, look at you, a grown man who has performed complex surgeries under pressure without breaking composure, and here you are, sitting in a parked car adjusting your collar for the third time because a woman is about to walk out of a building’ I whispered to myself.

“Well, she's not just any woman. She's Chioma, my Chioma”, i thought with a smile plastered to my face.

Then she walked out of the building.

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And everything I had arranged so carefully in my chest rearranged itself without asking permission.

It wasn’t that she was dressed elaborately, she wasn’t. It was a simple dress, understated, the kind of thing that suggested she hadn’t tried to be anything other than herself. And that was precisely the problem. Because herself, apparently, was enough to make me forget for a full three seconds that I was supposed to say something.

Scrubs, I thought distantly, have been doing her a severe injustice.

“You look amazing, Chioma” I said to her in almost a whisper.

“Thanks, Tolu. You also look stunning”.

I opened the door for her to settle in, before returning to mine.

I suggested a horror movie because watching her turn and fix me with that flat, unimpressed look was absolutely worth the risk.

She picked Marvel.

Smart woman.

The cinema was where I discovered that I had, apparently, completely lost the ability to focus on a screen.

Sitting beside her in the cinema, I was acutely aware of every inch of space between us. Not because I intended to cross any of it. I didn't, and I wouldn't, but because I was aware of her in a way that made me careful. Intentionally careful. The kind of careful that says: this matters, and I know it.

I kept my hands to myself. Kept my commentary light. Laughed when she laughed. Made a comment about the fight scene that made her laugh harder than she'd planned to, and I felt that land somewhere in my chest like a small, quiet victory I wasn't allowed to celebrate openly.

It was the easiest difficult thing I had ever done.

The drive back was easier the comfortable kind of quiet we had already learned to share without filling it unnecessarily. I kept my eyes on the road. She watched the city moving past her window. The late afternoon sun had turned everything amber and unhurried.

Then suddenly, she turned slightly and asked:

“Tolu, are you a Christian?”

Not my genotype, not my plans or my ambitions or the standard questions I’d navigated before with rehearsed ease.

Faith was her first real question.

Like, really?

I had one previous girlfriend, and in the entire duration of that relationship, this topic had simply never arrived with any weight. It existed somewhere in the background, decorative and undisturbing. Nobody had ever asked it like it was a load-bearing question.

Chioma asked it like the entire structure depended on the answer.

I opened my mouth and said the first word that came.

“No.”

Her face changed just for a second, but I was watching, and I saw it. Something quiet closing behind her eyes. The soft, involuntary drop of someone who had been holding something carefully and just felt it shift.

One second.

That one second told me more than I was prepared for.

“I’m joking,” I said quickly. “I’m Christian.”

The relief that replaced it was immediate and completely unguarded, and it almost undid me.

She looked away to recover herself. I laughed, because I needed somewhere to put the sudden, unsettling clarity of what I had just witnessed. This wasn’t decorative for her. Faith sat at the actual center of how she made decisions. I had just watched it function as a filter in real time.

Here is what I didn’t say out loud:

I am Christian. That part is true. Baptized, knows the hymns, can navigate a Bible if necessary. But the complete version, the one I swallowed before it could reach the surface is that faith, for me, has always been more inheritance than relationship. Something received without choosing, carried without examining. God is not who I talk to at night. Church is not where I go on Sundays.

I told her I was Christian because it wasn’t a lie.

But sitting in that car, watching relief settle back into her face, I knew it wasn’t the whole truth either. And the fact that I had chosen the incomplete version, not to deceive her, but because I had seen her face fall and could not bring myself to be the reason it fell further that told me how much this had already come to matter to me.

Which was, honestly, its own kind of problem.

I waited until her cab disappeared into traffic before I drove away.

On the quiet drive home, one question kept returning:

Why was that her first question?

Not logistics. Not compatibility in the ways I had always assumed compatibility was measured. Faith first? As though everything else; the ease, the laughter, the three hour phone calls was good, but secondary. As though she had been waiting for that answer specifically before she decided how much further to let any of this go.

I had never been with someone for whom that question came first.

I didn’t know yet whether that should comfort me or disturb me.

What I knew was this: she had shown me exactly where her foundation was. And somewhere on that quiet drive home, the part of me that had spent the entire day trying to play it cool began to understand, slowly and with some discomfort, that whatever I was walking into with Chioma was going to ask more of me than I had originally calculated.

I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.

I wasn’t sure I wasn’t, either.

✍🏾 Author's Note

Every box checked, every boundary held, and a yes that came without a fight. So why does Chioma still feel like she's waiting for the other shoe to drop?

Maybe because some things are so good they make you nervous. Or maybe, just maybe her spirit already knows something her heart hasn't caught up to yet.

What do you think? Drop it in the comments.

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It had only been a day since my first encounter with Dr. Tolu, and somehow, the man had taken up residence in my head without paying a single month's rent.

I told myself I wasn't looking for him. But my eyes had other plans, subtly drifting toward the theatre doors every now and then, completely against my will, hoping to catch a glimpse of those beautiful, inconvenient eyes.

"Ah, brother lust, is that you? I bind you in the name of Jesus! Chioma, wake up! Don't let the devil play a fast one on you o."

I gave myself a very stern internal rebuke, straightened my posture, and refocused on my charts like the serious, God-fearing professional I was.

By mid-morning I had done three full laps of the ward, all completely necessary, all entirely coincidental, and there was still no sign of Dr. Tolu Adeyemi.

I leaned against the nurses' station and tried to look unbothered.

"Chidinma," I said, as casually as I could manage, "is Dr. Tolu around today?"

Nurse Chidinma looked up from her notes with the particular expression of someone filing information away for later.

"I haven't seen him this morning. Why?"

"No reason," I said.

She nodded slowly, the corners of her mouth doing something suspicious.

"That's probably why the workload feels lighter today," I added, for good measure.

"Probably," she agreed.

We shared a small laugh, the easy kind that colleagues exchange without needing to explain themselves. But when I turned back to my charts, something quiet settled in my chest. Not dramatic. Just the particular sting of an absence you didn't expect to notice.

“It's strange how quickly absence can test whether something is real or just convenient" I thought to myself.

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I filed that thought away somewhere I wouldn't have to look at it immediately and got back to work.

The next morning arrived with the same result.

No Tolu.

I stood at the window of the break room with a cup of tea I had forgotten to drink, watching the car park below fill up with the usual morning arrivals, and gave myself a very firm internal talking-to.

“Chioma, you exchanged exactly fourteen words with this man. Fourteen. You are not entitled to his presence. You are not waiting for anyone. You are a focused, God-fearing woman who has too much to do to be standing at a window like a character in a film".

I drank my tea.

“Besides, this is probably God protecting me. Because Nigerian doctors? The ones who are brilliant and calm and have eyes like that? Those are the ones that will hand you a heartbreak so hot you'll need oven gloves to receive it. I have read the stories and I will not be adding mine to the collection”.

I nodded to myself, satisfied with this conclusion, and went back to the ward.

"Nurse Chioma!" Chidinma's voice cut across the room with the energy of someone who already knew what reaction they were about to get. "Your favourite baby is hungry again!"

I stopped walking. "No, not now."

"Yes."

"He's already started", she replied.

“Pheeww... Here we go again".

I closed my eyes briefly, then turned around.

Baby Okafor, son of the miracle twins, the smaller of the two, the one who had decided from his very first hour of life that he had opinions and intended to share them was indeed already starting. A thin, indignant wail was building from his cot with the kind of escalating commitment that suggested he had been planning this since he woke up.

The thing about Baby Okafor was that he was, for reasons nobody had been able to scientifically explain, only consistently peaceful in my arms. Not his mother's, she was still recovering from the caesarean and couldn't breastfeed yet, so feeding fell to us midwives, and not any of my colleagues' arms either, though they had all tried. Mine specifically. As though he had made a decision on this matter and was not open to negotiation.

“This is a sign that you need to go and marry and have babies of your own", my colleagues always teased.

I prepared his feed, settled into the chair by the window, and placed him in my lap. He quieted almost immediately. That swift, slightly smug settling that babies do when they've gotten exactly what they wanted. I shook my head at him. He blinked up at me, unbothered.

And then he started eating, making the small, contented humming sounds that I would never in my life admit out loud were one of my favourite things about this job. His tiny face was so perfectly, ridiculously formed. The miniature frown of concentration, the soft flutter of his eyelashes, the way his whole small body seemed to exhale into the feeding like he had been waiting for this specific peace.

I got completely lost in it.

I don't know how long I sat there just watching him before it occurred to me to check whether my colleagues were nearby. I lifted my eyes to scan the room,

and that was when I saw him.

Tolu.

Standing just across from where I was seated, clearly having just arrived, watching me with an expression I didn't have an immediate category for. Not clinical, not casual, something quieter than both. And a smile unhurried and genuine that did absolutely nothing to help my current situation.

“Why does he have to have eyes like that” I thought to myself.

Chioma, focus!

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"Oh" I straightened slightly, careful not to disturb the baby.

"Hi, Dr. Tolu. I didn't know you were around today."

"Hi, Nurse Chioma." He began walking toward me, unhurried, hands in his pockets. He looked at me, then at the baby, then back at me. "You look really pretty like that."

I'm sorry, what?

I swallowed carefully. Because I nearly choked on my own saliva and I was not going to let that be the story.

God, abeg.

"Ha," I said, with what I hoped was breezy professionalism.

"They're all adorable until the crying starts at 3am and it's your shift." I stood slowly, transferring Baby Okafor to his cot with the practiced steadiness of someone who was absolutely not flustered. I adjusted my scrub top, smoothed everything that needed smoothing.

"Where have you been, sef? Enjoying soft life somewhere?"

He laughed. And I wished he hadn't, because the laugh did things I was not prepared to itemize.

"I was off yesterday," he said.

"I slept almost the entire day and I'm still not sure I've fully recovered."

He paused, and something shifted slightly in his expression, a fraction softer, and more deliberate.

"I missed seeing you. And your clipboard."

Before I could construct a single coherent response to that, he stepped forward and hugged me.

It was a perfectly normal hug. Warm, brief, the kind exchanged between colleagues who have found an easy familiarity.

It lasted no longer than three seconds. There was nothing in it that I could point to and say there, that, that was the thing.

And yet.

Something ran through me from my shoulders to the base of my spine that I had no clinical explanation for whatsoever.

I stood very still for those three seconds, acutely aware of everything, the fabric of his jacket, the steadiness of him, the way he smelled faintly of something clean and grounding, and then it was over and he stepped back and everything looked exactly the same as it had before except that something, somewhere, had shifted by a fraction I couldn't measure.

Was it friendly? Yes, clearly.

Was it intentional? I genuinely did not know.

And somehow the not-knowing was worse than either answer would have been.

"Doctor, we see you oo!" Chidinma's voice rang out from across the ward, bright with mischief.

"Before anything can happen, you must pass through the elders first!"

The ward dissolved into laughter. Tolu laughed too, the kind of laugh that came from his whole chest, unguarded and unperformed.

Something about that felt familiar. Like a frequency I had encountered somewhere before, in a different form, in a different life.

He stayed a few minutes longer, talking easily the way he always seemed to do . A few words with Chidinma, a quick check on something at the nurses' station. And then he turned to leave.

He got three steps away before he paused.

It was a small hesitation. The kind that looks casual from the outside but feels, from where I was standing, entirely deliberate.

"I'd like to continue this conversation," he said, turning slightly, his voice measured and easy and not casual at all, "outside of shift hours. If you don't mind."

I felt it again. That subtle tightening in my chest. That awareness, arriving quietly, that something was about to change in the architecture of my ordinary days.

I handed him my number, and just like that, my contact sat pretty in Dr Tolu's phone.

That evening, my phone lit up.

“Hi Chioma".

“It's Tolu; The doctor from the miracle twins".

I laughed out loud, with a bright smile plastered in my face like I had just won a scholarship.

“Ah Chioma, they finally got you. See the way you're smiling over a message from someone you barely know" I thought.

“Its nothing serious. Let's just say I'm appreciative of how nicely and passionately he treats his patients. Even God is happy with such people, so who am I not to" I justified.

I typed back. He responded. And three hours disappeared.

We talked about childhood, the dreams we had before life handed us the ones we actually got. We talked about why we chose healthcare, what it cost, what it gave back. We talked about the weight of responsibility and the particular beauty of being present for moments like birth, moments so sacred they almost don't belong to the people involved, as though something larger than all of us had simply permitted us to witness.

At some point, a thought crossed my mind:

This feels familiar. Like meeting someone and not needing to perform.

It should have comforted me. And it did.

But beneath the comfort, something else sat subtle, unnamed, not quite anxiety and not quite warning. A small, still thing I couldn't identify yet.

Was it God trying to tell me something?

Or was I simply being watchful because everything was moving in a direction that felt too easy, too right, too soon?

I didn't know.

Sometimes, the most dangerous love stories don’t begin with fireworks.

They begin with peace.

And peace, when you have prayed for stability, can feel exactly like confirmation.

I set my phone down when we finally said goodnight, stared at the ceiling for a long moment, and whispered the same prayer I always whispered when I didn't have the words for something larger.

“Lord, you see this. Whatever it is, you see it".

That was all I had to say.

For now, it was enough.

To be continued….

✍🏾 Author's Note

Dear Dr. Tolu's fans, can you please tell him to stop torturing innocent Chioma with the shivers. Her nervous system hasn't had peace since Dr. T surfaced😩

And to Chioma's fans, if you've ever had a conversation that made three hours feel like twenty minutes, please give us a hint on how it ends.🥹

Leave a comment

The thing about answered prayers is that they don’t always arrive with labels. Some come in scrubs. Some walk out of operating theatres with tired eyes and steady hands, carrying the quiet miracle of someone else’s breakthrough.

That afternoon, I was standing just outside the post-operative ward when the theatre doors swung open. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and something metallic. The familiar scent of a hospital that had just wrestled with life and won. And there he was. Dr. Tolu Adeyemi; one of O&G’s (Obstetrics and gynecology) most efficient doctors, stepping out into the corridor, removing his surgical cap slowly, as though easing himself back into the ordinary world one breath at a time.

He had just performed a caesarean section on a woman who had waited years to conceive. Years of hoping. Years of praying. Years of almost letting go of the dream entirely. And now, in her arms lay a set of twins, her long-awaited promise made flesh, breathing, warm and real. He had helped bring them into the world, and the evidence of it was written all over him. Not pride. Not arrogance. Just the quiet, settled satisfaction of a man who understood the full weight of what had just happened inside that room.

I had seen doctors before. I worked around them every day. As a midwife, the miracle of birth was not new to me. I had caught it in my own hands more times than I could count. But something about him, about that moment, felt different. Marked, somehow. Like a page in a book that had been dog-eared by an unseen hand.

It was an ordinary hospital afternoon, until it wasn’t.

He lifted his head slowly, still turning the surgical cap between his fingers, and our eyes met. It wasn’t dramatic, no slow motion, no cinematic pause where the universe holds its breath. Just a glance. But it held. Not long enough to be inappropriate. Not short enough to be forgettable.

I looked away first. I still don’t know why. Maybe because something in his gaze felt intentional, like he had looked at me not out of habit but out of choice. Or maybe it was the symbolism of it all: a man who had just participated in the fulfillment of someone else’s prayer, unknowingly stepping into mine.

“What’s going on, Chioma?” I asked myself silently, clipboard pressed a little tighter against my chest.

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I was content. Focused. Busy with the rhythm of my own life and the demands of my duties. Love was not on my agenda that afternoon. But sometimes, God allows something beautiful to cross your path precisely when you haven’t cleared a space for it, because if you had, you might have tried to manage it instead of receive it.

He walked past me. Then slowed slightly, as though something had tugged at the back of his step.

“Long shift?” he asked. His voice was calm. Controlled. The kind of voice that doesn’t perform. It simply is.

I gave a small smile. “Not as long as yours, I’d assume.”

He exhaled. The kind of breath that carries both exhaustion and accomplishment in the same current of air. “Worth it,” he said.

One word. And somehow it lingered longer than it should have, settling into the space between us like it had weight and warmth.

I didn’t know then that this moment would become a marker in my story. What I knew, standing there in that antiseptic-laced corridor with the distant sound of monitors beeping and nurses moving and the whole indifferent business of a hospital carrying on around us was that he felt safe. Not overwhelming. Not flashy or forceful. Just steady. And steadiness can feel a great deal like destiny when you’ve spent years praying for something solid to hold.

Later that night, I lay curled into the silence of my apartment, the city muffled outside my window, the events of the afternoon still turning slowly in my mind like a song I hadn’t meant to memorize.

I reached for my phone, set it back down. Reached for sleep, couldn’t find it. So I did what I always did when something unsettled me in a way I couldn’t quite name. I talked to God.

It started as a whisper.

“Lord… there’s this feeling I’m feeling. I don’t even know how to explain it properly cef. I don’t know if I’m just being delusional, or if today meant something, or if I’m simply overtired and reading into a glance from a man in a hospital corridor.”

I paused, staring at the ceiling fan turning lazily above me.

“But Lord, if he is not the one, please, let this feeling die. Right now. Tonight. Before it grows legs and starts running. I cannot afford to be served breakfast(heartbreak) Lord”

I almost laughed at myself after saying it. But I meant every single word.

A beat of quiet.

“And if he is from You… then You already know what to do. I’ll just be here, minding my business.”

I smiled into the darkness, pulled the sheets a little closer, and closed my eyes.

It felt mature to pray that way. Honest and a little ridiculous all at once, the way real conversations with God sometimes are. Responsible, even. Faithful.

What I didn’t know was that heaven sometimes answers that prayer in ways that refine your strength far more than your emotions.

Looking back, I see it clearly now: the same man who helped deliver someone else’s miracle walked into my life carrying a piece of mine.

Love had arrived.

It felt like a gift.

But gifts can be beautiful… and still not be yours to keep.

***************

Tolu’s POV

“Pheww…Mother alive. Babies alive. We did it”.

That was the only coherent thought my brain could produce as I pushed through the theatre doors. Everything else was just noise. The kind of pleasant, buzzing exhaustion that settles into your bones after your body has been on full alert for hours and finally, finally gets the signal to stand down.

I was starving. Genuinely, embarrassingly starving. I hadn’t eaten anything substantial since when? Six in the morning? A biscuit ate earlier in the call room didn’t count. I needed a real meal, a shower, and approximately ten hours of sleep, in whatever order they came.

I started loosening my surgical cap, rolling my neck slowly, already mentally halfway home.

And then I looked up.

Chioma.

My hands stilled on the cap.

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There was something about Chioma that I couldn’t reduce to logic, and I was a man who lived by logic. It wasn’t simply that she was beautiful, though she was. It was something underneath that. Something in the way she moved through a space unhurried but never slow, calm without being distant. She felt like peace. And I didn’t know what to do with that observation because peace was not something I had been looking for. I hadn’t even realized I was missing it.

Today, when i looked up and our eyes met, something shifted in a register I wasn’t prepared for.

It was just a glance. I am aware of how ordinary that sounds. But it held in a way that glances don’t usually hold, and in the half second before she looked away, something in me recognized something in her and I didn’t have a clinical term for what that was.

She looked away first.

“Oh, thank God. That was becoming awkward” I thought to myself.

I cleared my throat quietly, started walking again. But something in my steps had changed , slowed without permission, and before I fully knew what I was doing I heard my own voice say:

“Long shift?”

She smiled. Small, composed, unbothered. “Not as long as yours, I’d assume.”

I exhaled seven hours of theatre tension releasing in one breath and said the only honest thing I had said out loud all day.

“Worth it.”

I walked on. I kept my face neutral. I did what a disciplined man does and I kept walking.

I didn’t think about her on the drive home. That is what I told myself.

I thought about the twins instead, about whether they were stable, about the neonatology team’s assessment, about Mrs. Okafor waking up to her twins at her side for the first time. I thought about my notes and about tomorrow’s schedule.

I did not think about a pair of eyes that had held mine for exactly long enough.

I did not think about the word peace and why it kept surfacing.

I was a focused man. I had decided that a long time ago, and one corridor moment was not enough to undo a decision (so help me God😩).

But somewhere between the hospital car park and the silence of my apartment, I caught myself wondering if she had noticed all those times before today that I had been noticing her.

And that, I realized with some discomfort, was not the thought of a man who was thinking about tomorrow’s schedule.

I set it down. Picked up my notes. Made dinner I barely tasted.

And told myself, quite firmly, that it was nothing.

Or was it?

To be continued…

✍️Author’s Note

Thank you for being here, dear reader.❤️

Do you think there is a ship about to sail between Chioma and Tolu? Let me know in the comments.

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As I walked into the compound and headed toward my building, the little daughter of one of my neighbors spotted me.

"Auntie!" she shouted as she ran toward me.

I smiled and greeted her. She was holding a pencil, so I assumed she was working on an assignment.

"You're doing your assignment?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Okay, darling, go and continue your assignment."

But she had other plans.

"No, I want to come with you."

I laughed and insisted she return to her work.

Then came another question.

"Auntie, what did you buy?"

"Nothing," I replied. "I'm just coming from church."

"You didn't buy anything?"

"No, I didn't."

By then, I had reached my door. As I opened it, I noticed there was electricity.

"Oh, there's light!" she exclaimed. "I want to watch cartoon."

I smiled.

"No, my darling. You need to go and finish your assignment."

She wasn't convinced.

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I encouraged her once more to go complete her assignment, said goodbye, entered my apartment, and locked the door behind me.

Case solved, I thought. I get to rest, and she gets to avoid being beaten by her mum.

A few moments later, I became curious and decided to check if she had finally gone home.

To my surprise, she was still there.

Not standing.

Not wandering around.

Sitting.

Right at my entrance.

She had planted herself there as though she had no intention of leaving.

I couldn't help but laugh.

Eventually, I reached into my wallet, brought out some money, and gave it to her.

Guess what…

The transformation was immediate.

The same little girl who moments earlier had refused to leave, suddenly jumped up and ran off happily.

As I watched her go, I smiled and thought, "Children."

But almost instantly, the Holy Spirit dropped a lesson into my heart.

What if believers prayed with that kind of persistence?

What if we stayed at the door a little longer?

What if we refused to walk away simply because the answer didn't come immediately?

That little girl reminded me of the parable Jesus told about the persistent widow. She kept going back to the judge. She kept asking. She kept knocking. She refused to be discouraged by delay.

And eventually, she received justice.

Many of us have prayed about certain things for days, months, or even years. Perhaps you've asked God for direction, healing, provision, restoration, wisdom, or an open door. Maybe you've prayed so long that you're tempted to assume the answer is no.

But what if heaven is encouraging you to keep knocking?

What if the instruction for this season is not to quit, not to grow weary, and not to abandon the door?

Sometimes we mistake delay for denial.

Sometimes we walk away moments before breakthrough.

The little girl at my doorstep was determined. She stayed put even after the door closed. She remained there because she believed there was still something on the other side worth waiting for.

Faith often looks like that.

Faith keeps showing up.

Faith keeps praying.

Faith keeps believing.

Faith stays at the door.

As we step into this new week, I believe God's encouragement to someone is simple:

Keep pressing. Keep praying. Keep trusting. Don't leave the door too soon.

The God who hears prayers has not forgotten you. The God who made the promise is still faithful. And at the right time, He will answer according to His perfect will.

May the Lord grant you the grace to remain steadfast in prayer, unwavering in faith, and confident in His timing.

Keep knocking.

The door will open.

Can I hear an “Amen”?

That sure is the wisest thing you can do this week.

And I say this because it’s another Monday. Another rush, another wave of to-do lists, deadlines, responsibilities, tasks to complete before the week runs out.

Right now, quite a number of people are already in that race.

Some of you are currently at your workplace, staring at the load of tasks on your table, already feeling overwhelmed. Sometimes you get confused about what to do first and what to leave for later. Other times, you’re not even confused, you’re simply exhausted.

And for some people, just the thought of the week ahead is already mentally draining, even before the activities begin.

But the wise thing to do is to ask God for help. Because when God helps you, His help comes in different forms.

God knows the best way to help you in a way that prevents exhaustion and still produces great results.

Little actions. Great results.

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Sometimes His help comes through a colleague who casually shares an idea that suddenly makes your work easier. Sometimes it comes as wisdom dropped directly into your heart: “Why not do it this way?”

Sometimes it comes as strength, peace, favor, speed, clarity, or even rest in the middle of chaos.

But one thing is certain: when you ask God for help, He answers.

Because His Word says: “Come to Me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” - Matthew 11:28

So again, I say to you: The wisest thing you can do for yourself this week is to ask God for help.

And asking God for help doesn’t always require hours in a prayer room. Sometimes it’s right there at your office desk, in the middle of the stress, quietly whispering:

“God, help me. I need You.”

And it is my prayer that this week will not be like previous weeks. Even if the previous weeks were good, there is always a better version.

May this week be one of ease, wisdom, strength, and beautiful results for you, in Jesus’ name.

“Which Ethan?”

“The one in Block C. Always wearing suit. Fine car. Fine job. But somehow, the boy no get people.”

The women laughed lightly as they arranged plastic chairs outside the compound on a humid Sunday evening.

“I greet am one day, the boy almost pass me like breeze.”

“Some people think life is only about money.”

“Hmm,” one of them sighed. “Until life humbles them.”

Upstairs in his apartment, Ethan heard fragments of their conversation through his slightly open window, but he ignored it like he ignored most things that didn’t concern work.

His laptop sat open on the dining table. Two phones beside him. Unread messages piled up.

Tobi: Guy, where you dey? We haven’t seen you in weeks.

Mummy: Ethan, abeg call me when you see this.

He sighed and tossed the phone aside.

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People always wanted something.

Time. Attention. Presence.

And Ethan honestly didn’t understand why everybody made relationships look so important.

As far as he was concerned, everybody should focus on building their own lives.

That was exactly what he was doing.

Building.

Growing.

Winning.

And unlike many people his age, he was succeeding.

At thirty-two, Ethan had everything people prayed for: A thriving career. A beautiful apartment in Lagos, money flowing steadily, respect in professional circles.

But somewhere between ambition and achievement, he had slowly disconnected himself from people.

He stopped attending birthdays. Stopped visiting family. Stopped checking on friends.

Even when people reached out, he always had an excuse.

“Guy, come out this weekend na,” Tobi had begged over the phone one Friday evening.

“I have work.”

“You always have work.”

“And that’s why I’m ahead.”

The silence that followed was brief but heavy.

“Ethan,” Tobi finally said quietly, “life no be only about getting ahead.”

Ethan chuckled dismissively. “Motivational speaker.”

But after the call ended, the apartment felt unusually quiet.

One Tuesday evening after work, NEPA took light as usual and the entire compound groaned in frustration.

“Ah-ah! This country sef!” someone shouted downstairs.

Ethan stepped out briefly to buy fuel for his generator when he saw the elderly woman living downstairs struggling with grocery bags.

“My son, abeg help me carry this one upstairs,” she said with a tired smile.

Ethan adjusted his watch impatiently.

“I’m in a hurry, ma.”

The woman nodded slowly. “No problem.”

As he walked away, he heard the security man rush over.

“Mama, give me make I help you.”

And strangely, for a split second, Ethan felt uncomfortable.

But he ignored that feeling too.

And then it happened.

The accident happened on a rainy Thursday night.

Traffic was chaotic. Drivers were impatient. Horns filled the air aggressively.

Ethan was on a work call when everything happened.

One minute he was arguing about a presentation deadline.

The next—

Screeching tires.

A loud crash.

Darkness.

When Ethan finally opened his eyes in the hospital three days later, pain shot through his body instantly.

His left leg was heavily bandaged. His ribs hurt. His throat felt dry.

“Mummy…” he whispered weakly.

His mother, who had been sleeping awkwardly on the hospital chair, jerked awake immediately.

“Jesus! Ethan, you don wake!”

Tears filled her eyes almost instantly.

“You scared us.”

Us.

That word sat strangely in his chest.

Not me.

Us.

Over the next few days, reality settled in slowly.

He couldn’t walk properly. Couldn’t bathe alone. Couldn’t even sit up comfortably without assistance.

For the first time in years, Ethan needed people.

And the people who stayed shocked him the most.

Not his business associates.

Not the executives constantly praising him on LinkedIn.

Not the people calling him “boss” and “big man.”

Most of them disappeared after one message: Wishing you speedy recovery.

That was all.

But every Saturday, Tobi showed up.

“See your life,” he joked while unpacking food. “Ordinary small fracture, you don slim like broomstick.”

Ethan laughed weakly for the first time in weeks.

Even the elderly woman downstairs came visiting one afternoon with homemade soup.

“I heard you’re getting better,” she said warmly.

Ethan stared at her in disbelief.

This was the same woman he couldn’t spare two minutes to help.

“You came?”

The old woman smiled gently.

“We all need people, my son.”

That sentence broke something inside him.

Because deep down, Ethan realized something painful: he had spent years building a life impressive enough to be admired, but not warm enough to be missed.

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—

Recovery was slow.

Long. Quiet. Humbling.

And during those endless afternoons in the hospital, Ethan began noticing things he had ignored all his life.

The nurse who stayed extra minutes comforting frightened patients.

The cleaner who always made people laugh despite earning almost nothing.

The woman who shared food with another patient’s family because “everybody is managing one thing or another.”

Tiny kindnesses.

Tiny humanity.

Things he once considered irrelevant.

One night, he watched his mother sleeping uncomfortably on the plastic hospital chair again.

Her neck bent awkwardly. Her wrapper pulled tightly around her against the cold.

And suddenly, tears filled his eyes.

Because no matter how successful he became, this woman still chose to carry his pain with him.

That was love.

Not performance. Not networking. Not status.

Love.

—

Months later, Ethan finally returned home.

But something about him had changed.

He started greeting people downstairs.

Properly.

“How body, Mama?”

“You’re back! We thank God o!”

He called his mother randomly just to ask, “Have you eaten?”

He visited Tobi without waiting to be invited.

Little by little, Ethan became softer.

More human.

More present.

Then one Sunday morning, news spread through the compound.

The elderly woman downstairs had died in her sleep.

The entire compound felt strangely quiet that day.

At her funeral the following weekend, Ethan stood speechless as people poured in from everywhere.

A roadside food seller stood crying near the entrance.

“She paid my daughter’s WAEC fees once,” the woman said tearfully.

The compound security guard shook his head sadly.

“Na only her dey greet me every morning without fail.”

Another woman added softly, “When my husband lost his job, she used to send soup to my house secretly.”

Story after story.

Lives after lives.

People whose burdens became lighter simply because that woman existed.

Ethan stood there overwhelmed.

No big title. No fame. No wealth anybody could boast about.

Yet her absence created a silence the whole community could feel.

And in that moment, the lesson finally settled deeply inside him:

The true measure of a life is not how independent you became, but how many lives became lighter because you existed.

That night, sitting quietly in his apartment, Ethan thought about friendship. About family. About kindness. About community.

About how easy it is to become so consumed with ambition that you forget the beauty of belonging.

And for the first time in years, Ethan realized that belonging somewhere was one of God’s gentlest gifts to mankind.

As you read this, I hope it reminds you that life is softer, lighter, and more meaningful when we do not walk through it alone.

So let me ask you:

Who is someone whose kindness quietly made your life lighter?

And have you told them lately?

Also, If your name came up in a room full of people today, what would they remember you for?

And honestly, it reminded me of something very important:

Our minds are battlefields.

A lot of the battles we fight spiritually don’t always start with actions. They start with thoughts, tiny suggestions, small whispers, one random video, one conversation, one song on replay, or one picture that lingers longer than it should.

And before we know it, our hearts are carrying things we never intentionally planted there.

That’s why the Bible says:

“Guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it flow the issues of life” - Proverbs 4:23

Because whatever enters the heart eventually affects the life.

And the truth is, things don’t just magically appear in our hearts. They pass through gates, through portals; Our eyes, our ears, what we constantly consume, what we meditate on when nobody is watching.

We live in a generation where temptation is literally one scroll away, one click away, one DM away. Everywhere you turn online, something is fighting for your attention and subtly fighting for your heart too.

That’s why intentionality is so important.

Sometimes guarding your heart looks like:

• Changing the kind of music you constantly listen to.

• Unfollowing pages that don’t help your walk with God.

• Filling your gallery, your playlists, your feed, and your quiet moments with things that edify your spirit.

• Choosing sermons over noise sometimes.

• Choosing discipline over “it’s not that deep”

Because whether we like it or not, whatever we repeatedly consume eventually shapes us.

And honestly, not everything that feeds the flesh is healthy for the spirit.

I think one thing believers must stop doing is acting like thoughts are harmless just because they stayed in the mind. Some thoughts are seeds. If entertained long enough, they become desires, actions, habits, and eventually strongholds.

This is why discernment matters. This is why intentional living matters. This is why guarding your heart matters.

Not every thought deserves a seat at your table.

Some thoughts should be rejected immediately.

And maybe this is your reminder today:

🪴Protect your gates.

🪴Protect your mind.

🪴Protect your spirit.

Because what constantly enters you will eventually grow within you.

📸: Pinterest

The one who had her life together. Or at least, it looked that way from the outside.

Her Instagram was a curated blend of soft luxury, coffee dates in aesthetic cafés, gym selfies with glowing skin, work desk setups with neatly arranged planners and a MacBook she hadn’t finished paying for. People often replied to her stories with things like, “You’re living the life!” or “Goals!”

And slowly, without realizing it, Ada began to live for those replies.

One evening, after a long day at work, she found herself scrolling through her favorite influencer’s page. The girl had just posted a video: a new apartment tour—minimalist decor, floor-to-ceiling windows, neutral tones, peace.

Ada paused.

“I need this,” she whispered.

But it wasn’t a need. Not really.

Her current apartment was decent.

Still, two weeks later, she had signed a lease for a place she couldn’t quite afford.

At first, it felt like a dream.

She filmed everything. The move-in day. The empty apartment shots. The “finally stepping into my dream life” voiceover.

The likes poured in.

Comments flooded.

Validation, served fresh.

But something strange started happening after the noise faded.

The apartment was quiet.

Too quiet.

Her rent notifications came faster than her salary.

She began declining hangouts, not because she was busy, but because she was broke.

And one night, sitting on her expensive couch in her expensive apartment, eating instant noodles she could barely afford, she asked herself a question she had been unconsciously avoiding:

Do I actually want this life… or do I just want people to see that I have it?

That question has a way of stripping things down to the truth.

Because sometimes, the job you’re chasing isn’t about purpose, it’s about prestige.

Sometimes, the relationship you’re holding onto isn’t about love—it’s about being seen as “chosen.”

Sometimes, the lifestyle you’re working yourself to exhaustion for isn’t about fulfillment—it’s about visibility.

And the scariest part?

You might not even realize it’s happening.

Because the world we live in rewards appearance before authenticity.

Claps come quicker for what is seen than for what is quietly built.

But here’s the thing no one tells you:

There is no peace in performing a life that isn’t yours.

No amount of external validation can compensate for internal misalignment.

You will always feel like you’re running, because deep down, you know you’re not chasing something meaningful to you.

You’re chasing an audience.

So pause.

And ask yourself—gently, but honestly:

If nobody could see this…

Would I still want it?

If there was no applause…

Would I still pursue it?

If the answer is no, don’t panic.

It doesn’t mean you’ve failed.

It just means you’re waking up.

Because at the end of the day, fulfillment doesn’t come from being seen.

It comes from being aligned.

And the life that fits you may not always look loud enough for the world.

But it will feel right enough for you.

So again, the question is:

Do you really want it?

Or do you want people to see that you have it?

Your answer might just change everything.