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Don’t be in a hurry to judge
“I will never be in a relationship or get married again in my life." My friend Ann spoke these words. In that moment, I realized my friend carried scars and hidden hurt from her past marriage. Ann is a woman in her early forties, mother to two children aged 27 and 24, and she is blind. In my interactions with her, she has always been happy, hopeful, kind, and strong in her faith. So when those words came out of her mouth, I knew there was real weight behind them. "What really happened that you sound so bitter about marriage?" I asked. She responded, "My friend, I was not born blind. I was a normal person, with every part of me functioning well, including my eyes." "What?! What happened?" I asked. "I was married to a man I loved very much. We did everything together, as one. Our pottery business and our family life were both doing well." "How well?" I asked. "So well that we became the main distributors of eggs and chicken to the local supermarket in our constituency. We bought land, built our own home, and our kids were attending the best schools around." "So what happened that led to you becoming blind?" I asked, growing impatient. "One day, my sister-in-law came to live with us to help run the business. As she did, she developed some hatred toward me — for a reason I never understood. She would pick fights with me for no cause at all, but I ignored her most of the time. One day, she came up with a strange story about me and the business — mind you, this was a business my ex-husband and I had built from scratch. She spread lies claiming I was stealing from it, along with other things I’d rather not share. This caused a huge fight between me, my ex-husband, and his sister, since he chose to believe her over me. During the argument, a physical fight broke out, and she pulled my hair until blood ran down my face. I was rushed to the hospital. The doctor said it wasn’t serious, stitched me up, and we went back home. The issue was resolved a few days later, and she was asked to leave since her lies had finally caught up with her — my husband could no longer stand having her around." "Months after that, I began experiencing severe headaches. I went to the hospital, and doctors ran test after test trying to find out what was wrong, but they found nothing. Meanwhile, my health kept deteriorating, to the point where I could barely do anything for myself. Then one morning, I opened my eyes and saw only darkness. I tried to shout for the nurses or doctors, but I was too weak to even react properly — I just cried my heart out. When my doctor realized I couldn’t see, he ordered a full body scan to understand what was happening. That’s when they discovered a blood clot in my head that had affected some of my nerves — which explained why my body wasn’t functioning properly. Surgery after surgery followed. The rest of my body eventually recovered, but my sight never did." "Was your husband by your side through all of this?" I asked. "Yes, he was there. But everything fell apart once I was discharged and we went home. Taking care of me, the kids — who were still in school — and running the business on his own overwhelmed him. He couldn’t keep up, and that’s when the resentment started. He began calling me hurtful names. As if that weren’t enough, he became unfaithful and started calling me a useless wife. He would cook, but wouldn’t feed me — remember, I was now blind and didn’t yet know how to care for myself, but he didn’t care. I suffered greatly for about a year." "When did you decide to leave him?" "When he brought another woman into our home — into our matrimonial bed — as if she were his wife, while I was still there. The things they said to me were so painful I couldn’t bear it anymore. And remember, this was the same man whose sister had done this to me in the first place." "How did you finally leave?" "By the grace of God, a good friend came to visit me. In that moment, I let my guard down and told her everything. She immediately packed my things and told me we were leaving — that she would help me until I could stand on my own. And here I am now: happy, at peace, and satisfied with my life. I have the peace of mind and soul I once lost." "Have you forgiven them, or are you still healing?" "Yes, I have forgiven them, but I have not forgotten. I have healed. But I will never trust a man again — this showed me that people can change, because at the end of the day, they are only human." That’s how I came to understand her first statement. Sometimes we judge others for the decisions they make or the way they live, without knowing what they’ve truly walked through. I hope you enjoyed this, and learned something from it too.
