From the start, she had spark. Quick laughter, sharp answers the kind of girl who made even boring lectures feel lighter.
In group projects, she was the one pulling the weight, the one everyone quietly depended on.
On fellowship days, she was always up front. If worship was rising, her hands were lifted. If prayer was loud, her voice was right in the mix. Her bag carried lecture notes, but also plenty of flyers for outreach she never quite finished distributing.
Back then, she called herself “Fireful.” Half joke, half prophecy. And the name fit. She carried a fire for young people children still figuring life out, teenagers under pressure, students drifting toward the wrong anchors.
She scribbled plans in her notebooks, curriculums, retreats, peer-support circles. But anytime she shared the ideas, somebody would shut it down:
“Abeg, who dash mummy G.O. that kind work?”
“You wan come carry Nigeria for head?”
“People go laugh, and sef, you no even be the best for this thing.”
Those words stayed with her. She began to repeat them to herself: “I’ll do it later. When I have more time. When I meet the right partner.
When I get the perfect venue.” Excuses piled up until they sounded like prayers.
Years rolled by. She married a good man, kind, successful, from a stable home. Life was comfortable, filled with laughter over dinner and small mercies that made the days steady. She had once said she didn’t want to marry a pastor. But funny enough, over the years, her husband quietly caught fire for God-serving, teaching, even leading.
And God? He doesn’t let true dreams just die.
One night maybe midnight, maybe dawn, she heard it. A whisper. Not judgment, not insult, just steady: “Go back. The children you were meant to gather are now grown. Start again amd start now.”
Her chest tightened. Her heart skipped like JAMB result loading. Guilt rushed in like flood. Fifteen years gone! She remembered the dreams she abandoned, the “someday” that never came.
She hissed like NEPA just took light.
“Ah God, how I go start now? People will talk. I failed then, I will fail again.”
But her husband had been watching. He knew she had carried this dream all along. That same man she once said she didn’t want as a pastor became the one God used to push her forward.
The night before the first meeting, he held her hand and said quietly: “No fear. Hold my hand, we will do it together.” No long sermon. Just presence.
So they began small. Plastic chairs, cold hibiscus drink(zobo), golden brown puff puff, a few flyers posted on notice boards and shared online. The focus was simple: guidance for singles preparing for marriage, mentorship for young adults, and practical wisdom for building solid homes.
When the meeting ended, testimonies poured in. WhatsApp and DMs filled with messages:
“Exactly what I needed, where have you been these years.”
“Why only now?”
Her knees almost gave way. Tears flowed, not because of praise but because every word pressed on the wound of delay.
She wept for the teenagers who had grown up without the net she once imagined. She wept for the years she let fear cage her. Right there, in the middle of the crying, another whisper came: “My mercy has no expiry date.”
She froze. Mercy?
After all this time? She had carried guilt like a padlock whose key was lost in the ocean. But mercy dove in, brought the key back, and placed it in her hand.
From then, things shifted. Guilt didn’t disappear overnight, but it became a teacher instead of a jailer. She stopped rehearsing excuses and started producing results. No more endless talk about prophecy “Evidence can speak now,” she told herself.
She began small: mentorship evenings on the campus, counseling sessions with trained volunteers, peer-support groups in hostels.
Whenever fear rose, she would call a mentor or squeeze her husband’s hand tighter. The important thing was, she moved. And this time, the word spread differently.
People stopped asking “Why now?” and started saying “Thank you.”
She didn’t pretend the past hadn’t happened. She would tell people honestly: “Yes, I should have started earlier. But God’s mercy carried me here. Let’s move forward together.”
Her story became a quiet parable on campus. When new students asked how it began, she would smile and say: “It started the day I finally opened the door.”
Because visions are precious but doors must be opened. In the end, she carried both the regret of delay and the joy of redemption.
God didn’t erase her past, but He rewrote the ending. And that mercy gave her boldness to begin again not with empty talk, but with results that spoke louder than any excuse.
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