Unashamed of the Gospel by Jude Mark Samuel

 

(The Transformation Story of The Gadarene)


I am Chukwuemeka, the third child, and the only son in a family of seven children.
I was surrounded by girls, except that I had my father for an example. He was a pious man who knew and feared the Lord. He was tall, fair and handsome, but he was poor, very poor, consequently, we suffered much.

Our mother was faithful to him, she was also hardworking, therefore we had our daily meal, often twice, but we were satisfied with what we had.

While growing up, I knew I needed to bond with males like myself, and that justifies my desire to make friends in my neighbourhood, and in school too.

My relationship with friends was smooth through our primaries and early secondaries, but there was a turning point; something went wrong along the line. Something happened that turned the course of life around for me.

I lost my father to the cold hands of death in my third year in the secondary school, and as the only son, I felt the world crashing down on me.

At fifteen, I barely knew my right from left, yet, the responsibility of manhood fell upon me. I must take care of my mother and the six girls whom my father left behind. Oh, the accident that claimed his life!

‘Eguji’ as we fondly called him was on his way to the market to sell palmwine when a reckless lorry driver knocked him down, ran over him and his bicycle, and sped off, leaving my lifeless dad in a pool of his own blood mixed with fresh palm wine on the highway.
The bicycle? It was so flat one could use it for a mat.
I saw my father crushed and grilled on the highway that hot Monday afternoon, and I knew that it was over for me.

My father was my best friend, and closest confidant, but now he is gone from me. I wept for ten days non-stop, but what could I do? I couldn’t stop him from dying, neither could I have brought him back to life, hence, I gave in to fate and moved on.

My father died leaving us no inheritance whatsoever, but he had the legacy that he didn’t leave us debts to start paying either, and that was just enough for us.

Dropping out from school was the first thing I did, and that very easily, then I joined myself with the boys at the local market to hustle for daily bread. We did all kind of things, ranging from helping women to ferry their goods home from the market, helping merchants to hawk their goods, working in vineyards as labourers during sowing and harvesting seasons, selling snacks, working as labourers in construction sites, hunting by night, and the rest.

Read: Does Praying Aloud Constitute Nuisance?

Since my father was gone, I knew that the void of friendship which he had left behind needed to be closed up, ergo I made many friends from the marketplace, and with them, I kept myself motivated and away from depression.

The point came when the little I was doing wasn’t enough for my family, things were unnecessarily hard and I couldn’t meet our daily demands. I couldn’t even buy myself change of raiment often, I became known with any cloth I have per time. Things were that hard for me.

Friends soon lured me into trying some negative things, like smoking, pornography, fornication and the rest. I tried to stand my ground, but having no one to spur me on, I yielded and became a chain smoker, and a womaniser. I experimented with different great and amazing sex styles with different people, young and old. My sexual appetite was greatly enlarged, so much that I slept with an average of three girls daily. I saw how a man can be reduced to a loaf of bread by means of a whorish woman. Truth be told, I am that man.

Robbery soon set in at age seventeen, and I thought within myself that I am irredeemable, therefore, I enjoyed the pleasure of sin to the full.
Lest I forget, we did hard drugs too. Yes, we spent our robbery proceeds on drugs, and the bondage became even stronger.
We burgled temples and shops, and stole church funds.

Sometimes, my conscience would prick me, but you know, I feared to dissociate from my friends, considering the castigation and stigmatisation that would follow. So I swimmed with the tide.

I hit the rock on the day when I slept with a marine agent, who afflicted me with multiple demons and diseases. I felt life draining out of me gradually, my soul was overly fragmented, and within six days, I began to go nuts.

I started saying inaudible things, I could speak a thousand words in one minute, then I would tear any paper I saw and eat it up. My muscles were strengthened, and I became too strong for any human to handle. Multiple voices would speak in my head, making my entire body system go haywire. I would scream so loud that my voice could easily overshadow the blasting of a thousand trumpets. The demons were recruiting more demons into me, my condition grew worse, and nudity soon became the norm for me.

The spirit of the dead were not left out; every night, the community of internal demons in me would converge to have their successive meetings with ghosts in tombs.
I was never seen sleeping for once during the seventeen years of my insanity. My eyes were constantly bloodshot, glowing like burning coals. Sleep bags gathered and grew in my lower eyelids, but I was more awake, alert and active than a thousand men put together and multiplied.

My mother tried to tame me, she gathered men from the village to bind and take me for treatments, but I have become like a thunder which cannot be bound. A good number of men had been amputated who tried to hassle with me while dragging the chains by which I was bound with me as I shred them with the chains into tiny pellets.
In my opinion, I was stronger than Samson, I tore chains as though they were threads.

My appetite enlarged beyond that which is normal, and I soon began to eat dead animals and any detestable thing I find around, but nothing satisfied me. So, I would chase after people and snatch from them whatever appeals to my eyes. Other times, I ate from open thrash and dunghills. What an insanity!

Several nights, I would cry and weep in caves and mountains, cutting myself with sharp stones. Oh the sorrows of sin. My flesh was thoroughly and severally lacerated, I was no different from a ragged lace soaked in black oil. My life was too filthy to be looked upon, and indeed shattered beyond recognition and repair.

As the community of demons dealt with me, morning, noon and night, I discovered that they would at intervals go on short breaks, and my sanity would be intermittently restored, but as soon as I began to weep in sorrow, they would suddenly return.

Each time I saw people living the normal kind of life I once lived, my eyes would glow with hot tears, but ninety percent of the time, these devils would trap the tears inside me, never allowing it to flow out.
People saw me as a hard and terrible mad man, but I have been broken to pieces by the things which I suffered.
I was mad for seventeen years, but it was not so from the beginning. I wasn’t designed to be mad, but I became one when I broke the hedge over my life. Oh, what a thing!
What a doomed man I was… Who shall deliver me from this body of death?

Every day that passesd by brought me mixed feelings; I expected a deliverance that appeared blurred and bleak, I also waited impatiently for my death. Either ways, I would be free from this community of demons that daily used and abused me. I wept day and night for reasons not known to many. I was indeed a man of many sorrows.

Jesus would come for me… Yes, I heard the devils holding a meeting, deliberating on how to stop Him from reaching me. They sent a storm to sink Him on the high sea.
Though my spirit was corrupted, but I could see Him sleeping peacefully down in that ship while the tempest raged hard, beating forcefully on the ship and filling it with water.
The force tried to tear the ship, while the water tried to sink it, but Jesus Himself was the buoyancy that kept the ship afloat. His disciples woke Him up from His nap, and at His word, the storm was stilled. Oh Jesus!

He soon crossed to this side of the sea, and it happened that at the point when He saw me, the devils were quietly having an emergency meeting for to scheme on their next line of action, hence, I was normal for a moment.
I ran towards Him quickly, fell at His feet and worshipped.

The demons soon woke up on sensing the presence of Jesus, the Lord came too early. Their chief took over my vocal cord and began to speak on their behalf to the Lord through me.
They pretended to be speaking as me, asking the Lord not to torment me, but He knew better, hence, when He asked for my name, the chief of demons spoke up declaring “my name is Legion, for we are many.” The same statement sold them all off; they had been exposed.
They all roared in one voice, but they spoke out so calmly. The roar within me scream, nine of the disciples took off, remaining three, but Jesus would not be moved.

The devils seeing that they were already on the losing side, they pleaded with the Lord to not torment them, but rather let them depart peacefully into a herd of swine that fed themselves nearby. Jesus permitted them, and instantly, thousands of demons evacuated themselves from my body into the herd of swine.
Just a word from Jesus brought me liberty and complete delivera. Not one demon was left behind.
This is the beginning of miracles, my shackles were gone, my spirit was healed forever.

As I came to myself, I saw the entire herd of swine rush violently into the sea and perished in there.
The demons who the marine agent had injected into me seventeen years ago have returned now to their home, woe unto the sea.
I felt pity for myself, for the thousands of demons that I had housed conveniently for seventeen years, yet they drowned a herd of swine numbering almost a thousand to death.
What is man!?

My name is Chukwuemeka, but since I became mad, nobody called me by my name, ever again, they simply called me the mad man of Gadara. But the very day I came to Jesus, He called me by my name, my eyes glowed with passion, love and fire, I could perceive the connection between my spirit and His Spirit.

I remember how He looked into my eyes and I could also see the demons looking through me, then He asked “what is your name?” and this community of demons responded, “we are Legion!”
I felt them rumbling violently from within, promising to deal with me severely if I ever miss my deliverance today, but what could I do, a helpless victim that I am.

As I reminisced on my wasted years sitting at His feet naked, stinking like rotten flesh, having had no bath in seventeen years, His disciple brought water and soap to wash me up, then Jesus took His own inner cloak, and covered me up. Not only was I healed, but I was made completely whole.
Light had come to my darkness, glory and praise belong to God. Hallelujah forever!

The people soon converged from various cities see the popular mad man in his right senses, now clothed, sitting quietly. The good news of my deliverance went further than the fame of my insanity. What Jesus had done for me was too much to quantify. I wept within me for the years I had wasted in sin and insanity.

I made up my mind to follow Jesus all the days of my life, for was it not He who gave me life when I had none? I was broken and rejected, but He fixed me up and gave me my life back, so I pleaded to follow Him. “It won’t be bad” I said “if I be the thirteenth disciple.”
I would follow Him henceforth, but He said “no, rather go ye and tell your friends and family what great things the Lord had done for you.”
The response didn’t go down well with me, but I had to obey, so I left Jesus with a new song and a new spirit. I am a totally new man now.

My healing brought countries and cities to Jesus, but my publishing of this great testimony brought in even more.
I am saved and freed. Jesus is my lord forever.

Those who hated and sent Him away from our territory couldn’t stand my testimony, yet they couldn’t withstand it. I lived the remaining days of my life telling people about Jesus and warning people against the wrong kind of life I had lived in the past.
He picked me dusted me up, gave me a new name and a new beginning, now I live to expound His Name and testimony.

I wasted my youth in shackles, burning away in pain and insanity.
My mother had died five years into my madness. She gave up on me, leaving the six girls to suffer even more. The same women I thought I was working and fending for, I was never there to witness their weddings.
What a terrible thing to fall into the hand of the devil!

As for my friends who we did detestable things together, many of them had died, except for three who are now still serving their jail term for multiple crimes committed.
I felt my insanity was God’s way of saving me from death and a life of hopeless ending.

Now, I preach the name of Jesus shamelessly.
With the scars in my body, I preach Jesus.
With my hairs turning grey, I praise the Son of God.
By my testimony, I win ten cities to God.

I wasn’t ashamed when I was homeless.
I wasn’t ashamed when I was senseless.
I wasn’t ashamed when I was naked.
I cannot now be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.
He took my shame and gave me a name.
Hallelujah in the highest!

I am the testament…
I am the evidence…
I am the living witness…

Indeed, what the Lord cannot do does not exist.