Test Of Faith

The Currency Of Mercy

I didn't go back for my Bible.

When Isaac dropped us off at our gate the next morning, the sun was already high, baking the Lagos dust into a hard, unforgiving crust. Chidi was asleep in the back seat, his breathing finally deep and steady, thanks to the steroids and the nebulizer Isaac had paid for.

I looked at our front door. The wood was peeling, and I knew that just inside, my Bible was lying in the dirt next to the shattered picture of Jesus. I felt a phantom weight in my hands, a habit of twenty years reaching for a comfort that was no longer there.

"You're overthinking it," Isaac said. He was leaning against the steering wheel, watching me. He hadn't asked for my phone number. He hadn't asked me to come to his church. He just sat there in his grey shirt, smelling like cedarwood.

"I've never spent a night without praying, Isaac," I whispered, not looking at him. "And last night, I didn't just stop praying. I declared war."

Isaac let out a short, dry laugh. "God is big enough to handle your war, Bianca. It’s the people who claim to speak for Him that you have to worry about. They are the ones who don't like it when you stop following the script."

I finally looked at him. "Why are you helping us? People in this neighborhood... they don't just give. Especially not to a girl with a dying mother’s debt and a sick brother."

Isaac’s expression went flat, the light in his eyes turning into cold flint. "Because I know what it’s like to lose a mother to a hospital that cares more about the deposit than the pulse. And I know that sometimes, a car ride is more prophetic than a three-hour sermon."

He reached into the glove box and pulled out a small, crumpled piece of paper. He scribbled a number on it.

"If the landlord comes back before Friday, call me. I’m not a rich man, Bianca. I fix generators for a living. But I know how to handle men who scream at orphans."

I took the paper. Our fingers brushed, and for a second, the world felt steady. Then he was gone, his grey car disappearing into the chaos of the morning traffic.

I carried Chidi inside. The house felt colder than I remembered. My father was still in his chair, staring at the wall. He didn't even blink when we walked in. I looked at the floor.

There it was. My Bible. The black leather was dusty. I picked it up, but I didn't open it. I put it on the very top shelf of the kitchen cupboard, behind the empty tins of Milo. Out of sight.

I had three days until Friday. Three days to find fifty thousand Naira.

The next morning, the hunger was a physical weight in my stomach. It wasn't the kind of hunger that a piece of bread could fix; it was the hollow, echoing kind that comes from knowing the cupboard is truly empty. I looked at Chidi. He was sitting at the small wooden table, staring at an empty plastic bowl. He didn't complain. That was the worst part. He just sat there, his ribcage still showing slightly through his shirt, waiting for a miracle I didn't think was coming.

"I’m going to the market, Chidi," I said, tying my wrapper tight. "I will bring something back. Just stay with Papa. Don't let him go near the stove."

I walked out into the heat of the Yaba market. Usually, this place felt like a symphony—the calls of the pepper sellers, the honking of the yellow buses, the smell of fried plantain. But today, it felt like a battlefield.

I went to Mama Tunde’s stall. She had been a friend of my mother for fifteen years. They used to swap fabric patterns and sit together during the Mothers' Day celebrations.

"Mama Tunde, good morning Ma," I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

She looked up from her pile of red scotch bonnet peppers. For a split second, I saw the old warmth, but then her eyes shifted. She looked at my dusty shoes, my uncombed hair, and the way I was clutching my small purse.

"Bianca. You are around," she said, her voice sounding like a door being locked.

"Ma, I am looking for work. Even if it is just to help you sort the vegetables or carry the bags for your customers. Anything at all. Chidi needs medicine, and the landlord..."

Mama Tunde began to rearrange her peppers with sudden, intense focus. "Ah, Bianca. Things are hard for everyone-o. The economy is not smiling. And you know... people are talking."

"Talking? Talking about what, Ma?"

She leaned in, her voice a sharp whisper. "They say the tragedy in your house is too much. Three people in one month? They say there is a shadow on your head, Nne. My customers... they are superstitious. If they see the 'Girl of Sorrows' handling their food, they might not buy."

The word hit me like a physical blow. The Girl of Sorrows. "My mother was your friend," I whispered, my eyes stinging.

"And I loved her," Mama Tunde said, finally looking at me with a flicker of pity. "But friendship does not pay for a spoiled batch of tomatoes. Take this." She reached into a basket and handed me two slightly bruised oranges. "Go and give your brother. But don't come back tomorrow, abeg. I am running a business, not a charity."

I walked away, the two oranges feeling like lead in my hands. I tried three more stalls. I tried the chemist where I used to buy Chidi’s inhalers. I tried the seamstress who used to praise my singing voice. Every time, the answer was the same: a shake of the head, a look of fear, or a cold "Not today."

By 2:00 PM, I was sitting on a concrete culvert by the roadside, watching the world go by. I felt invisible. In a city of twenty million people, I was a ghost.

I pulled out the crumpled piece of paper Isaac had given me. His handwriting was jagged, like a series of lightning bolts. Isaac – 080...

I shouldn't call him. I was a "good girl." Good girls didn't call strange men who fixed generators and smelled like cedarwood. But then I remembered Sister Agnes’s cold office. I remembered the sound of the dirt hitting my mother’s casket.

I stood up and walked toward the public phone booth at the corner. My heart was pounding. I wasn't just calling a man for help; I was stepping off the path I had walked my entire life.

I dialed the number. It rang three times.

"Hello?" His voice was deep, cutting through the noise of the market like a knife through butter.

"Isaac? It’s... it’s Bianca."

There was a pause. I could hear the sound of metal clanking in the background, a motor turning over.

"The landlord came early?" he asked.

"No," I said, my voice breaking. "But the world did. I can't find work, Isaac. They call me the 'Girl of Sorrows.' They won't touch me."

"Where are you?"

"Near the Yaba bus stop. By the big billboard."

"Stay there," he said. "Don't move. I’m coming."

The grey sedan pulled up to the curb exactly twelve minutes after I hung up the phone. Isaac didn't get out this time. He just leaned over and pushed the passenger door open. I slid in, the smell of cedarwood and cold air hitting me like a physical embrace.

"The 'Girl of Sorrows'?" Isaac asked, his eyes fixed on the rearview mirror as he pulled back into the chaotic stream of Yaba traffic. "That’s what they’re calling you?"

"Mama Tunde said it," I whispered, staring at the two bruised oranges in my lap. "She said I have a shadow on my head. That customers won't buy if they see me."

Isaac gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. "People use 'God’s will' as an excuse to be cowards, Bianca. It’s easier to call you cursed than to admit they’re too stingy to help."

"Maybe they're right," I said, a tear finally escaping and trekking through the dust on my cheek. "Everything I touch breaks. My mother. My father’s mind. Chidi’s health. Even my Bible... I can’t even look at it anymore."

Isaac slowed the car as we hit a bottleneck near the bridge. He turned to me, his expression softening for the first time. "I grew up in a house just like yours. My father was a pastor. He preached about the 'widows and orphans' every Sunday, but when my mother got sick—really sick—the church told him he didn't have enough faith. They said her cancer was a 'demon of disobedience.'"

I gasped. "That’s horrible."

"It’s the truth," Isaac said, his voice flat. "They stopped paying his salary because he was 'distracted' by her care. When she died, they didn't even come to the funeral because they said it was a 'defeat for the ministry.' I watched my father die of a broken heart six months later, still clutching a Bible that the people who gave it to him had used as a weapon against him."

He reached out, his hand hovering over mine for a second before he pulled back. "I don't fix generators because I love machines, Bianca. I fix them because a generator doesn't care if you have faith or if you're a sinner. If you give it fuel and you fix the spark, it gives you light. It’s honest. It’s the only thing in this city that doesn't lie to me."

We pulled up to a small, corrugated metal workshop on a side street in Ebute Metta. The sign above the door was hand-painted: ISAAC’S POWER & LIGHT. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of grease and burnt copper.

"I have a lot of customers," Isaac said, walking over to a workbench covered in oily bolts. "Rich people in Lekki, small shops in the market. But I’m terrible at the paperwork. My receipts are in a shoebox, and I probably have half a million Naira in uncollected debts because I forget who owes me what."

He looked at me, his eyes searching mine. "I can't give you charity, Bianca. You’re too proud for that, and I respect it. But I need someone who can read, write, and talk to people without sounding like a mechanic. I need an office manager. Someone to sit here, organize my books, and call these people to tell them their generators are ready—and that they need to pay."

"You want to hire me?" I asked, my heart hammering.

"Fifty thousand Naira a month," he said. "And I’ll give you the first month’s salary today. As an advance. For your rent."

"Isaac... I don't know how to thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," he said, handing me a heavy ledger. "Some of these customers are harder to deal with than your landlord. But here, you aren't the 'Girl of Sorrows.' Here, you're the boss of the books. Deal?"

I looked at the ledger, then at him. For the first time in weeks, the "shadow" Mama Tunde spoke about felt a little lighter.

Friday morning,

The workshop, Isaac’s Power & Light, was a world of iron and oil. When I arrived the next morning, Isaac was already deep inside the guts of a massive yellow generator. The sound of his wrench clanking against metal was the only greeting I got.

"The desk is in the corner," he shouted over his shoulder, his face smeared with a streak of black grease. "The shoebox is under it. Good luck."

I sat down at the small, scarred wooden desk. The "office" was just a corner partitioned off by a thin sheet of plywood, but to me, it felt like a sanctuary. I opened the shoebox. It was a disaster. There were crumpled receipts from 2024, scraps of paper with names like "Chief from Lekki" and "Mummy Bose," and greasy napkins with phone numbers scribbled in the margins.

I spent the first four hours just smoothing out the paper. As I worked, I realized Isaac was right—he was a genius with machines but a child with money. People owed him thousands. I found one receipt for a repair on a cold-room generator in Victoria Island. The bill was two hundred thousand Naira. It was marked Unpaid from three months ago.

I felt a spark of the old Bianca—the one who organized the choir robes and managed the church harvest accounts—waking up. I picked up the shop’s old Nokia phone and dialed the number.

"Hello? This is the office of Isaac’s Power & Light," I said, my voice crisp and professional. "I am calling regarding an outstanding invoice for your cold-room repair. Our records show a balance that is significantly overdue."

The man on the other end tried to bluster. He tried to tell me he didn't remember the repair. But I had the receipt in front of me, with his signature on the bottom. I didn't back down. By the time I hung up, he had promised to send his driver with the cash by evening.

Isaac crawled out from under the generator, wiping his hands on a rag. He had been listening.

"You have a sting in your tail, Bianca," he said, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips.

"I don't like it when people take advantage of kindness," I replied. "You gave me a chance when no one else would. I won't let these people rob you."

At 4:00 PM, Isaac handed me a thick envelope. "Your advance," he said. "Go. Take care of your brother. I’ll see you tomorrow."

I didn't walk to the market this time; I took a Keke Napep. I had money in my purse—earned money, not charity money. I went back to the same market where Mama Tunde had called me the "Girl of Sorrows."

I didn't go to her stall. I went to the butcher.

"Give me a kilo of fresh beef," I said, standing tall. "And a whole chicken. The big one."

The butcher looked at me, surprised by the authority in my voice. He wrapped the meat in old newspaper, the weight of it feeling like a trophy in my hands. I bought a bag of long-grain rice, a gallon of vegetable oil, and a bunch of ripe plantains. I even bought a small tin of peak milk for Chidi—something he hadn't tasted since the accident.

As I walked toward the exit, I saw Mama Tunde watching me. Her mouth was slightly open. I didn't say anything. I just adjusted the heavy bags on my arms and walked past her, the smell of fresh meat and hope following me like a perfume.

When I got home, the house felt different. It was still peeling, still quiet, but as I started the small coal stove and the scent of frying onions filled the parlor, the "shadow" seemed to retreat to the corners.

"Bianca?" Chidi asked, coming out of the room. His eyes went wide at the sight of the food. "Is it... is it Christmas?"

"No, Chidi," I said, handing him a glass of milk. "It's just Friday. And we are still alive."

That same evening ,I was in the parlor, helping Chidi with his breathing exercises, when the front gate shrieked open. Mr. Okechukwu wasn't alone. He had a carpenter with him, a man carrying a heavy iron chain and a padlock the size of a fist.

"Bianca! Out!" the landlord barked, his face red with the morning heat. "I told you. Friday is here. The sun is up. Where is my money?"

I walked out to the veranda, my legs shaking, but my hands steady. I felt the weight of the envelope in my pocket—the money Isaac had counted out for me in the grease-stained workshop.

"I told you I would have it, Mr. Okechukwu," I said.

"Lies!" he shouted, gesturing to the carpenter. "Begin! Take the hinges off! I will see how they sleep tonight with no door!"

"Wait!" I pulled the envelope out. "Forty-five thousand Naira. The full balance for the six months, plus five thousand extra for the 'trouble' you said I caused."

The landlord froze. He looked at the envelope, then at me, his eyes narrowing. "Where did a girl like you get this kind of money? Did you sell your mother’s gold? Or is it the church?"

"The church didn't give me a kobo," I said, my voice ringing out across the compound. Neighbors were starting to peek through their curtains. "This is my salary. I have a job. I have a future. And I have a receipt book in my hand. If you touch that door, I will call the police for illegal eviction, and I will show them this payment."

Mr. Okechukwu snatched the envelope. He counted the notes with trembling fingers, his greed fighting with his surprise. He looked at the carpenter and hissed, "Go. Leave the door."

He turned back to me, trying to save face. "You got lucky, Bianca. But don't think this changes anything. You are still an orphan in this house."

"I am an orphan," I said, standing tall as he walked away. "But I am not alone."

I went back inside and sat on the floor next to Chidi. I looked up at the top shelf of the cupboard, where my Bible was hidden. I didn't take it down. Not yet. But I whispered a small, quiet word into the air.

"Thank You."

I wasn't sure who I was saying it to—the God I had cursed, or the man who fixed generators. Maybe, for the first time, I realized they weren't as far apart as I thought.

By Wednesday, I had realized that Isaac was being robbed in broad daylight by his wealthier clients. One name kept appearing in the ledger, written in red ink that had faded to a dull brown: Chief Olowo. He owed nearly three hundred thousand Naira for a full overhaul of his mansion’s silent generator.

"Don't bother with that one," Isaac said, wiping a thick layer of grease from his forearm. "Chief is a 'Big Man.' He has three bodyguards and a gate made of solid brass. He told me the generator still makes a 'clicking sound' and refused to pay. I can't afford the petrol to keep driving to Lekki just to be turned away at the gate."

I looked at the ledger, then at my own hands. They were no longer the soft hands of a choir girl; they were stained with the carbon of the workshop. "He is using the clicking sound as an excuse to stay in the cool air while you sweat for your rent, Isaac. Give me the address. I will go there."

Isaac paused, his wrench mid-air. "Bianca, it’s a den of lions over there."

"I have faced the lion of grief and the wolf of hunger," I said, grabbing my small handbag. "A Chief in a silk robe does not scare me."

I took a yellow bus to the gates of the Lekki peninsula. The houses here didn't look like houses; they looked like fortresses of glass and arrogance. When I reached Chief Olowo’s gate, the security guard laughed at me.

"You? From the mechanic shop? Go back to the mainland, small girl," he sneered.

"I am the Financial Manager of Isaac’s Power & Light," I said, standing so tall my spine felt like a rod of iron. "And if Chief does not want his name mentioned in the small-claims court—or worse, in the ears of his neighbors who also use our services—he will see me. Now."

Ten minutes later, I was standing in a living room that was larger than my entire house. The air conditioning was so cold it made my teeth chatter. Chief Olowo sat in a velvet chair, his belly straining against a white agbada.

"The clicking sound," he began, waving a hand dismissively. "The work was not perfect."

"The clicking sound, Chief, is the sound of a valve that needs a five-minute adjustment," I countered, opening the ledger and placing it on his glass coffee table. "But the silence in your house is because of Isaac’s labor. You have had light for three months. You have had cold drinks and movies while Isaac is struggling to buy parts for the next job. Is this how a Big Man behaves? By stepping on the neck of the man who keeps his lights on?"

The Chief stared at me. I didn't blink. I didn't look at the expensive paintings on his wall. I looked straight into his eyes, carrying the weight of Chidi’s empty stomach and my mother’s dignity with me.

He grumbled, muttered something about "stubborn girls," and signaled to his assistant. Five minutes later, I walked out of that fortress with a check for the full amount. My heart was racing so fast I thought I might faint, but I didn't. I hailed a bike and headed back to the workshop, the wind whipping my hair.

When I handed the check to Isaac, he didn't say a word. He just looked at the paper, then at me, with a respect that felt warmer than any sun in Lagos.

That evening, I returned home with a bag of groceries that felt like a miracle. I spent an hour in the kitchen, the steam from the jollof rice filling the rooms, trying to drown out the smell of poverty that had moved in after the funeral.

I set three plates. For weeks, Papa had only eaten in his room, or not at all. But tonight, I went to his door and knocked.

"Papa, the food is ready. Please. Eat with us."

There was a long silence. Then, the door creaked open. My father looked smaller than he had two days ago. His shirt hung off his shoulders, and his eyes were still clouded with the fog of the "broken clay." But he followed me to the table.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, the only sound being the rhythmic hiss-whoosh of Chidi’s nebulizer in the corner. I watched Papa take a spoonful of the rice. He chewed slowly, as if he were remembering how to be alive.

"Bianca," he whispered. "The church... did they send this?"

I looked at the top shelf of the cupboard, where the Bible was still tucked away, out of sight. "No, Papa. A man named Isaac. A man who understands what it is to be broken."

Papa looked at me, a flicker of clarity returning to his eyes. "You are working, Nne? In a mechanic shop?"

"I am managing, Papa. I am making sure the debts are paid."

He reached across the table and touched my hand. His skin was like parchment. "Your mother... she used to say you were the light of the house. I thought the light went out when she left. But you... you are still burning."

I couldn't speak. I just squeezed his hand. We didn't pray before we ate—the words felt too heavy and too far away—but as we sat there, three broken people sharing a meal bought with honest sweat, I realized that maybe this was its own kind of prayer. A prayer of survival.

The clink of the spoons against the ceramic plates was the only music we had left. The jollof rice was spicy, the kind of heat that cleared your head, but as the meal ended and the plates sat empty, a new kind of tension filled the room. It wasn't the tension of hunger anymore; it was the tension of the unsaid.

Papa leaned back in his chair. The light from our single rechargeable lamp flickered, casting long, dancing shadows across his face. He looked at the empty spot where my mother used to sit—the chair she had occupied for twenty-three years, always the first to say "Amen" and the last to stop humming.

"Bianca," Papa said, his voice stronger than it had been in weeks. "We have finished the food. But the house is silent. You did not lead us in the grace. You did not even whisper a 'Thank You' to the Provider before you broke the bread."

I began to stack the plates, my movements sharp and jerky. I didn't want to have this conversation. I wanted to stay in the safety of the grease and the ledger, where things made sense. "The provider of this meal was a man named Isaac, Papa. And the hands that earned it were mine. I thanked my boss, and I thanked my strength. Is that not enough?"

Papa’s hand stayed on the table, steadying himself. "The strength in your arms is a loan, Nne. Everything is a loan. When you stop acknowledging the Owner, you start thinking you are the Master. And that is a dangerous way for a girl to walk in a city like Lagos."

I stopped. I turned to face him, my eyes stinging. "Dangerous? Papa, what was dangerous was believing that if I sang in the choir and tithed my last kobo, my mother would live. What was dangerous was believing that the 'Sanctuary of Grace' was actually a place of grace. They turned me away! They asked me about my tithe while Chidi was turning blue! Where was the 'Master' then? Why was He silent while I was screaming at the gate?"

Chidi looked between us, his small face pale, clutching his glass of milk as if it were a shield.

"He was not silent," Papa whispered. "He was in the stranger who stopped his car. He was in the heart of the man who gave you a job when the world called you cursed. Bianca, do not let your anger at the people of God become a divorce from God Himself. The church is a building made of sand and ego, but the Father... He is the rock."

"The rock felt very cold when I was burying my brother and mother, Papa," I snapped. I walked over to the cupboard and pointed to the top shelf. "The Bible is up there. It’s behind the Milo tins. I put it there because I can’t read about a 'Good Shepherd' while I am still smelling the wool of the sheep that were slaughtered. I am done being a soldier for a King who doesn't protect His frontline."

Papa stood up slowly. He walked toward me, his steps shaky but deliberate. He didn't look angry; he looked profoundly sad, the kind of sadness that only comes from knowing exactly how much a person is losing when they give up.

"Listen to me, my daughter," he said, placing his hands on my shoulders. "I have lost my wife. I have lost my firstborn son. I have sat in that chair and felt the very air in my lungs turn to ash. I thought the Potter had smashed the clay into dust. But look at you. Look at this food. Look at Chidi’s chest—it is moving. He is breathing."

"That is medicine, Papa. That is Isaac’s money."

"And who do you think put Isaac on that road at that exact second?" Papa’s voice rose, not in anger, but in a desperate, fatherly plea. "Bianca, if you give up on Him because life is hard, then you are saying that His love is only valid when the sun is shining. That is not faith; that is a business transaction. And you are better than a merchant."

He leaned his forehead against mine, and for the first time, I felt his tears. They were hot and wet against my skin.

"Do not let the darkness of this season blind you to the Light that is still fighting for you. You are angry because you loved Him once. That anger is just love that has nowhere to go. Give it back to Him. Scream at Him if you must. Throw your Bible again if it helps. But do not walk away. Because out there, in that world of mechanics and landlords and cold-hearted secretaries... if you don't have the Anchor, you will drown in the middle of the street."

I stood there, held by his shaking hands, feeling the wall I had built around my heart begin to vibrate. I wasn't ready to forgive. I wasn't ready to take the Bible down from the shelf. But as I looked at my father—the man I thought had been permanently broken—I realized that his faith was the only thing that had brought him back to his feet.

"I can't pray yet, Papa," I whispered into the silence. "The words feel like thorns in my mouth."

"Then I will pray for you," he said. "And I will keep praying until your voice finds its way home."

He let me go and walked back to his room. I stood in the kitchen for a long time, the smell of the jollof rice fading, replaced by the scent of the rain starting to fall on the hot Lagos pavement outside. I looked at the top shelf of the cupboard. I didn't reach for it. But for the first time, I didn't want to burn it either.

I turned off the lamp and sat in the dark, listening to the rain, wondering if the "Anchor" Papa talked about was the very thing I had been trying to loose.

That night, listening to the Lagos rain, I reached into the shadows of the cupboard and pulled my Bible back into my life—not because the pain was gone,but I had Anchor