When your parents get you frustrated

Last week I wrote about how I paid bride price on my wife turned out to be a day of joy and frustration for me.

It did not end there. I paid Carol’s bride price in August while the wedding took place in December the same year. The four months between the payment of the bride price and the wedding was not very pleasant to me.

Before I proposed to Carol, I had fasted and prayed almost like never before whether God was in it or not.

I, therefore, knew hundred percent that God was fully in my marriage to Carol. But my parents thought otherwise. They did not see anything at all bad in her and her family, but they felt that I should be more financially buoyant before going into marriage.

I was born again but they were not born again as at then. It was a few years into our marriage that Carol led my mother to Christ while I led my father to Christ later through their saying the sinner’s prayer.

They did not show any interest neither did they ask me any question about my preparations for the wedding and for married life. A family member had warned me that the possession of a male organ by a man is not a qualification to get married.

So, my parents and family elders were just watching me. I was alone on my marital journey. I was alone physically, emotionally and financially. It could have been very frustrating but I refused to be frustrated.

I did not show my frustrations on them because I felt they were logically right in their reasoning while I felt I was walking on the path of spiritual truth.

At a stage, Carol and her mother kept asking me why my parents were not showing interest. I think I told them that they are not used to weddings and that this is their first modern day wedding experience since they had their own wedding in 1954.

It took nearly two years of my warming up to them and observing my wife and I that they became fully convinced that I made the right choice to marry Carol.

In fact, one day, my mother walked up to my wife and said: “Iyawo (meaning wife), I did not want my son to marry you before o. But I have now found out that it is only the colour of your skin that is black. You are oyinbo inside.” She said this in our language.

Can you imagine the level of frustration faced by Jonathan in 1 Samuel 20:25-34 when his father king Saul threw his spear at him in order to kill him because of his friendship with David. He narrowly escaped death and he fled from that dinner table that evening.

From David’s funeral oration in 2 Samuel 1 when he said of them “and in their death, they were not divided.” We can see that Jonathan did not allow the frustration from his father to destroy or to bring about a distance in the relationship between him and his father.

I do not know how they made up after that night’s frustrating moment. But the point I want to make in this write up is that, has your father or mother or both got you frustrated or you thought they got you frustrated, frustrate the feeling of frustration and make up with them. And keep giving them all the respect and honour they deserve.

Always remember to “Honour your father and mother… that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.” Ephesians 6:2-3.Love you.