The Potter’s Hands
Written by Sonia Okehie
Episode 4
The moment of truth is usually one tough moment in anyone’s life, especially if the truth to be revealed has a high tendency of ruining your life or jeopardising your relationship with the people you love. Terry’s secret revelation of being a ‘Yahoo Boy’ wasn’t an easy one because Maya was an extremely godly lady and he loved her with all his heart. The fact that he could lose her after that revelation, made him quite scared and nervous.
After the cat had been let out of the bag, Maya was extremely shocked but was able to quickly absorb the shock because she already had her suspicion that Terry had some skeleton in his cupboard. Despite the fact that Maya wasn’t too pleased to find out that the guy she had been talking to for a while is a professional fraudster, she was a bit happy that Terry trusted her enough to tell the truth. After a moment of silence, she finally managed to say something. “To be very honest with you, I had my suspicion about your lifestyle but never knew you were this deeply rooted into sin. Can I ask why you decided to do this to yourself? Why did you choose to take this route in life? Honestly you are so much better than this and can definitely do better” she soberly said.
Those words hit Terry so hard and almost brought tears to his eyes. “You wouldn’t understand Maya, you just wouldn’t” he said but Maya wasn’t ready to back down on getting him to speak. “Make me understand because I want to know why a promising young man like you would choose to end up like this” she said.
On seeing that Maya wasn’t willing to give up on her quest to know the reason behind Terry’s decision of being a Yahoo Boy, he had no choice than to open up completely by telling her his life story. It was a long story indeed but he made sure to leave no stone unturned.
As Terry opened up on his humble background and past unfortunate life experience, Maya was shocked all over again and didn’t know how to handle the situation or the perfect words to say to him. The empathetic side of her was touched and triggered, while the disciplined and godly side of her felt that Terry’s past life experience wasn’t enough reason for him to take the route he had taken in life. In as much as she wanted to be an understanding angel, she couldn’t because she knew the bitter truth had to be said. Also, she was careful and sensitive in her manner of approach.
Immediately Terry was done narrating his life story, Maya sighed in disbelief and began to talk. “Terry, I am so sorry for everything you had to go through in life and also sorry for your dad’s demise. I understand that your childhood wasn’t rosy and fancy and I truly empathise with you for all those years of hardship you had to go through. Now as a friend and someone that cherish your soul, I want to tell you this very moment that you are getting it all wrong by using your past life experience as an excuse to dupe people of their hard earned money. Terry you can’t continue like this because you are way better than this. The money is not yours and you can’t use your past life experience as an excuse to justify your reason to steal from people. I would be doing you more harm than good if I sit here this very moment and tell you that you aren’t doing anything wrong, whereas you are putting yourself and life at risk everyday by being a fraudster. You could die anytime and worse still, you could serve a long time in jail if you ever get caught. Please I beg you, turn back now and start all over again because there’s still time to do so. Do you want to go back to school or open a legit business? Just tell me and I can help you plan your way through it. I can go to schools to find out which one is offering admission right now so you can get enrolled. I have all the time and can do it, all I need is your approval and consent. Please let me help you! Jesus loves you so much and cares about you more than you think; he died for you when you didn’t even know him, imagine what he would do now you are getting to know him. Give yourself another chance to be something beautiful and I promise you wouldn’t regret it” She soberly said.
Oh My! Those words of upliftment were next to non and had the power to awaken any dead will-power or zeal. At that moment, Terry was transported to another world and couldn’t believe he was the one that was being spoken to in such an uplifting manner. Since he was born, no one has ever cared about him that much and wanted the best for him like the way Maya did. The fact that she wasn’t just talking and was ready to back her words up with instant actions, made him believe she meant every word that came out of her mouth and also truly cared about his soul.
As the atmosphere was still on fire, Terry couldn’t resist Maya’s plea to help him become a better person. To be fair, he was low-key already tired of being a fraudster because he never really had peace of mind despite how much he was making. He wanted to live a better life and felt that it was now time to take that bold but scary step towards Change.
“Why do you care so much on what I become in life? Why do you feel the need to help me and what makes you think I want to be helped?” Terry asked just to hear the reply Maya would give. Fortunately, she didn’t disappoint at all with her response. “The question rather should be why shouldn’t I care about you and want the best for you? Why do you feel you don’t deserve to be cared for? I bless the day I met you because now I know the exact reason God wanted our path to cross. You are very special to God and he wouldn’t trade you for anything. You might not be the best child God has but trust me when I say he loves you just like he loves the rest. No one ever merited God’s love because we didn’t have to work for it, but it was rather given to us for free. Despite the fact that you haven’t been such a good child to your maker, never for one day have he ceased the air you breathe. Do you know he could wipe you off the surface of this earth in just a snap of a finger? But still, here you are, still breathing everyday and you have never for once paused and thought ‘why am I still alive and not dead despite my sinful ways?’. That one question should open your eyes to see how merciful God is and how much seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years he’s willing to give you just so you can have a change of heart and turn back to him. Your are precious and if no one has ever told you that, then let me be the first” Maya said with tears in her eyes.
For the first time in Terry’s life, he felt something move in his heart and it sent cold reaction all over his body. Words became difficult to speak as tears flowed helplessly from his eyes. Without hesitating, Maya stretched forth her hands and held his hands that were on top of the table. It was such a transforming moment for Terry and a day to remember indeed.
The life changing meeting finally came to an end and they retired home. Terry dropped Maya off at a junction close to her house before heading home. All through that night, Maya prayed and kept calling Terry’s name while at it. He couldn’t sleep well that night and kept tossing and turning on the bed. God’s move had already began.
As days went by, Terry gradually started losing interest in pressing laptop. He began to forget his fraudulent formulas and started flopping seriously. In a short while, his friends started noticing the recent change in attitude and began to get greatly worried. They confronted him countlessly to inquire what was going on but he never gave them any tangible reason as to why he wasn’t as vibrant as before in the fraudulent lifestyle.
The recent change in attitude made Terry and Maya more closer than before. He normally followed her to fellowship and tried to study the Bible with her occasionally. As time went by, he started understanding the word of God and gradually began to have insight on certain scriptures. Their relationship was a big threat to Terry’s friends and they hated Maya with passion because they felt she was the reason they weren’t making much money again. Terry was unaware of the hatred his friends had for the one lady he never joked with. I sense danger ahead but all we can do is keep our fingers crossed and hope that something drastic doesn’t happen.
Up until then, Terry hadn’t poured out his feelings to Maya because he was scared of losing her. He concealed his feelings and felt it was better it took the back seat as at then. They enjoyed each other’s company and greatly cherished what they had. Everything went on smoothly till something unfortunate happened one fateful day.
Turns out that Maya bought an adult school admission form for Terry and he was extremely happy and began to have a sense of being on the right path. The school was a skill acquisition school and while going through the list of programmes they offered, they were able to make a decision suitable for Terry.
This new development made Terry’s friend mad and drove them crazy. There and then, they began to plot an evil plan for Maya. It happened that these guys planned with some bad boys to kidnap her. It took a while for them to put the whole plan together and strategise. Too bad that they had to go to such extent just to get their friend who was being a better man to go back to his past lifestyle that fetched them more money
After many failed attempts to kidnap Maya, they finally succeeded one fateful evening. One that day, she was returning from service when a car drove speedily and parked in front of her. They drugged her by putting a hard drug on a handkerchief and pressed on her nose. Maya instantly became unconscious and they put her inside the car and drove off.
Turns out that someone saw what happened and hurried ran to the scene to pick up Maya’s handbag and phone that fell off after they abducted her. Immediately the stranger picked up the phone, she scrolled through the call log and hurriedly dialed the number of the last person Maya spoke to; which was Terry.
The phone rang once and Terry excitedly picked up thinking it was Maya. He got the shocker of his life when the caller said; “the person that owns this phone has just been kidnapped by some group of boys, please reach out for help”.
Terry almost dropped dead and screamed out “What!”.
Written by Sonia Okehie
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@Sonia Okehie
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