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About the Book
"Omoshalewa" is a novel that tells the story of a young Nigerian girl named Omoshalewa who navigates the challenges and opportunities of growing up in a traditional Yoruba family. The novel explores themes of family, love, cultural expectations, and personal identity as Omoshalewa journeys through adolescence and into adulthood, facing both triumphs and tribulations along the way.
Smith Wigglesworth
Smith Wigglesworth was born in 1859 to a very poor family. His father did manual labor, for very little pay. Smith himself went to work at the age of six to help with the family income. At six he was pulling turnips and at seven he was working in a woolen mill twelve hours a day. His parents did not know God, but Smith hungered in his heart to know Him. Even as a youngster he would pray in the fields. His grandmother was the critical Christian in his life. She was a Wesleyan Methodist and would take Smith to meetings with her. At one of these meetings there was a song being sung about Jesus as the lamb and Smith came into the realization of God's love for him and his decision to believe Christ for his salvation was decided that day. He was immediately filled with the desire to evangelize and led his own mother to Christ.
Smith has various church experiences as he was growing up. He first went to an Episcopal church and then at thirteen a Wesleyan Methodist church. When he was sixteen he became involved in the Salvation Army. He felt deeply called to fast and pray for lost souls. He saw many people come to Christ. At seventeen a mentor shared with him about water baptism and he decided to be baptized. The Salvation Army was experiencing a tremendous level of the power of God in those days. He describes meetings where "many would be prostrated under the power of the Spirit, sometimes for as long as twenty-four hours at a time." They would pray and fast and cry out for the salvation of fifty or a hundred people for the week and they would see what they had prayed for.
At eighteen Smith left the factory and became a plumber. He moved to Liverpool when he was twenty and continued to work during the day and minister during his free time. He felt called to minister to young people and brought them to meetings. These were destitute and ragged children, whom he would often feed and care for. Hundreds were saved. Smith was often asked to speak in Salvation meetings and he would break down and weep under the power of God. Many would come to repentance in those meetings through this untrained man. At twenty-three he returned back Bradford and continued his work with the Salvation Army.
In Bradford Smith met Mary Jane Featherstone, known as Polly, the daughter of a temperance lecturer. She left home and went to Bradford to take a servants job. One night she was drawn to a Salvation Army meeting. She listened to the woman evangelist, Gipsy Tillie Smith, and gave her heart to Christ. Smith was in that meeting and saw her heart for God. Polly became an enthusiastic Salvationsist and was granted a commission by General Booth. They developed a friendship, but Polly went to Scotland to help with a new Salvationist work. She eventually moved back to Bradford and married Smith, who was very much in love with her.
The couple worked together to evangelize the lost. They opened a small church in a poor part of town. Polly would preach and Smith would make the altar calls. For a season, however, Smith became so busy with his plumbing work that his evangelistic fervor began to wane. Polly continued on, bringing Smith to conviction. One day while Smith was working in the town of Leeds he heard of a divine healing meeting. He shared with Polly about it. She needed healing and so they went to a meeting, and Polly was healed.
Smith struggled with the reality of healing, while being ill himself. He decided to give up the medicine that he was taking and trust God. He was healed. They had five children, a girl and four boys. One morning two of the boys were sick. The power of God came and they prayed for the boys and they were instantly healed. Smith struggled with the idea that God would use him to heal the sick in general. He would gather up a group of people and drive them to get prayer in Leeds. The leaders of the meeting were going to a convention and left Smith in charge. He was horrified. How could he lead a meeting about divine healing? He tried to pass it off to someone else but could not. Finally he led the meeting and several people were healed. That was it. From then on Smith began to pray for people for healing.
Smith had another leap to make. He had heard about the Pentecostals who were being baptized in the Holy Spirit. He went to meetings and was so hungry for God he created a disturbance and church members asked him to stop. He went to prayer and prayed for four days. Finally he was getting ready to head home and the vicar's wife prayed for him and he fell under the power of God and spoke in tongues. Everything changed after that. He would walk by people and they would come under the conviction of the Holy Spirit and be saved. He began to see miracles and healings and the glory of God would fall when he prayed and preached.
Smith had to respond to the many calls that came in and gave up his business for the ministry. Polly unexpectedly died in 1913, and this was a real blow to Smith. He prayed for her and commanded that death release her. She did arise but said "Smith - the Lord wants me." His heartbroken response was "If the Lord wants you, I will not hold you". She had been his light and joy for all the years of their marriage, and he grieved deeply over the loss. After his wife was buried he went to her grave, feeling like he wanted to die. When God told him to get up and go Smith told him only if you "give to me a double portion of the Spirit – my wife’s and my own – I would go and preach the Gospel. God was gracious to me and answered my request.” His daughter Alice and son-in-law James Salter began to travel with him to handle his affairs.
Smith would pray and the blind would see, and the deaf were healed, people came out of wheelchairs, and cancers were destroyed. One remarkable story is when He prayed for a woman in a hospital. While he and a friend were praying she died. He took her out of the bed stood her against the wall and said "in the name of Jesus I rebuke this death". Her whole body began to tremble. The he said "in the name of Jesus walk", and she walked. Everywhere he would go he would teach and then show the power of God. He began to receive requests from all over the world. He taught in Europe, Asia, New Zealand and many other areas. When the crowds became very large he began a "wholesale healing". He would have everyone who needed healing lay hands on themselves and then he would pray. Hundreds would be healed at one time.
Over Smith's ministry it was confirmed that 14 people were raised from the dead. Thousands were saved and healed and he impacted whole continents for Christ. Smith died on March 12, 1947 at the funeral of his dear friend Wilf Richardson. His ministry was based on four principles " First, read the Word of God. Second, consume the Word of God until it consumes you. Third believe the Word of God. Fourth, act on the Word."
to men who want to marry - how to prepare to lead well
A few months into our marriage, it dawned on me: I was unprepared, as though I had studied for the wrong exam. Before our wedding, I had thought daily devotions, church and small group, and premarital counseling would sufficiently prepare me to be a godly husband. They did not. After a short season of bliss, we began to struggle and argue. So much, in fact, that our counselor literally sat between us and warned us we were in danger of fulfilling Galatians 5:15: “If you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.” My lack of preparation showed up in other ways too. I didn’t understand how to lead my wife spiritually, bring up hard conversations, or help us reconcile after an argument. My status as a seminary student and pastoral intern added layers of shame. Worst of all, I had no idea how to make our marriage better. I now know that we were not alone in our experience. My wife and I have walked with many Christian women who are deeply frustrated by the relative lack of marriage-ready Christian men, as well as with many Christian men who either don’t know they need to prepare or have no idea how. If I could go back and give my younger, not-yet-married self some advice, I’d tell him men need a good plan as they prepare for marriage. More specifically, I’d tell him to pursue God above all else and work on growing as a leader, provider, and protector. Pursue God Above All Else Preparing well for marriage begins with regular encounters with God — seeing him in Scripture for who he is in all his glory, greatness, and grace. No matter how many times we’ve read through the Bible, we need to be continually captivated by God again and again. “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable” (Psalm 145:3). Similarly, the apostle Paul urges us to follow his example and “count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). “Preparing well for marriage begins with regular encounters with God.” As C.S. Lewis famously phrased it, God invites us to “come further up and further in.” An ever-expanding view of God is worth more than a million tips and hacks for marriage. Most of us, however, have had the experience of reading our Bibles and feeling cold and unmoved. Therefore, we meditate on the Bible, slowing down to think about and pray over what we read. When we do, God often brings a new sweetness to our souls. As Psalm 1:2 says, “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” In our distracted age, meditation will be a battle. But we can strive to read our Bibles during our best discretionary time, the time when we are most rested and unhurried. For many of us, this will be first thing in the morning. Before you begin reading, ask God to make something glorious stand out to you. “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18). When he answers that prayer, slow down and feast. Lead, Provide, and Protect Preparing well for marriage begins with pursuing God, but it certainly doesn’t end there. Pursuing God provides the strength and fuel men need to keep growing into God’s calling as leaders, providers, and protectors. “Pursuing God provides the strength and fuel men need to keep growing into God’s calling.” God clearly calls men, not just husbands, to these kinds of responsibilities in Scripture. While marriage radically narrows and heightens the responsibilities of leading, providing, and protecting, it does not create them. Before Eve’s creation or the fall, God established Adam as a leader by creating him first, as a provider by commanding him to “work and keep” the garden (Genesis 2:15), and as a protector by commanding him to avoid the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17). Every man can practice and grow into these callings now, even before he gets married. In particular, the church is an especially good place for a young man to cultivate the kind of responsibility and initiative that will be required of him in marriage. So what are ways for single men to learn to lead, provide, and protect within the church? 1. Grow As a Leader As a husband, a man will be tasked with sacrificially leading his wife (Ephesians 5:22). God will call him to become the kind of Christlike leader a godly woman can follow wholeheartedly, even as the church follows Christ. Paul says, “The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior” (Ephesians 5:23). Practically, men can grow into this kind of sacrificial leadership by cultivating humble initiative. As both Lion and Lamb (Revelation 5:5–6), Jesus embodies both strength and humility. While Christian men are being renewed, we are still drawn toward arrogant initiative (like Joab in 2 Samuel 3:26–27) or selfish passivity (like Adam in Genesis 3:6). With the help of others, we can see our own particular tendencies, repent, and seek grace to grow in concrete ways. For instance, a man characterized by pride might invite trusted friends to plainly point out selfishness they observe. A man who leans toward selfish passivity might take the initiative to greet people sitting alone at church, rather than merely moving toward those he already knows. 2. Grow As a Provider As a husband, a man will be called to another form of leadership: primary provision for his family. Paul makes this plain in Ephesians 5:28–29: “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.” Just as a man provides for his own needs, God calls him to provide for his wife. This does not mean the husband will be the home’s only breadwinner, or even that he will necessarily earn more than his wife. It simply means he will take ultimate responsibility to ensure his family’s physical and spiritual needs are met. Unmarried men can begin applying this by working hard for the right reasons (Proverbs 14:23; Colossians 3:23–24). Are we essentially working to fund hobbies, experiences, and vacations? Or, believing God has called us to meaningful work, are we actively, tangibly using it to love him and others? 3. Grow As a Protector In marriage, God calls men to accept danger, as necessary, to protect their wives, a third critical dimension of a husband’s calling. Jesus set the ultimate example for men by giving up his life on the cross for his bride’s sanctification (Ephesians 5:25), thereby protecting us from God’s eternal judgment (John 3:36). This does not mean men are fearless or more courageous than their wives. Instead, it involves a willingness, like Jesus in Gethsemane (Luke 22:40), to protect others even if we’re afraid ourselves. Christian men will not need to search very far for opportunities to practice protection. We are surrounded by injustice and people at risk. It’s easy — like the Levite and priest in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) — to look the other way, but godly men learn to step in. One man I know, for example, keeps granola bars in his car for homeless people, and looks for opportunities to serve and engage them. You might also take the risk to speak up on behalf of others who are being slandered or treated unfairly because of their Christian beliefs. More than that, however, godly men understand protecting others from an eternity without Christ is the greatest service they can render. Such spiritual protection requires a deep belief in God ourselves, and a willingness to accept resistance when we speak the truth in love — as, for example, when we gently warn non-Christian friends of their spiritual danger (1 Peter 3:15) or confront other Christians about their sin (Matthew 18:15–17). Find a Husband to Follow While seeking God first and leaning into his callings for us as men is critical, it’s immensely helpful to find a godly married man to disciple you (1 Corinthians 11:1; 2 Timothy 2:2). Proactively find someone you admire who’s willing to be transparent, and ask to spend time with him and his family. Ask him what he’s learned from the successes and failures in his marriage, and consider how you might incorporate those lessons even now. As men, all of us are called to run hard after Christ (Philippians 3:8–12), regardless of whether we marry one day. But as we pursue Christ and grow as leaders, providers, and protectors, we will be more prepared to date — and ultimately, marry — a godly woman, if God wills.
