Morning Devotion

“I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised. So, shall I be saved from my enemies. the Lord reigneth, blessed be the Lord!” My mother sang at the top of her voice one early Saturday morning.

“Open your mouth and sing. Open your mouth, children!” She screamed at us, somewhere between the worship session.

In our defense, it wasn’t just our mouths that were closed, Daddy was not singing too. In fact, he was still snoring from the other chair and I bet the only reason she shouted that loud was to make my father jerk up from his slumber the way he did. She didn’t fool me. Poor Lola looked like she was about to drop dead (at least, mock dead) any moment. Her hair was in a tangled mess and she had one eyelid drooping…in a very creepy manner. I was the only one with a semblance of consciousness in that meeting of four, that morning, save for my mother who never sleeps.

When it comes to morning devotions, my mother drops her mask of the sweet, doting mother and assumes the role of the Chief Commander of the Praying Armed Forces. She raves and nags from the time she wakes up till the time we all leave our morning devotion. She acts like a one-woman army, mobilizing me, my dad, and sometimes my younger sister. Somehow, Daddy seemed to give her the most trouble as it was near impossible for her to correct his laziness with a knock to his head (a correction I receive in generous amounts every morning).

I don’t know what it is with my mother and her love for knocks. When she’s not scoring a touchdown with her rubber slippers hurled at our heads, she’s dishing out a plateful of knocks, on the head. Honestly, I think the reason why my younger sister and I are smart is probably that my mother knocked us into genius mode. Argh!

“Let’s open our mouths and begin to pray!”

During morning devotions, she becomes a pastor, a child abuser, a pastor’s wife, a choirmaster, a commander, a chorister, an usher, and even a terrorist. If I wasn’t so drowsy all the time, I could have helped her manage some of these roles but I doubt if she would even accept my help. She seemed to derive a kind of unexplainable high from being the resident terrorist.

“Say, my Father!”

Now, this is how the prayer goes every morning. Somehow, somehow, we always seem to be calling on God (the Father) to come and smite all our enemies. Every prayer session is like a literal war, but this time, with invisible forces. My mother makes us shout at God to rain down his unquenching fire and destroy all our enemies. Every morning, we also turn God into an Olympic-worthy runner, pursuing all the people pursuing us. We make him an oppressor, charging him with the duty of oppressing all those that oppress us.

What’s funny is how I don’t even have friends. I don’t have a social life. My social media presence is zilch! And I’m not ‘peppering’ anybody with my nonexistent ostentatious life. So, for the life of me, where exactly are the enemies that I have to kill every morning coming from?

One time, when I was 10, I summoned the courage to ask my mother where all the enemies were coming from. This boldness was triggered by a nightmare I had, where I saw three masked people (now that I think of it, they were probably from the cartoons I watched as a child) chasing me with a knife. I kept screaming and running. Like in every horror movie produced to date, I fell down for absolutely no reason, and that was when the monsters caught up with me.

During that period, my mother had already announced a compulsory vigil for the entire family. According to her, the three-night vigil was supposed to ward off all the evil spirits from my father’s side of the family and restore his destiny. We even had a district pastor join us on those nights. The prayers were…scary.

On those nights, my mother would lose control and fall to the ground while praying. Then, she would start jerking and flailing about. I would want to call for help, but I would find the pastor hovering over her and using his Bible to hit her. In all these ruckuses, my father would merely close his eyes, bend his head, and just keep nodding. I cried all three nights and I think I still have PTSD from those nights. It’s probably why I hate attending vigils to date. I’m literally scarred for life. After those nights, I started having those nightmares and that is when I confronted my mother about the evil spirits.

According to her, we are born with enemies. Sometimes, we inherit extra enemies from our parent’s families. As if that is not enough, as we grow, we make enemies for ourselves. Combine all these enemies together and you’ll discover that you have a Persian army to fight.

It didn’t make sense then, and it still doesn’t make any sense now.

“Say, my father, my father!” She screamed the second time.

I was tempted to scream “God is not deaf!” right back at her but I was not ready to move out of her house yet, or receive a brain resetting knock that would probably give me a bad headache. So, I did what any normal African child would do and screamed, “My Father! My Father!”

My over-enthusiasm struck my mother as odd, and she took offense. She gave me a knock anyway and told me to stop taking everything as a joke. You simply cannot win with this woman. In my defense, I was the only one that still entertained all her demands during the circus she calls a morning devotion. My father just sits in one corner, in a semi-conscious state, nodding his head back and forth like he was in a trance. Lola on the other hand sleeps. Like, she just sleeps. And there’s only so much knocks you can give a 7-year old before you kill her. I’m the perfect victim for all her commandeering – not too young, and not too old. Strong enough to take out all the frustrations on and weak enough to not protest. Sweet joy!

“Send your unquenchable fire and destroy every weapon fashioned against me and my family! Open your mouth and begin to pray! Father…!”

Sigh. While I mumbled a prayer that would not leave my father’s sitting room, talk less of reaching heaven, I wondered what kind of weapons could be fashioned for my family. This is the first prayer of every single day – even Christmas day. Exhausting God’s unquenchable fire on…

“Open your mouth and pray!”

Trust me, if there were anyone opening mouths, it was my father and Lola. They had totally gone unconscious and they were now sleeping, unashamedly. With their mouths wide open. I opened my eyes to peep at them and my mother did the same, at the same time. She caught me looking and gave me yet another knock. “Close your eyes while you’re praying.”

I closed my eyes and that’s when I heard her walk up to my dad and tap him.

“Samuel. Samuel.”

I opened my eyes to peep again and I saw that my dad was stretching his body. Poor man. He had to be at work in less than two hours and would probably return a few minutes before midnight.

“I don’t like this thing you are doing oh. Wake up nah. What is all these one sef?” My mother complained bitterly.

My father stood up and resumed his head-nodding, without even knowing what the prayer point was.

30 more minutes went by and we were still killing the enemies. I don’t know where my mother gets the strength from, but she attacks every prayer with more vigor than the last. She was bending, crying, slapping, jumping, clapping, and performing several other theatrics just to get her prayers answered. I have no idea if that works, but I was not going to partake in the madness. I didn’t kill Jesus, abeg!

“Dave.”

“Ma?”

“Give us the next prayer point.”

Huhn? What am I supposed to say? “Ma?”

“Did I speak Ibibio? I said give us our last prayer point.”

For some reason, my father and sister were suddenly awake and all six eyeballs turned to look at me like I held the key to their future.

“Dave, be fast. I have to prepare for work.” My father said, irritated.

“My Father, my Fa..ther,” I stammered.

What am I supposed to say now? My mother had already killed all the enemies this morning. Is there more?

“My Father, my Father.” They all repeated in a chorus.

I was out for another 30 seconds and my mother was already getting that ‘this boy is about to receive a knock’ look on her face. What do I pray about?!

“My father, my father! Kill all our enemies, so we can stop fighting every morning! Prayer, in Jesus name! Open up your mouth and begin to pray.” I screamed at the top of my voice.

The last thing I remember before the blackout was my mother running towards me with her rubber slippers.

All pictures are gotten from Pexels and no attribution is required