CHAPTER FORTY “CONVINCED”

©Opeyemi Akintunde
Inspired by the Greatest Storyteller

Beauty’s POV

My salvation story is probably the simplest one I have ever heard.

No evangelist came knocking on my door.

No preacher laid hands on me.

No altar call caught my attention during a church service.

God came to me in my dream.

That night, I had been sent on an assignment.

Assignments were not unusual in that world. They came like instructions placed quietly inside your spirit. You simply knew where to go and what to do. Your body remained on the bed, but your spirit travelled.

That night, my assignment was simple.

Hurt a child.

I arrived in the girl’s room the way we always arrived… silently, without opening doors.

The room was dim. A small bedside lamp cast a faint glow across the bed where she lay sleeping. She could not have been more than eight years old.

For a moment I stood there, studying her face.

Children always looked so peaceful when they slept.

I moved closer.

The moment my spirit entered the room fully, the girl opened her eyes.

Not slowly.

Instantly.

She looked directly at me.

Her gaze was steady, not frightened, not confused… as though she could see me as clearly as if I were standing there in my physical body.

Then she spoke.

“What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?”

Her voice was calm.

Not accusatory.

Not afraid.

Just calm.

After saying those words, she closed her eyes again and turned slightly on the bed… and went back to sleep.

Just like that.

The room fell silent.

But those words did not leave.

They pierced into my spirit like an arrow.

Suddenly I was no longer standing in the girl’s room.

I woke up in my bed.

Sitting upright.

Breathing heavily.

“What shall it profit a man…” I whispered.

The words kept coming out of my mouth as though someone had pressed a replay button inside my heart.

“What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?”

Again.

And again.

And again.

The more I said it, the more something inside me began to break.

Tears started flowing down my face.

Before I even understood why, I was crying uncontrollably.

Because suddenly I saw my life clearly.

I had chased beauty.

I had chased money.

I had chased relevance.

I had chased admiration.

And somewhere along that journey… my soul had quietly disappeared.

No one preached to me.

No choir sang.

No altar call was made.

Yet conviction flooded my heart like a river.

That morning, I stood up from my bed with one decision.

I was going to a church.

Not just any church.

I knew exactly where I needed to go.

There was a church our kingdom hated.

A fire church.

A church that prayed aggressively.

A church where witches avoided going near because deliverance happened there regularly.

I went there.

When I arrived, the service had already ended. The church compound was quiet. I walked up to one of the pastors I saw standing near the entrance.

My voice was shaking when I spoke.

“I need help.”

He looked at me carefully.

“What kind of help?” he asked.

So I told him.

Everything.

The wealth.

The meetings.

The dreams.

The coven.

The assignments.

The pastor did not interrupt me.

He listened quietly until I finished.

Then he said something that surprised me.

“Do you want to be free?”

I nodded immediately.

That was the day I gave my life to Christ.

But salvation was only the beginning.

Deliverance followed.

And it was not easy.

For seven months my life became a battlefield.

It felt as though hell itself had released every demon assigned to my life.

There were nights I could not sleep at all.

Strange figures appeared in my dreams.

Voices whispered threats.

Objects in my room moved mysteriously.

Fear tried to crawl into my heart constantly.

Then the attacks moved into the physical world.

Suddenly, lies began spreading about me on social media.

People I had once called friends started posting accusations.

False witnesses rose up.

My reputation collapsed almost overnight.

Followers began unfollowing me.

Brand partnerships disappeared.

Even my bank accounts were suddenly blocked during investigations triggered by anonymous complaints.

The life I had built started falling apart piece by piece.

I went down.

Down to a place of humility I had never experienced before.

But one thing kept me standing.

The church.

Those people did not abandon me.

They prayed.

They fasted.

They stood beside me even when the storm intensified.

Meanwhile, the witches did not give up easily.

They came in different ways.

Sometimes through dreams.

Sometimes through people.

Sometimes through messages.

They tried to persuade me to return.

They reminded me of the wealth I had lost.

They promised my life would return to luxury if I simply came back.

But I refused.

I refused to listen.

I stayed.

Day after day.

Week after week.

Month after month.

Finally, after seven months of intense prayers, fasting, and deliverance sessions, something changed.

The attacks stopped.

The nightmares ended.

The spiritual chains broke.

For the first time in years… my mind felt quiet.

My heart felt clean.

My soul felt free.

Then one morning during prayer, the Lord brought two names back into my memory.

Imade.

And Teju.

Their faces appeared clearly in my mind.

I knew immediately what God was asking me to do.

Pray for them.

Intercede for their marriage.

At one point, I considered reaching out to Kalunga.

But the Lord stopped me.

Do not contact him.

So I obeyed.

Instead, I focused on praying.

Day after day.

Night after night.

Asking God to reverse the plans that had been set against their union.

So when I saw Teju at the prayer retreat camp that day…

It was not coincidence.

It was an answer to prayer.

To be continued

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Inspired by the TRUTH REVEALER
Written by Opeyemi Akintunde
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