DON'T SAY I TOLD YOU SO!

Good morning,I expect you all to stay in bed a bit longer today and rest. Not for any particular reason but an hour extra of just relaxing,will do your body good. Today I want to talk about gossiping and the gossip. Gossiping is an act of indiscipline and it should be discourage in your children right from toddlers. Let them know that what goes on in someone's life that doesn't have anything to do with them isn't their business. There was this woman I know who could tell you the amount of ponmo (cow hide,kanda, cow skin,whatever) that her neighbour has in her soup pot. She was so bad that she destroyed a lot of relationships and marriages,but the one that got to me was the one,she did to her uncle's daughters. I was around 16 at the time. This woman would stay at the balcony and maybe memorized the car numbers of vehicles coming to drop young ladies on the street. She would find out who the men were;if they were married men,she would go look for their wives to tell them,where they could find their husbands and if they weren't married, she would go look for their families so has to give them 1st hand information on this woman"gal" and possibly give the car details of the other cars that had dropped this gal or still dropping her apart from their son. I disliked her so much that I tried to avoid her. She was a terror,even in the white garment church she attended that all their wolis "(prophets) had to give her good prophecy just to get her off their backs. I didn't understand the gravity of what she was doing on the street till I turned 18. She had a job,they were comfortable in their own right but gossip was so part of her. I felt then,that if she didn't gossip she could die. She never got to me;until she went home to the guy I was friends with. We were just friends nothing more,he would come home to me and would gist with my siblings,we would watch video or cable network, because there was no Facebook,twittering or the sort at that time. Yes she went home to them. She gave them information about who my father was,my mum's pedigree and the scary thing was that she knew where my father had landed properties. I almost died! She was worst than the CIA and FBI combined. Folks on the street hated her,people would come to her home and fight,rave and curse. She didn't really care and her husband Pa Gbenga was helpless. She was so good in hiding her own secret,people wanted something on her,but she was so smart. Then heavens blew the chicken feathers and its backside was exposed. You see I now believe that gossiping has a very terrible demon attached to it,it doesn't seek to destroy the person being gossip about but the person doing the gossiping,otherwise known as the gossip. She was a huge woman and often times,she would beat up her poor husband,this is a true story.There was a day she was beating the man that my younger brother had to break down their bedroom door just to save him. The children came asking for help. I think it was time to save the street from this woman then heavens sent her an Ibo driver. They ran a transport company so they needed someone to drive one of the buses. This charming young young got the job and has we will later find out,he was also working on her in the bedroom. As the story goes,she stopped sleeping with her husband in the bedroom and this driver always come to drop the key or give account at night,she would make him pretend to stay and watch tv. Pa Gbenga will go into his room and she will smuggle him into her room. She didn't have time for gossiping now,but people were still on her,they wanted their pound of flesh. I never knew that a whole street could unite in the cause to get a gossip. News started filtering, why do we see this guy leaving this house by 4am? Then one day;a woman called her a shameless woman and that she was sleeping with her driver. She beat the woman blue black and everything kind of fizzled out. Until if was time was heaven. It was on a Saturday morning around 10am,when the whole street was shaken by a voice that seems to be preaching. He wasn't preaching though ,he was confessing and crying profusely. The voice belonged to the driver,I can't remember his name now its almost 23 years ago. He said" you wicked woman,you were luring me into sin,you made me betray a man that gave me a job,by sleeping with you. I am so sorry,everyone should hear and help me pray to God". The driver became born-again and he decided to restitute. He walked in that morning and demanded to see Pa Gbenga, he confessed all the atrocities he committed with his wife and asked for forgiveness. I can't remember the church he attended but he must have taken this passage literally " confess your faults to one another" because heOf decided to confess it to the whole street. People were almost jubilant has the show of shame went on. A quiet street,full of learned people was almost turned into a carnival street. Pa Gbenga told him, he forgave him,he packed his personal belongings into the car and drove away for the weekend. The street gossip became like a jelly after this. I don't know what happened because,we moved away from the street but legend has it, that Pa Gbenga remarried and moved into a bigger house and she begged to follow and was given the ground floor because of her children. Years after that I drove down to the street and my old friends told me that the street had peace and has been that way since the gossip in number 18,was disgraced from the street. Anytime I remember her and I talk to my mum about her;she would say things like a"Bola, even if she is she is a pastor now I can't still trust her o". Mummy was she that bad? I would often ask. My mum would look at me straight in the eyes with an expression of shock and then add " oh God! Bola she was terrible". Don't indulge a gossip,don't encourage them, don't feed them with information. They are leeches and they feed on other peoples secret. Are you a gossip? In the church,at work or on your street. Ask God to deliver you,you can't do it on your own. Call on Jesus,HE will see you thru. Have a great weekend and be blessed. Shalom, Sista Bola.