Test Of Faith

The Author Of The Pavement

I was walking back from the Apapa Wharf, the Chairman’s cold ultimatum ringing in my ears like a funeral bell. The Lagos sun was setting, turning the sky into a bruised purple, much like the color of Chidi’s chest. I was looking at the ground, my mind calculating the "two sets of books" I would have to keep. I was already a criminal in my heart.

THUD.

I slammed into someone. Not a man, but a small, sturdy frame that felt like hitting a wall of cedar. My Bible, still tucked under my arm, tumbled to the dusty pavement.

"Ah-ah! My daughter, why are you walking as if the ground is your enemy?"

I looked up into a face that was a map of a thousand stories. She was old—older than the bridge, it seemed—with a wrapper tied firmly around her waist and eyes that held a strange, silvery light. She didn't look angry; she looked like she had been waiting for me to hit her.

She reached down, her wrinkled hands moving with surprising grace, and picked up my Bible. She brushed the dust off the leather with her palm.

"A heavy book for a heavy heart," she whispered. She grabbed my wrist. Her grip wasn't weak; it felt like a handcuff made of velvet. "You are heading toward a pit, My child.The Chairman’s gold is seasoned with the salt of widows' tears. Come. My house is just behind this street. You will not enter that warehouse tonight."

I tried to pull away, but something about her voice—a deep, resonant vibrato—made my feet move. I followed her into a small, narrow alleyway that smelled of burning incense and dried herbs. Her house was a single room, but it felt larger on the inside, filled with the shadows of flickering candles and the sound of a distant, rhythmic humming.

"Sit," The Old Lady said,pointing to a wooden stool. She placed my Bible on a small table between us. "Tell me why you have turned this Lion into a lamb that you keep in the dark."

"The Lion didn't roar when the tanker came, Mama," I snapped, the bitterness rising in my throat like bile. "He was silent! I believed! I preached! I told everyone in that workshop that Psalm 34:7 was true—that 'The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.' Where was the camp, Mama? Where was the delivery? My father is in cold storage! My brother is breathing through a machine bought with blood money!"

I stood up, pacing the small room, quoting the verses that now felt like jagged glass in my mouth.

"He promised in Exodus 14:14 that 'The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.' I was still! I waited! And while I was being still, the world collapsed! He said in Isaiah 43:2 that 'When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.' Well, I am drowning! The water is in my lungs! The Chairman is the only one offering me a boat, and you’re telling me not to take it?"

The Old Lady didn't flinch. She leaned forward, the candlelight dancing in her silver eyes. She slammed her hand on the table, the sound like a gunshot.

"Silence, daughter of Eve!" she roared. "You speak of the waters, but you forget the Fire! You quote the promises, but you treat God like a waiter at a restaurant who failed to bring your order on time! You think the 'Good Life' is a life without thorns? Did they not crown the King with them?"

She stood up, her shadow stretching across the wall like a giant.

"Listen to the Word of the Lord! Job 13:15... 'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.' That is the faith of a soldier! Not this 'Fair-weather' gospel you have been feeding on! You want to work for the Chairman? You want to sign your name in the devil's ledger? Mark 8:36 asks you tonight: 'For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'"

She grabbed my shoulders and shook me. "If you enter that warehouse, you are telling God that His arm is too short to save you! You are telling Him that the Chairman is more powerful than the Creator of the Heavens! Jeremiah 17:5 says, 'Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord.' Do you want that curse on your brother? Do you want to feed your brother with the bread of wickedness?"

"I want him to live!" I screamed back.

"Then PRAY!" she yelled, her voice vibrating the very floorboards. "Pray as if the Rapture is taking place this very second! Pray as if you are standing at the edge of the bottomless pit! Do not give up to the ghost of despair! Luke 18:1 says men ought always to pray and not to faint! You are fainting, My Daughter! WORSHIP HIM! Worship Him in the middle of the graveyard! Worship Him until the chains of the Chairman break off your mind!"

The old lady began to pray in a language I didn't understand—a torrent of fire and spirit. She fell to her knees and pulled me down with her.

"Praise Him!" she commanded. "Praise Him for the breath in your brother’s flungs! Praise Him for the grease on Isaac's hands! Habakkuk 3:17-18... 'Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines... yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior!'"

I started to weep. Not the quiet sobs of the hospital, but a loud, guttural wailing. I began to shout the names of God I had forgotten. I shouted until my lungs felt like they were going to rupture just like Chidi's. I felt a heat in the room that had nothing to do with the Lagos weather.

"I am sorry!" I cried out, clutching the Bible to my chest. "I am sorry for trying to be my own provider! I am sorry for looking at the Chairman instead of the Cross!"

As I prayed, I felt a weight lift—not the weight of the tragedy, but the weight of the fear. I realized that if I went to that warehouse, I would be killing the only part of me that was still alive.

When I finally opened my eyes, the room was quiet. Old lady was sitting on the floor, breathing heavily. She looked at me and smiled.

"Go home, My Child. Do not go to Apapa. The Lord who kept the Hebrew boys in the fire is the same Lord who is standing in your parlor. Trust the Anchor. Even when the ship is breaking, trust the Anchor."

I walked out into the night. I didn't feel safe, and I didn't have 1.5 million Naira. But for the first time since the tanker hit, I felt like I wasn't walking alone.

The morning after the encounter with the old lady, the air in our parlor felt different. It was thin, expectant. Isaac was sitting at the table, cleaning his spark plugs with a rag, his face set in a grim mask. I sat across from him and placed my Bible—the one the old lady had blessed with her silver-eyed gaze—right between us.

"I’m not going to Apapa, Isaac," I said. My voice didn't shake. "I’m not keeping those books. I’m not helping him move 'sensitive cargo.' If I do, I’m selling Chidi’s soul to pay for his breath."

Isaac stopped scrubbing. He looked at me, then at the Bible, then back at me. A slow, weary smile touched his lips. "I was waiting for you to say that. I went to the warehouse last night to tell him I’m out. I told him he can keep the shop, but he can’t have my hands anymore."

"What did he say?"

"He didn't say anything," Isaac whispered. "He just poured a glass of champagne and told me to enjoy the 'last of the quiet hours.'"

The silence that followed was terrifying. We spent the day in a state of hyper-vigilance. I checked Chidi’s Vitals every thirty minutes. I was looking for any sign of distress, but he was breathing better than he had in weeks. The "Test" wasn't coming from his lungs this time. It was coming from the street.

At 4:00 PM, the power went out. Not the usual Lagos "NEPA" blackout. The wires leading to our house were physically cut. Then came the sound of boots on the pavement—the heavy, rhythmic thud of men who don't knock.

The "Area Boys" didn't come for money this time. They came for blood. The Chairman had sent them to collect the "Interest" on a debt that could never be paid.

"Bring out the mechanic!" they roared, smashing the front windows with iron rods. Glass sprayed across the floor like diamonds of ice.

I pushed Chidi under the bed, clutching his portable oxygen concentrator. "Don't move, Chidi. Don't even breathe loud. Psalm 27:1... 'The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?'" I whispered it over and over, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Isaac grabbed a heavy iron pipe—the only "tool" he had left. He stood by the door, a silhouette of defiance. "Bianca, get into the back room. Lock it!"

"No!" I shouted, standing beside him with my Bible gripped in my hand like a shield. " Ephesians 6:13! 'Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground.' I am standing, Isaac! I am not running anymore!"

The door burst open. Four men, their faces masked with soot and rage, stormed in. They didn't use guns; they used clubs and machetes. They wanted us to feel the pain. They smashed the furniture. They threw the plates I had just filled with rice against the wall.

"The Chairman says you forgot how to say 'Yes'!" the leader hissed, swinging a lead pipe that caught Isaac in the ribs. I heard the sickening c***k—the sound of a Rib Fracture. I watched as Isaac collapsed, his face contorting in agony, but he didn't let go of the pipe.

As they moved toward me, one of them reached for my Bible to throw it into the small fire they had started with our curtains.

"Touch it and see!" I screamed. I wasn't a girl anymore; I was a prophetess. I felt a surge of adrenaline, a Sympathetic Nervous System explosion that made the world slow down. " Isaiah 54:17! 'No weapon forged against me shall prosper!' You want to burn the Word? You want to kill a boy who is already a miracle?"

I didn't hit them. I didn't have to.

At that exact moment, a siren wailed from the street—not the police, but a fire truck that happened to be passing by to reach a different fire down the road. The bright red lights flashed through our broken windows, casting a b****y, divine glow over the room.

The men froze. In the chaos and the flashing lights, they thought the authorities had arrived.

"Let's go! The Zango boys are here!" the leader shouted. They fled, leaving behind a trail of destruction and the smell of smoke.

I ran to Isaac. He was gasping, his breathing labored. My medical mind took over. "Isaac, stay still. You have a Pneumothorax risk from that rib. Don't speak." I used my wrapper to bind his chest, creating a makeshift Chest Binder to stabilize the fracture.

We sat in the wreckage of our home, the smell of burnt fabric heavy in the air. We had nothing. No chairs, no windows, no power. But Chidi was still breathing under the bed. Isaac was still alive in my arms.

I looked at my Bible. It was singed at the edges, but the pages were intact. I opened it to James 1:2-4: 'Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.'

"Do you feel the joy, Isaac?" I whispered, wiping blood from his forehead.

He coughed, a pained, dry sound. "I feel the perseverance, Bianca. I feel the Anchor holding."

We realized the Test wasn't over. The Chairman was still out there. The debt was still "legal." But we had passed the first gate. We had said "No" to the devil in the middle of Lagos, and we were still standing.

I looked out at the dark street. The neighbors were peeking out of their doors, whispering. I didn't hide. I stood in the broken doorway, the Bible open in my hands.

"The God who kept the Hebrew boys in the fire is still in this house!" I shouted to the shadows. "Tell the Chairman! Tell the street! We are not for sale!"

The morning after the escape, we didn't hide in the house. Isaac said that if we stayed indoors, fear would grow like mold in the damp corners of our hearts. We went to the street.

We found a spot under a rusted pedestrian bridge in Oshodi. It was a chaotic, high-energy artery of Lagos, filled with the smell of diesel and the shouting of "Agberos" (conductors). Isaac set his toolbox down on the oily concrete. He didn't have a sign, he didn't have a roof, and he didn't have a single customer.

"We are starting from zero, Bianca," Isaac said, his eyes scanning the horizon for the Chairman's black SUVs. " Job 8:7 says, 'Though your beginning was small, yet your latter end should greatly increase.' We are the small beginning."

I watched Isaac approach a broken-down Danfo bus that three other mechanics had walked away from. He didn't just fix it; he cleaned the parts. He explained the Combustion Cycle to the driver. He showed him how a clogged Fuel Injector was stealing his daily profit.

I sat on a plastic crate with my Bible open, acting as the "Human Ledger." I recorded every 500 Naira note we earned. I saw the way people looked at us—a man in a grease-stained shirt and a girl with a Bible in the middle of the Lagos filth. We were a walking contradiction. I wrote down the names of every driver, and every night, I would pray over those names. We weren't just earning money; we were building a "City of Refuge" on a sidewalk. The sun was a physical weight, and the dust made my throat feel like I had swallowed a desert, but every legal Kobo we made felt like a slap in the face to the Chairman.

Because we couldn't go back to the hospital for follow-ups—too many eyes, too many of the Chairman’s informants—I had to turn our bedroom into a Sterile Zone. This scene focuses on the Technical Nursing Bianca performs.

Every evening, I would make him sit upright. I used a stolen incentive spirometer to measure his Forced Vital Capacity.

"Inhale, Chidi. Hold it. Let the Alveoli pop open," I whispered, watching the little yellow ball rise in the plastic tube.

I was obsessed with his Apex Beat. I would place two fingers on the left side of his chest, feeling for the rhythmic thump of his heart. I was checking for Cardiac Tamponade—the silent killer. If his heart felt muffled, or if his neck veins looked distended, it meant the fluid was back. I lived in a world of Anatomical Vigilance. I explained to him how his body was a "Living Tabernacle."

"Your lungs are the curtains of the temple, Chidi," I told him while cleaning his surgical scar with methylated spirits. "The Spirit is the breath. We have to keep the curtains clean."

We spent hours memorizing Psalm 150—the "Hallelujah" psalm. I told him that every time he breathed without pain, he was shouting "Praise the Lord" in a language the doctors couldn't understand.

To supplement Isaac’s mechanical work, I started a "Word & Water" business. I sold cold sachets of "Pure Water" in the traffic, but I wrapped each one in a small slip of paper with a Bible verse and a prayer.

I walked between the cars on the Third Mainland Bridge, the heat reflecting off the metal like a furnace.

"Give me two, Sister!" a woman in a luxury Jeep shouted, her face covered in sweat and tears.

I handed her the water. The verse on it was Matthew 11:28: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

I watched her read it and begin to sob. Right there, in the middle of a three-hour traffic jam, I leaned into her window and prayed. I didn't care about the horns or the shouting drivers. I felt a Boldness I never had in the choir. I was a "Street Prophetess." I made enough money to buy Chidi’s high-protein supplements and the expensive Antibiotics he needed to prevent a post-op infection.

"We are walking with God, Isaac!" I told him that night, counting the damp, crumpled bills. "It’s slower than the Chairman’s way, but the money doesn't burn my hands.

We knew the Chairman’s men were still looking. We knew the "escape" was only a temporary reprieve.

We gathered in the center of our parlor, our hands linked with Chidi, who was finally strong enough to stand for a few minutes. The moonlight poured through the gaps in the boards we had nailed over the broken windows.

"Isaiah 54:17, Isaac! Say it with me!"

"No weapon formed against us shall prosper!" We didn't just pray; we Decreed. I described the atmosphere in the room—it felt thick, like we were submerged in a pool of invisible protection. I realized that the "Test of Faith" wasn't just about surviving the tanker or the surgery. It was about the Long Walk. It was about choosing to be "Legal" in a city that rewards the "Illegal."

"The Chairman thinks he owns the streets," I whispered as the sound of a heavy engine passed by our house and didn't stop. "But the Street belongs to the One who walked on the Water."

We lay down to sleep, not in fear, but in a state of Divine Defiance. We had escaped the men, we had rejected the money, and now, we were building a kingdom out of grease, water, and the Word.

Lagos does not care if you are walking with God; the rain falls on the righteous and the wicked alike. Three days into our "Sidewalk Hustle," the sky turned the color of a bruised plum. A tropical downpour hit Oshodi with the force of a thousand hammers.

The rusted pedestrian bridge offered no real shelter. The wind whipped the rain sideways, soaking Isaac to the bone as he tried to protect a customer’s alternator from the water.

"Isaac, we have to pack up!" I screamed over the roar of the thunder.

"I can't, Bianca! If this water gets into the Electronic Control Unit (ECU), the car is dead! I promised this man it would be ready!"

I watched him use his own shirt—his only dry garment—to wrap the sensitive electronics. He stood there in the freezing rain, shivering, his skin turning a sickly grey. This was the Physicality of Faith. It wasn't a song in a dry church; it was standing in a gutter in Oshodi, protecting someone else's property while your own life was washing away.

I pulled out my Bible, but the pages were starting to damp. I shielded it with my body, crouching in the mud. I began to recite Psalm 18:16: "He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters." I spent time describing the Pathophysiology of Hypothermia—how Isaac’s fingers lost their dexterity, his fine motor skills failing as the blood retreated to his core. I saw the Vasoconstriction in his hands, his knuckles white and rigid. Yet, he didn't curse. He didn't look toward the Chairman’s dry, air-conditioned warehouse. He just tightened a bolt with a trembling hand and whispered, "God is my strength." We made only 1,200 Naira that day, but every note was soaked in the water of a finished test.

When we finally got home, the house was freezing. Chidi was coughing—a dry, hacking sound that sent a spike of terror through my heart.

I sat by Chidi’s bed, rubbing his chest with warm oil, trying to ease the Intercostal Muscle Strain from his coughing fits. The smell of the oil mixed with the dampness of the house, reminding me of the day we buried Papa.

"Bianca," Chidi whispered, his voice thin. "Do you think Papa is watching? Does he know we didn't take the money?"

"He knows, Chidi. He’s in the Cloud of Witnesses now. Hebrews 12:1 says they are cheering us on."

I looked at Papa’s empty corner. I described the Psychology of Grief—how the silence of a dead loved one becomes a loud, screaming presence when you are suffering. I felt the temptation to "Crash Out" again. I wanted to yell at the ceiling, 'Is this the reward? To be wet, cold, and hungry while the murderers sleep on silk?' But then, I looked at Isaac. He was kneeling by the small stove, trying to light a fire to warm some water for Chidi. His back was scarred from the Area Boys’ attack, his ribs still bound in the makeshift binder I had made. He looked like a broken king.

"Job 23:10," Isaac said, sensing my gaze. "But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold."

I realized then that the "Test" wasn't just about the Chairman. It was about the Daily Endurance. It was about choosing to believe in the "Gold" while you were covered in "Mud." I spent the rest of the night writing in my journal, documenting the Small Mercies—the neighbor who gave us a cup of dry rice, the bus driver who paid an extra 200 Naira because he liked Isaac’s honesty. These were the "Bread of the Presence" in our wilderness.The chapter concludes on a Sunday morning. We didn't go to the big church; we were too dirty, our clothes too ragged. We stayed in the parlor.

We broke a small piece of bread and shared a cup of water—our own Communion. I read Romans 8:37: "In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."

We sat in a long, 5,000-word silence. It wasn't the silence of death, but the silence of a Peace Treaty with God. We had survived the first week of the "Long Walk." We were skinnier, darker from the sun, and tired to the bone—but our spirits were armored.

"Tomorrow," Isaac said, looking out the window at the rising sun, "we go back to the bridge."

"Tomorrow," I agreed, "we go back to the Word."

As I closed the Bible, I felt a strange vibration in the air. The Chairman had been quiet for too long. The test of the "Hustle" was ending, and the test of the "Sword" was about to begin.