It was the time for testimonies and sharing after a Weekend to Remember® at a church in Obobogo, a neighborhood in Cameroon’s capital city, Yaoundé. During the sharing time, a woman moved to the front to give her testimony. When she got to the microphone, she started with these words: “I did not give my love letter to my husband.”
The moderator of the sharing time, who had also been the conference speaker, froze. So many thoughts were going through his mind. Did she object to the idea of writing a love letter? Did she want to publicly complain about the state of her marriage instead of saying how the teachings helped improve the state of her home? The moderator was bracing himself for damage control.
The woman at the microphone continued. “After the first night’s session, ‘From How to Wow,’ I was pondering the words of Scripture about being naked and unashamed. I felt the Lord wanted me to be honest and transparent with my husband. I took the sheets of blue love-letter stationary and wrote a love letter to my husband. And it went beyond just expressing my love and commitment to him. But when I was done, I couldn’t convince myself to share it with him. You see, I had been hiding many things from my husband.
“In that letter, I revealed secret bank accounts I had hidden from my husband. In the letter, I also gave details about the extra payments I received from special missions work I had done—payments I had lied about to him. In my letter, I was coming clean.
“When the time came to share our letters, I was afraid because my husband is a lawyer. Could he not use this document later as evidence in court if we decided to divorce? I made an excuse to postpone sharing the letter with him. My fear made me want to re-write the letter—a less revealing letter. So I starting looking everywhere in my house to find another sheet of blue paper like the one given at the seminar, but I couldn’t find one. That night, I did not sleep well. Now, two days later, I have decided to give him the original letter.”
Addressing her husband with tear-filled eyes, she said, “Here is the letter with the details about all the bank accounts and the balance of each and the real payments I received for each mission. I hope you will make good use of it.”
Jokingly, the husband asked his wife, who works in the banking sector, “Should I use the letter or the money?” The humor cut the tension of the moment and communicated his acceptance of her.
The pastor of the church hosting the marriage conference asked the husband to come up front and join his wife. Then he prayed for them, thanking God for bringing them to this point of transparency and acceptance in their marriage and asked for God’s continued work and blessing on them.
It truly was a Weekend to Remember in Obobogo.
