When Mr Okpalaeze Chidi from Enugu State, Nigeria, married his sweetheart Stella over 15 years ago, it was all heavens and bliss. Neither anticipated the shock arrival of the devil who would spurn their newly found love into a war affair reminiscent of Tom and Jerry, the television cartoons that thrive on misery although in their case, the battle was one sided.
Whereas the escapades of Tom and Jerry are characterized by hair-raising pranks of greatest antagonism, those of the Chidi couple were etched in utter abuse and agony that smashed their marriage on a sharp rock.
They told a horrible story of how they had spent a huge part of their married life like enemies, courtesy of evil spirits that tormented the husband unbeknown to him let alone the wife.
The result was a ruined marriage whose survival dangled on a threadbare noose, if it were not for the grace of God. Not only that, the demon also orchestrated financial and career failures in the lives of the two until they came to The SCOAN recently Jesus Christ set them free to be free indeed.
Mr Chidi, a 38 year-old entrepreneur dealing in pharmaceuticals, was running a thriving business, supplying multimillion naira worth of goods to companies 15 years ago when, suddenly, things started crumbling all around him. He lost containers full of goods through seizures. Every contract he invested in simply fell through and was losing huge sums of money that he would soon be out of business and on the street. “It became a virus, attacking even people I joined with in any business venture. This cost me many friends who began to view me as a partnership risk,” he said.
It was against such a catastrophic background that he decided to escape to Switzerland with his wife – in search of a new life. Little did he know that the powers pursuing him were far beyond human understanding and not limited to local geographical boundaries.
He had a spiritual wife and, like any evil spirit, it was bent on running Mr Chidi’s life down the cliff of destruction! The evil spirit made him hate his beautiful wife and spend his time out of the marital home with other women or simply drinking.
Every time a potential breakthrough appeared, the evil woman would come and sleep with him in the dream and everything would crash. Whatever he put his hands on would plunge. After staying abroad for 13 years, he discovered he was no better off and in 2012, decided to come back home where the episode continued.
“I thought I could fight it alone but I failed. I started to drink heavily, sleep around with all kinds of women,” he said, adding, “I lost all affection I had for my wife.” Sometimes, his wife would wake him up in the night and tell him that he was behaving as if he was making love to someone. He would slap her. The more he involuntarily slept with the spiritual wife, the more reckless he became with his business and marital life.
He would drink all day long, come home only to change and drive back to spend the night away from home. Still, he found no peace and his wife bore all the brunt. He found her irritating and nagging and would beat her for no apparent reason. The spirit of lust inside of him made him a sex addict sleeping with any woman he considered beautiful. He only had to look into a woman’s eyes and she would start following him, wanting to sleep with him even for free. He did not see his wife as a wife anymore. He stopped eating her food and would rather eat outside.
Anytime his wife asked him a question, he would answer with a slap. The demon’s influence on his life was so overwhelming that he chased her out of their matrimonial home when he felt like it.
At times, pastors would come trying to settle the problems in the house but to no avail. They slept in separate rooms and he locked himself in to keep his wife away. He was so tormented that he had to take many tablets to induce sleep at night. At a point in time, his mother asked him if he was smoking Indian hemp because his eyes were always shot-red due to lack of sleep.
Mr Chidi began to contemplate committing suicide. A spirit would tell him that he was suffering, his business was not working and there was nothing to live for. He often told his wife he would kill himself. One day, as the couple was driving across a bridge during one of the rarest occasions the two traveled together, he told his wife to keep quiet or he would run the car into the river!
Not that he was a poor man. He had significant money in his bank account, drove a good car and dressed nicely. He bought a car for his pastor, paid tithe and contributed to many charitable projects but the devil blinded him to the truth.
“I spent my money outside the home and my friends thought I was a happy man; I was the saddest in their midst,” said Chidi.
But joy comes in the morning and everything that has a beginning, must surely have an ending. His mother, depressed with her son’s condition and marital problems, introduced him to Emmanuel TV and he started watching the channel, although he was a doubting Thomas. “I believed nothing about what happens here. I thought everything was being staged. I only watched Emmanuel TV because my mother insisted, not because I believed,” he said.
With the insistence of his wife, he decided to come to The SCOAN to see what was happening. The first day he came, before the wise men came out to touch people, he simply picked up his Bible and stormed out of the church to his car and drove home.
But the devil is a liar. God gave him another chance and he came for the second time. This time his wife had a plan. She asked his friend to come with them to keep an eye on Mr Chidi. She also pleaded with some of the church ushers to make sure her husband did not run away before he was touched. “I knew this was my last chance. Some pastors were saying I was the cause of his problems and I wanted God to help us whether I was responsible or not,” she explained.
It was a day of suspense for the couple and friend. They sat like statues. The wife and friend did not want to say anything that might be deemed offensive to Mr Chidi who was looking for a slight excuse to walk out. In fact, he occasionally spoke rudely to his wife to trick her into an argument so he would snap and grab his Bible. His wife and friend kept their discipline and ignored his utterances. Every time he stood to go out, the ushers would order him to sit down and keep his peace.
When Wise Man Daniel approached, recalled Mr Chidi, he saw a flame of fire hit his face. He thought of collecting his Bible and bolting but he remained transfixed. The battle between light and darkness had started. He was cornered and the evil spirit in him could not stand the overwhelming power of the Holy Spirit.
Exposed and incapacitated by the flames of Holy Fire, the evil spirit started to confess, identifying itself as the spirit of lust and spiritual wife. It was ordered out of him and Mr Chidi was declared free, in Jesus’ name.
“I felt like a heavy block of cement had moved out of my body,” he later said.
How cunning and deceiving the devil is. When he looked by his side immediately after his deliverance, he saw a beautiful and attractive woman console him. He was struck by her beauty. When he looked closely, he discovered it was his 36 year-old wife – the same one he had hated to see; the ‘ugly’ and ‘irritating’ woman he had thrown out of their matrimonial home a number of times.
They embraced and hugged. Since then, he and his wife have become greatest of friends. They eat, talk and share the same bed again. Mr Chidi now sleeps like a baby at night. His business is flourishing and he has stopped drinking alcohol. Women are no longer following or staring at him. The power of seduction in his eyes that had lured women to him is long dead.
“By clubbing and sleeping with women, I thought I was enjoying life. I was not. Although I was driving a big car and wearing expensive clothes, I was dying inside me. You have to believe in God. If God could do it for me, He can do it for anyone. Once you are delivered, you will see a lot of difference in your life,” he said.
Mrs Stella Okpalaeze who accompanied her husband to The SCOAN to share his wonderful testimony, said that before her husband’s deliverance, he hated her with passion.
“My husband is a cheerful giver; he bought cars for me, my mother and his mother but this spirit ruined my home,” she said.
She testified that her husband has now changed completely and that they have a wonderful marriage, they go to church together and read their Bible as a couple. Not only that, Mr Chidi eats at home and offers to cook. His business is up and rolling. What the devil had stolen, God is giving her back!
THANK YOU, JESUS CHRIST!
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