How would one begin a story where every day of one’s life has been written by the Lord?

My name is Anuola Oyindamola Folake and this is my salvation experience.

I was born in a Christian home, the eldest of four children,and raised by parents who believed in God. Growing up I didn’t like going to church, and back then I was just four to five year old, there’s this song they sing in church that often scares me.

The song goes thus; 🎶Anointing fall on me Let the power of the Holy Ghost fall on me, Anointing fall on me.🎶

Perhaps it was because I didn’t grow up in a stable church, we often changed church, so going to church wasn’t an habit I developed overtime. Aside the church going and all, a lot was going on in my life that my parents did not know much about, my mom only knew a bit.

At that time, I was masturbating. This became an habit I developed due to the kind of movies,I was exposed too.

It got so worse that I began to masturbate with my neighbor’s children, family (cousins) and friends. This became a pattern in my life so much that my mom started noticing it whenever she bathed me, she would often ask me who touched my private part and I’ll always lie to her. Then she would beat me and threatened to tell my dad, oh yes I feared my dad but still I didn’t tell her the truth so I avoided my mom bathing me.

We moved to our present resident when I was 7years old and we began to go to a church close to our house, this church taught holiness and created activities for children, I believe this was where I got to know the Bible and I loved the stories in it, and masturbating slowly left my life. I wasn’t saved, yet I easily became a church goer, I saw God do miracles in a church we attended her mid-week services and vigil too, so I got to learn about prayer there.

We had a housemaid when I was in secondary School and this maid and I would often caress our bodies while sitting across each other. One night, I had a dream, I saw this housemaid attacking me, so I prayed and fire caught her. And few days later, she left our house by herself.

We had a seminar in my secondary School one day and they spoke on virginity, that talk shaped my life in a way I still can’t explain, one thing was sure, I regretted my actions of masturbating but I was also left with a great sorrow which was the fact that I believed I wasn’t a virgin anymore. In senior secondary school 2(ss2), I had a classmate who was a Christian and she often spoke about Him freely. During that time, we weren’t going to church for almost six months, because my mom had issues with the church close to our house.

One day, my new friend and I had an argument about this whole church thing, I had this belief that not going to church doesn’t make me any less of a christian than she was, after all I prayed and read my Bible, I knew so many Bible stories then, but didn’t know my Saviour. At the end of the argument, she got me an Open Heaven Devotional by Pastor E.A Adeboye of Redeemed Christian Church of God.

Which I began to read.

After my Secondary School Graduation, I attended another new church and I served in the choir, I prayed, studied my Bible, and God blessed me too, yeah! He gave me great results in my final exams and I got admitted into the university of my choice into the course of my choice.

But something was missing. I still wasn’t saved.

I had some apps on my phone where I read erotic novels, I continued in this practice even in my first year in the University of ilorin, deep within me I had questions about whether reading erotic novels was a sin or not, I spoke to Christians around me, some said it’s not a sin, some said it was.

I was confused about it so much that I wrote an anonymous question during a question and answer session in the church I attended on campus.

The pastor’s response that day changed it all, I rededicated my life to God, and God brought godly friends my way, brought good Christian novels my way written by Mrs Opeyemi Akintunde, and on realizing the danger of reading erotic novels and watching movies with sex in it, I deleted the novels I had on my phone and I cried in repentance to God.

The journey of breakthrough from lust that plagued my soul since I was a kid didn’t start and finish in one night, God kept teaching and pruning me as I began to seek Him in prayer and the word, and He hasn’t stopped doing His good work in me. There were days I would go back to my vomit, but He would be patient with me, teaching me to solely rely on His grace, as He mould me into the woman He wants me to be.
My faith in Him has been growing, learning to forgive myself about the bad things I taught those little children and receiving His love for me. The start of my journey with Jesus began when I came to the realization of Him being the God of the Bible, about the price He paid for me to become His bride, and to top it all, I got the Holy Spirit too, who is now dwelling in me.

He’s been leading me since day one, when I surrended to Him and not that I have already attained or am already perfected; but I press on that I may lay hold of that which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended ; but one thing I do forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-14)