HE BROKE UP WITH HIS EX GIRLFRIEND BECAUSE SHE WAS A SATANIST, HE SAID

“So tell me why you supposedly “broke up” with her in the first place?” She angrily insisted. “You know your parents wanted you to marry that woman. I would not have taken you back if I knew then what I know now. I am very angry with you and disappointed in you because you deceived me into marrying you!”

Peter thought carefully before he answered. Then tears of what she perceived as remorse, trickled down his face. “You don’t understand. I would never have been able to stay with her after she insisted that I go to the Spiritualist Church with her,” he muttered. He looked Anna directly in the eyes, shaking his head defiantly. “I knew she and her mother, actually, her whole family were talking to the dead and spirits and stuff. I always thought they were talking to the devil. I didn’t want to get involved in Satanism. No, not at all. She was a bad woman. I had to get away from her…”

She became ice cold. “But you told me it was because she denied you sex? She was such a decent girl? Too decent to your liking? I never thought about it before, but why did you marry me then, seeing that I was really a decent girl?”

“My parents never said a word about anything to me,” he deflected the confrontation. “They never said anything about you or about her; I never understood what they were doing. I only get the picture now. They never allowed me to make my own choices without meddling behind my back, but they never could make me stop loving you. They never taught me about the Lord. They brought me up with alcoholism, violence, immorality... It was as if they placed a spell on me. You know Charles always says he is ‘the brain and I am the brawn, I shouldn’t try to think for myself.’ ‘Where there’s no sense, there’s no feeling,’ and I ‘break everything I touch!’ My mother never tried to defend me in the least! You were the only one who stood up for me. His favorite saying was, I am a mule’s c**t; no good to man and beast and...!” He swallowed the rest of the sentence to continue softly, “The way he put his fists and feet into me since I was a boy… He hated me…”

Anna felt her face glow with anger but she pressed her lips together. She was falling for Peter’s blame shifting trick again. According to that evil Charles, Peter had absolutely no right to live either as a human or an animal, as he has no purpose or function in life other than to be useless and vile. Even more horrendously, Peter’s ‘good’ mother never once attempted to defend her son, but instead, defended and revered her demonic husband! (Lev. 5:1; Prov. 17:15; Rom. 1:32!)

Peter continued in a smothered voice, hanging his head in both his hands, “My mother helped and protected Charles in everything. And ever since I was born, they put restraints on my mind somehow! They were so sneaky I could not understand what they were doing to me…” He looked up into her eyes. “...To you. I planned nothing of all that rubbish from hell! I made many mistakes and sinned grossly against you, but I was sincere with you from the beginning. From the first moment I saw you, I knew you were the one. You still are the one, and you will always be the one.”

After nearly a lifetime of hypocrisy, lies, infidelity, and broken promises from Peter, she seriously doubted that he ever loved her. He was playing on her sympathy and lying with a straight face, she then decided. Knowing something about him now, Anna assumed he would never let up on a golden opportunity like this to mess with her mind again. Over the years, he was always immovable when it came to confessing his sin against her. And even when he did, it was always just half a truth; misguided truth, or he was shifting his responsibility and accountability unto his parents and other people.

Of course, like a million times before, Anna had no choice but to forgive him again although she did not believe him.

To keep the pretence of living some kind of normal life, she tried to put it all behind her and make the most of what she had left. She was sternly set in the belief that, through it all, God was gradually changing Peter.

PETER NEARLY DIED AND HIS MOTHER APPEARED ON THE SCENE

On Christmas Day, 14 years after his parents had abandoned him, Peter had a serious heart attack. After the cardiologist did an angiogram, he said Peter required a bypass, or he would die within six months.

But to Peter, Anna declared, “That’s what he says – but what does God say?”

They would not rush into such major surgery anyway.

Naturally, Anna pleaded with God to spare his life and heal him. She would have given her life if that could save him.

Additionally, they were able to pay the enormous bill for the trauma unit, the critical care unit, and the necessary tests in cash, but the rest of their money was on fixed deposit and they did not have a medical aid. The cardiologist decided, alternatively, he could place five stents in Peter’s heart to keep the arteries open. That would cost Peter R80,000 ZAR – but that, at the time, was also a vast amount, which they could not raise in a hurry. The cardiologist lost interest and sent Peter to a government hospital for treatment.

Early January, Anna believed God spoke into her heart.

She told Peter and everyone who called to hear how he was doing, “God will heal Peter. By April this year, he will be doing a full day’s work again.”

One of Peter’s loud-mouthed cousins laughed in her face. “I do not believe such nonsense,” he said bluntly.

The son of Charles’ White Rat also heard the news. He swallowed his unlawful anger and came to visit Peter secretly. He lived directly opposite Charles and Zeena, and had apparently arranged for them to buy the double story across the street from him when they moved from the cottage years ago. He had since taken the place of Peter in their lives.

Oddly, he got it over his tight lips to say, “When Uncle Charles heard of the heart attack, he said, ‘Serve him right!’ I felt that was wrong.”

Peter chose not to humor such scornful concern with an answer.

When the telephone rang again and there was silence on the other side, Anna knew Zeena heard the news, living opposite the son and daughter-in-law of Charles’ “White Rat.”

“Anna…” She whispered. Anna cried. She did not know what to say. She hoped with all her heart this terrible feud would finally end. “Anna, can you hear me?”

“I can hear you,” She choked on her tears.

“I want to see Peter,” she demanded.

“We are still where you left us so many years ago. We have done nothing and are ashamed of nothing. You are welcome.”

Zeena came to ring the bell at their gate. They sat a long time trying to dissolve the many horrible things Peter’s mother and her husband had done.

This time, Anna was more vigilant than before, knowing how wicked Zeena twists and manipulates every word.

Although she was greatly criticized, scolded and mocked about this later on, she had no other way to defend herself against such incredible treachery and lies than to stash a voice recorder under the couch. She got every word on tape.

As usual, no amount of reasoning could crack Zeena’s heart of stone. She had no conviction of sin and harbored no remorse for what they had done. She denied every word Peter and Anna said, accusing them of making up stories.

“Every single person you and I have known, have heard your slanderous lies,” Peter said.

“Who are they?” she challenged.

Peter began to name some of them, but she interrupted, “They talk nonsense, man! J***s, why do you listen to a bunch of liars and troublemakers?”

“You are the liars and troublemakers. Why did you do it - slander our name with lies everywhere you went?”

“Charles and I have done nothing,” Zeena put on her meek old-woman face. “We just could not stand her shouting and screaming anymore,” She addressed Peter and just beckoned towards Anna by moving her head. “To avoid further trouble, we had to take our stuff and move…”

“So, we didn’t assault you and chase you away, then?” Anna asked.

“Who told you that rubbish?” she frowned convincingly.

Anna forced a little laugh. “You have proved by your incredible lies, slander, and troublemaking that you most definitely did not want to avoid any further trouble,” she said calmly, shaking her head in drily amazement.

Zeena sat looking at her as if she did not really exist, refusing to answer.

“Please tell me,” Anna continued, “what have I done that made me so utterly unacceptable from the very beginning, that you could destroy my life — Peter’s life, and our sons’ lives with so many evil plans and slander?”

Zeena nodded meaningfully, not moving her mocking gaze from Anna’s eyes, “You know. You know...”

“No, I really don’t know,” Anna shook her head defiantly. “Please tell me. I have always told you where and how you wronged me. I always gave you the opportunity to repent and do what is right. Why can’t you do the same for me?”

“Anna, you have always rejected us!” She blurted it out. “You have rejected us from the very beginning!”

“Are you crazy, Ma?” Anna’s jaw dropped. “You know that’s not true. It was just the other way round…”

“No, no, no! I treated you like a queen!”

“When… How?”

“When you worked on a Saturday afternoon and the children were watching television with us - I brought you tea!”

“Oh yes, that was once or twice… Sorry, I have forgotten. Nevertheless, compared to all the many wicked things you did, one can hardly term that as ‘treating me like a queen.’ You know you have rejected me from before Peter and I got engaged, forcing Gwen on him all the time!”

“You always kept us sitting in the back yard while you entertained your parents here in front,” she craftily evaded the statements. “When Peter made barbeque, you said, ‘Peter, leave your parents and call my parents to eat with us.’ J***s man, many times, the old people were already sitting at their table, but they just covered their food and rushed off to barbeque with you!”

“That’s just silly — and stop taking the Lord’s Name in vain in my home! ‘Sitting at the back’ was entirely your own idea! You know you shared every cake and bread I baked, Ma! You were never excluded… You were always in our home with every occasion… My parents loved you and accepted you into my whole family! We hardly ever went to my parents’ family gatherings without you! You are lying again. I never included my parents while neglecting you!” Anna looked to the passive Peter for assistance. He sat like a statue. “And you, my husband, what do you say about all this?”

He hesitated another moment, then slightly hook his head, “No, it’s a lie.” He looked directly at Zeena, “You ate more meals at our table than the old people did. When Anna started going to church, I invited them to barbeque with us on Sundays, not Anna. I invited you too, but Charles always said you have already made dinner.”

“Never mind,” Anna stopped the argument in its tracks. “At least, now I know one crime I have committed to deserve a lifetime of condemnation! Sometimes, Peter invited my parents for a barbeque when you could not come. What else did I do wrong?”

Zeena pressed her lips together and refused to say another word.

Anna insisted calmly, “Come on, why don’t you answer? You had a hell of a lot to say behind our backs, why not tell some of it to our faces?”

She slipped into helpless-old-woman mode again, shrugging her shoulders, “I don’t know… It was a lot of little things….”

“A lot of little things!” Peter exploded. Anna was concerned for his health and tried to calm him down, but he would not listen. “Little things, for which you destroyed my life? Little things, like telling the whole wide world I stole your house and chased you away? When and how did I steal your house and chase you away?”

“Who said that? Who said that?”

“You did.”

“No, we never said any of these things Anna accuses us of.”

“It’s not Anna accusing you; it’s exactly what you said. Did I steal your house and chase you away?”

“J***s man, I told you not to listen to liars and troublemakers,” She gave Anna a killer look. “We have done nothing wrong. Nothing...”

With effort, Peter calmed down and took a deep breath. “I am glad you came to see me,” he continued slowly. “But unless you confess what you have done, and do restitution by telling every person the truth to restore our name, you are not welcome in my home. You have abandoned your cottage intentionally, which you traded for ‘the house.’ You rejected me, my wife, my sons, and interfered with everything single thing in my life. You have destroyed my good name, affected my business, and gave me a bad reputation…”

“I have come to tell you what Charles said…”

“Charles told everyone he is not my father and I believe him,” Peter met his mother’s gaze with a granite stare. “I am not interested in what Charles has to say.”

She pulled an annoyed face and made a discarding gesture, choosing to ignore his statement, “We heard you do not have the money to pay for the operation. Charles said he will GIVE you the R80,000 for the stents.”

To Anna’s surprise, Peter answered without wavering, “You listen to too many stories and as a result, you hallucinate all the time and dream up your own fables. I do have the money; it’s on fixed deposit. However, do you see my beautiful koi pond out there?” He motioned to the well-kept, tropical garden where their self-made waterfall plunged into a deep pool, alive with huge, colored fish. “We have another pond at the back. So, I would rather eat my fish, drink that water, eat all the ornamental grass in the garden, and then die from hunger, than to take a sent from you and Charles. Tell Charles I do not need his money. In any case, I cannot see how he can have money to give to me, seeing he did not work for two-thirds of his life, and I stole everything you ever had – including money for three businesses!”

Zeena left all puffed up; carrying her shameless head high.

They did not see Peter’s mother for another few years.

In the meantime, Zeena and Charles had another exciting tale to tell their story-hungry audience.

Peter and Anna can still hear Zeena now, “Charles had given Peter another R80,000 from the goodness of his heart! Peter would have died if it were not for Charles’ goodness, as again, he could not even pay his own medical bills! Now that they sit with everything and we have nothing, they chase us away again!

In reality, Peter and Anna did not receive a grain of mercy or money from anyone — the least from those two fraudsters, Charles and Zeena Manson.

When Peter saw the Indian doctor at the government hospital for the first time, the man studied his angiogram carefully. Then he looked at Peter over the rim of his glasses.

“What did the cardiologist wanted to do for you?” he asked matter-of-factly.

“First, a bypass, but as I did not have the money available at the time, he wanted to put five stents…”

The doctor interrupted, “Five stents?” Peter nodded confirmingly. The doctor continued, “Did he know you are a diabetic?” Peter affirmed. The doctor put on an unreadable face. “Just as well you didn’t have a medical aid or the money available,” he said as if he was predicting the weather. “If you chose the stents, the high glucose content in your blood would have accumulated on the stents, clogging your arteries completely. Then, you would surely have died within six months.”

Peter sat stunned. When he told Anna, they wept together in awe of the goodness and greatness of their all-knowing God.

In all of this too, the merciful God had been there all the time.

Additionally, by God’s grace, Anna had heard correctly from their Almighty Provider and Healer.

By April that year, Peter was doing a full day’s work again without any operation or drastic medical intervention.

During a recent doctor’s visit, a cardiologist told him, “It is amazing how the body was created to take care of itself. If one suffers a major heart attack like the one you had and survives, the body actually creates new arteries for the blood to flow, diverting the blood from the damaged main aorta…”

ANNA, INNOCENTLY ON TRIAL IN FRONT OF HER FAMILY

Five years after Peter’s heart attack, one of Anna’s cousins called her unexpectedly.

He heard she had inherited the family Bible from her mother and wanted to see it.

Anna was shocked to learn from him that his sister, Cookie, was terminally ill. She got her long-lost cousin’s number and called her. Cookie was friendly and invited her and Peter to Sunday dinner.

When they arrived, Cookie’s home was bustling with her many children and grandchildren. It seemed everyone Cookie knew was there to prepare the dinner for them all. Having lost touch with her cousin after her mother’s death, Anna and Peter hardly knew anyone there. They were practically visiting a bunch of strangers in an unfamiliar house.

Cookie waited until everyone was seated for dinner, and had begun to eat.

Then, her gaze nailed Anna to the chair. “I often met your parents-in-law at your brother’s place during the years,” she said loudly. “It was scandalous what you did to those two lovely old people.”

Silence fell on everyone in the room. Anna nearly choked on her food. She could feel everyone staring at her. She could feel the blood drain from her face. She looked at Peter for reassurance, but as usual when she was under fire, he was silent.

“What?” Anna could only whisper; her voice was gone.

“I mean, the way you stole their house and chased them away, being a Christian and all, was just… blasphemous! What happened to ‘honor thy father and mother?’ Furthermore, I would like to know, where is your brother’s antique bedroom suite your mother left him? And where is your sister’s antique elephant-table!”

“What?” Again, Anna glanced towards Peter for help, but he still sat as if he were made of stone. All the other people in the room sat silently too, staring at Anna.

The innocent Anna was on trial in front of her own husband and a room full of strangers.

Bizarrely, Cookie’s husband Bill, whom Anna had only met once or twice before, took pity on her and came to her rescue.

Bill got up abruptly and shouted, “These are lies! All lies! I will have nothing to do with this!”

“You were there,” Cookie shouted back. “Bill, you heard them cry. You saw Aunty Zeena trembled with sorrow! She was inconsolable with longing for her son and grandchildren, whom Anna will not allow her to see!”

“It’s all lies! Lies!” Bill shouted as he stormed out the room.

When Peter and Anna left shortly afterwards, she greeted her cousin with a kiss. “Cookie, you have humiliated me terribly in front of all your visitors. They are strangers to me,” she said softly. “Do you know that if Jesus calls you tonight, you will have to give an account for all the lies you have believed about me, and which you have spread to everyone you know?”

“I don’t believe lies,” she said immovably. “They told me themselves what you have done to those two good people.”

“You are mistaken, Cookie… May I come back tomorrow to prove that to you?”

She remained unwilling for a moment. Then she nodded annoyed.

Anna returned the next day with her voice recorder and the tape she had made the day Zeena came to visit Peter after he had the heart attack. Anna also brought a copy of her mother’s last will and testament, proving that the antique bedroom suite she (Anna) had, was bequeathed to her by her mother. The elephant-table was conferred on her sister in their mother’s will. In fact, her parents gave the bedroom suite to her and Peter as a wedding present. It had been standing in Anna’s home for nearly a lifetime; everyone knew about it. However, her mother left the other, much larger and better antique bedroom suite, which her parents used to their death, to her younger brother.

“I cannot believe my ears and eyes!” Cookie said exasperated after she heard the tape and studied the will. There was an upset tremble in her voice. “It cannot be the same woman! It’s the same voice, but she denies everything they told us all! They have said it, many times, in your brother’s living room, in front of everyone there! I would never have believed they are such good actors and crafty deceivers if I did not hear this myself!”

Cookie did not comment on the bedroom suite and the elephant-table. Anna treaded softly on the shaking ground surrounding her sick cousin. She knew her own siblings had climbed on the bandwagon with Charles and Zeena, falsely accusing her of grossly abusing Peter’s parents, and also stealing some of the things their mother left them, while they all knew she was completely innocent, and had the papers to prove it.

“I know, Cookie,” she said, restraining her brooding anger. “Charles and Zeena have twisted the whole world around their little finger. However, let me tell you, I do have an elephant-table. It’s a side table just like the one my mother left my sister, but it’s heavier and much bigger. That one was black, this one’s in oak. Peter bought it for me as a present after my mother died. I am not a thief or a liar, my dear cousin. I am a born again child of the Living God.”

(Continue)