My wife and I used to practise obeah

Dear Pastor,

My wife and I have been married for eight years. She is a Christian. We are both 35 years old.

We have been raising a beautiful two-year-old daughter. My wife is very loving and caring but sometimes she is miserable, as most women are at times. When I first met her, we lived at my mother's house for two years. My mom used to be worried about the type of woman I had fallen in love with.

However, my mom used to believe in 'reader men', and that also led me to believe in it as well. So I used to go to see the man, and I heard from him that my foreparents used to believe in all sorts of rituals. But since my mother passed away, my wife and I moved to a different community. Our lives have changed. I have become a child of God as well, and wife is more of a spiritual woman. I have also come to understand that the things we practised were wrong, and so I have repented of all these deeds and asked God for forgiveness. Now my wife and I pray every night against generational curses from our mothers' and fathers' bloodlines.

But recently, my wife said that if she knew that my grandparents practised evil she wouldn't have married me, and I felt hurt. Tell me, Pastor, does she have the right to say that?

S.G.

Dear S.G.,

Your wife and you indulge in some sort of spiritism. It is a very common thing in this country for people to go to see certain folks who are considered gifted and can tell you the future.

These people claim to have special gifts. So they can read you up and tell you what would happen to you. My understanding is that they charge a lot of money to do so. The sad thing is that many professing Christian believe in these people and go to see them.

Your mother believed in this reader man, so she went to see him, and you became involved also. You should not have gone or believed in what she told you about your wife. Evidently, your mother did not like your wife. She probably felt that your wife tied you to her.

You should not be concerned about what your wife said. She has a right to express herself. I am glad that your wife and you are endeavouring to serve the Lord. But looking back, she was simply expressing how she felt when she said that if she knew that your folks indulged in spiritism and what some people call obeah, she would not have married you.

The Apostle Paul, in writing in the Philippians, says (I would like you to apply these word to yourself)in Philippians 3:13-16: 13. "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 15. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. 16 Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing."

However, what she said upset you, and I hope that you have told her how you felt. But don't allow what she said to spoil the good relationship that both of you are enjoying together. You should tell your wife that she should learn to forget the past. I will be praying for both of you.

Pastor