SAVED BY GRACE- Ep 32

Episode 32- Fix Me

Jun 18, 2026

Hi babiessss!!!
We did not hit our last target but here we go.🤭🤭
The target remains at 150 likes, 50 comments and 50 restacks.
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AKILAHYEL’S POV

I stared at the phone screen, my arm still slung heavily over my forehead, watching Wandi’s face.

She always has this specific sharpness in her eyes — the kind of look that reminds me of our mother. It was a gaze that didn’t just see you; it unraveled you.

“Wandi,” I began, my voice breaking over the syllables.

“I had a fight with my girlfriend, Soteria and she said some things to me that…. I.. I don’t even understand. I don’t know if it’s a good time for us to talk. I really need to talk to someone.”

Wandi didn’t say anything immediately.

She looked up, her focus shifting to someone just outside the camera frame.

“Success,” she called out softly, her voice muffled slightly as she directed her house help.

“Continue blending the tomato and pepper for the stew. Use the small pot for the fish. I’m coming.”

She picked up her phone, the camera tilting in a chaotic blur as she walked out of her kitchen, navigating the familiar hallway of her home.

In the background, I heard the distant, low murmur of her husband’s voice from their master bedroom, but Wandi kept moving past it, slipping quietly into the children’s room.

It was completely silent inside, the bright afternoon sun filtering through the patterned curtains.

“Where are the twins?” I asked, my voice barely a rough whisper against the speaker.

“They’re still at school, Yaro,” she said gently, closing the wooden door behind her.

She sat on the edge of one of the small beds, adjusting her wrapper with a practiced ease before propping the phone securely against a stack of storybooks so she could face me squarely.

“They won’t be back until evening. Now, what’s up? Tell me what happened. From the very beginning.”

I let out a ragged breath that felt like gravel grinding in my lungs.

I didn’t even know how to frame it without sounding like a broken man.

“She called me proud, Wandi. She said I was stubborn, full of myself, and that I don’t listen to anybody. She said that nobody has any real drop of influence over my life. She even said she doubts if I bend to the leadership in church. She said a man without authority over his head cannot lead a home... that I’m not a good leader.”

As the words tumbled out, the vacuum in my chest expanded until it felt like a hollow, aching cavity beneath my ribs.

I sounded entirely defeated. I knew it, and she could see it through the lens.

“Wandi... am I really that bad?” I asked, the vulnerability cutting deep.

“Am I that terrible of a person? The funny thing is that this fight happened because I was trying to protect her. I was only trying to stop someone from harassing her. Everything I did, I did to keep her safe.”

Wandi heaved a deep sigh.

“Before I say anything, tell me what actually happened, because you’re only saying the aftermath. What led to this argument you guys had?”

I told her of Julian, his persistent troubling of Soteria, how he called me a boy toy. Then I went ahead to tell her that I tracked him down, caught him and beat him up.

“Habaaaa!!! Yaro!!” She exclaimed.

“Wandi, he deserved it. I did not even beat him the way I desired.”

For a few heavy seconds, she just looked at me, her eyes tracking the dark circles bruising the skin under my eyelids and the stiff, defensive way I was looking at her.

“AkilaHyel,” she started, her voice dropping into that heavy, grounding tone.

“First of all, I want you to hear this from me clearly: I am so incredibly proud of the man you are. You have been a warrior since the day you were born into this family. When Baba died and everything went cold around us, you became the pillar. You carried our weight on your small shoulders. You grew up to be a very fine man of discipline and prowess. A man this entire family respects. Nobody can ever take that away from you.”

She paused, letting the validation settle into the quiet of my heart before her features shifted.

“But you see, in relationships... wisdom is needed, Akila. It’s not about tactical maneuvers. Disrespect is a terrible thing in life, talk more of a relationship. No one should ever look at their partner and treat them with levity. But your approach might have been entirely wrong too.”

“Knowing the way your mind functions, the moment she walked in fuming, you probably spoke to her in that your cold, unyielding commander tone that makes people feel like they are facing a firing squad. You probably said something harsh that made her flare up.”

I shifted uncomfortably on the cushions, my jaw tightening as the sting of her words hit home, but I didn’t try to defend myself.

“We will come back to how you two communicate,” Wandi continued, her eyes narrowing as she focused heavily on the screen.

“Now, to the main reason for the fire in your house. Why did you go and beat up a client, Akila? Her client for that matter?”

“I didn’t beat him up, Wandi,” I muttered, shifting my gaze up to the white ceiling boards to avoid her eyes.

“I wanted to. I was fully ready to mend his brain, but my spirit did not allow me. I didn’t even touch him like that. Just one slap to shut his arrogant mouth.”

“Hmmm. But you caught the guy? You waylaid him abi?”

“Yes.”

“And your woman... Soteria... did she ask you not to do anything to him initially? Before this night?”

I swallowed hard, the sharp memory of our conversation flashing through my mind.

“Yes. She said I should leave him alone, that she would handle things but she didn’t.”

Wandi shook her head, a small, sad smile touching her lips.

“Then you see, Akila, you first disrespected her. That is the simple truth. You did not value her business. You did not trust her capacity as a professional woman to protect her own workspace.”

“No, Wandi, I do value her business,” I protested.

“I respect her work completely. I just couldn’t stand the boy insulting her. I couldn’t sit back and let him make her uncomfortable while working.”

“That is not how Soteria would see it, my brother,” Wandi said, her voice remaining entirely calm and steady.

“The lady, as Naya has gisted me before, is from a very wealthy home. She has lived a very flamboyant and rough life in this before she even met you. She knows exactly how to navigate these Abuja boys and their arrogance. She has connections nau“

I groaned loudly, running my right palm over my face in pure frustration.

“Arghhh... Naya and her big mouth. What else did she tell you?”

Wandi laughed, a light, airy sound that broke through the heavy tension in the room for a fraction of a second.

“Kaiii, leave Naya alone. It’s nothing serious. Naya just updates me on Soteria from time to time since you never call to tell me anything about your life. You are too uptight, Akila. I’m your elder sister, but sometimes I even feel like I have to tread carefully around you.”

“Am I really that uptight?” I asked, my voice dropping back into that hollow, vulnerable register.

“Yes, you are. Even around family,” she said, her eyes softening.

“You need to loosen up, AkilaHyel. Soteria might not have said it with the right vocabulary. Her words might have been too rude but she was pointing at a very real deficiency. You need to be under someone. Not just your military commanders, not just your superiors at the brigade. You need a spiritual head.”

She leaned closer to her camera, her tone becoming deeply earnest, stripping away any room for my pride to hide.

“Soteria is someone who is just coming to Christ. She is still learning how to navigate the kingdom. She needs a man she can submit to, a man who knows how to bend his knees. And she can only submit to you if she sees that you are completely yielded to Christ. If you are a law unto yourself, answering only to your own internal radar, how can she trust you to lead her?”

Wandi took a deep breath, looking out the window of the kids’ room for a moment, before looking back at me.

“You remember some years ago, when Timi and I almost got divorced?”

I nodded slowly.

“Timi never used to listen to anybody,” Wandi said, her voice filled with the raw weight of lived experience.

“He would sit down in the parlor and tell me the Bible is his standard alone, that he doesn’t need any pastor, mentor, or church structure to tell him how to run his home. He always listened to his own head alone. It took the pain of almost losing our home, almost getting a divorce, to bring his head back on track.”

She paused.

“He finally broke down, submitted himself under our pastor fully, and allowed himself to be truly accountable. That was when our home found peace. Akila, it won’t be easy, and it won’t be swift, but you must learn how to be vulnerable. You must learn how to let someone hold your spirit accountable.”

I let out a long, ragged sigh, my head dropping heavily into my hands.

The emptiness inside my chest was screaming now, a loud, terrifying confirmation of my error.

“Wandi... I feel like I’ve completely messed up that part already.”

“How do you mean?”

“The Holy Ghost,” I whispered, the tears finally burning the back of my eyelids, scorching my throat.

“Before I went out to pick up the guy that night... He told me. He told me explicitly not to touch him. He said, ‘If you love me, keep my commandments.‘ He asked me if it was my pride speaking. And I still went. Though I ended up not beating the guy because of that. Now it feels like I’ve completely lost the Holy Spirit.”

Wandi’s face softened.

“Akila. Partial obedience is still disobedience. You remember King Saul in the bible? God told him to destroy everything, but he decided to spare the king and the best of the sheep, thinking he was doing something wise and calculated. He did part of what God asked, but it was not counted unto him as obedience. God rejected his leadership because of that partial compliance. You cannot negotiate with a direct instruction from the Spirit.”

“But you see, the beautiful thing is that our God is not a wicked father,” Wandi said, her voice rising with a knowing.

“He is never a wicked father, Akila. You can always find your way back to the secret place. Let me ask you: if someone splashes mud all over your clean white clothes, what would you do? Would you run back into the mud to get more stained, or would you run straight to a running tap to wash it off?”

“The tap,” I muttered into my palms, my voice trembling.

“Good. That is exactly how it is when we wrong God by sinning. When we disobey, we don’t run away from Him because of guilt. We don’t go back into the mud of our pride to justify ourselves. We run straight to Him to wash us. He is the living water, Akila. Allow Him to clean you and give you life again. Drop the uniform, drop the hard-man thing, and just go on your knees as a son who needs his Father.”

She cleared her throat softly, looking toward the door of the children’s room.

“The kids are almost back from school and I need to go pick them up. Can I call Timi so he can say a word of prayer with you?”

I swallowed the heavy lump in my throat, the last remnants of my resistance dissolving, and nodded.

“Yes.”

Wandi picked up the phone, the camera moving as she walked back toward the master bedroom.

I heard the door click open, and then the screen shifted to show her husband, Timi, sitting at his small work desk, studying some documents.

He looked confused at first as Wandi handed him the phone, whispering into his ear,

“Honey, please say a word of prayer for Akila as the Spirit leads you. He needs it right now.”

Timi looked at my face through the screen.

He didn’t ask a single question.

He just closed his eyes, leaning toward the camera, and raised his right hand toward the lens.

“Holy Spirit, help me,” Timi murmured softly.

“Father, I lift up my brother AkilaHyel before you this afternoon. Lord, you see the heart of a soldier, but right now, he is standing before you simply as a son. I pray that the thick blanket of your mercy will cover him in this room. Break every hold of the enemy over his heart.”

Timi took a deep breath, his prayer becoming incredibly specific as the Spirit led him.

“Give him the grace to yield completely, to submit his natural strength under your divine authority. Father, silence the voice of accusation over his mind, and we call forth the comfort and the restoration of the Holy Ghost. In Jesus’ mighty name we pray.”

“Amen,” I choked out.

Wandi took the phone back, giving me one last encouraging, deeply loving look.

“Go and talk to your Father, Akila. I love you.”

“I love you too, Wandi,” I said, and the line went dead.

The silence returned to my house, but it didn’t feel as cold or hostile anymore. It felt heavy with an expectant presence.

I set the phone down on the glass table.

Slowly, deliberately, I slid off the edge of the sofa and let my knees hit the hard concrete floorboards. I buried my face deep into the cushions, my chest heaving as the dam broke apart.

I cried. I cried like a child who had been lost in a dark forest, the tears soaking into the fabric of the sofa as I let out all the accumulated baggage, the hidden anger, the structural pride, and the absolute exhaustion of being the strong man for everyone else while I starved inside.

I reached for my phone with a shaking hand, navigating to my audio player with blurred vision, and selected a track that had always pierced through my defenses.

Broken by Kaestrings.

The soft, ethereal keys began to float through the empty parlor, the gentle, acoustic melody filling the spaces between my ragged sobs.

In the stillness of my soul

Is a loud cry to you

Before you i stand

Helpless, vulnerable

………

Unworthy is my state

But your love says to me

Child, be bold and come

Father, here i am

………

Gyara ni Ya Yesu na (please fix me Lord)

In zama kamar da kai (that i may become more like you)

Gyara ni Ya Yesu na (please fix me Lord)

Gyara ni ma ai’kin ka (fix me for your service)

As the song played over and over again on a continuous repeat, the atmosphere in the room began to shift completely.

Gyara ni Ya Yesu na (please fix me Lord)

In zama kamar da kai (that i may become more like you)

Gyara ni Ya Yesu na (please fix me Lord)

Gyara ni ma ai’kin ka (fix me for your service)

The aching vacuum under my ribs was being filled by a heavy, beautiful weight of genuine repentance.

I stayed there on my knees for hours, the music washing over my bare back like a cleansing stream.

“Fix me, oh God,” I wept into the darkness of the cushions, my hands spread open on the floorboards in total, absolute surrender.

“Fix me. I am entirely tired of doing my own thing. I am tired of my pride. Wash me, Lord. Just fix me.”

SOTERIA’S POV

The iron gates of Pastor Olive’s residence in Jahi swung open with a quiet, automated groan, allowing my car to crawl onto the interlocking paving stones.

The drive from Akila’s house had been a blur of windshield wipers and hot, stinging tears that kept obscuring the traffic lights.

My chest still felt hollow, aching from the sheer velocity of the words I had thrown at Akila, and the heavy, silent weight of his face when he stepped away from my touch was still flashing behind my eyelids.

The housekeeper, a middle-aged woman named Martha who knew my face from my frequent visits for house fellowship meetings, opened the front door before I could even ring the bell.

“Good afternoon, Sister Soteria,” she said, “Welcome. Come inside.”

“Good afternoon, Aunty Martha,” I whispered, stepping into the cool, air-conditioned expanse of the marble foyer.

Pastor Olive’s twelve-year-old daughter, Michelle, was sitting on a bench in front of a sleek digital keyboard.

A young man with thin spectacles who I guess was her music instructor, was leaning over the music sheet, tapping a pencil against the wood to keep the tempo.

Michelle glanced up as my heels clicked against the marble, her face breaking into a wide, innocent smile.

“Hello, Aunty Soteria!”

I forced a small, fragile smile onto my face, waving my hand slightly.

“Hi, Michelle. Well done.”

“Good afternoon, sir” I greeted the teacher.

He instructor nodded politely, and Michelle plunged back into her scales, her small fingers hitting the white keys with a clumsy, earnest focus.

I watched her for a brief second, envying the simple, uncomplicated rhythm of her afternoon, before Aunty Martha led me toward the glass doors leading out to the rear balcony.

“Pastor is still upstairs, ma,” Martha explained, pulling out one of the cushioned wicker chairs for me.

“She said I should tell you to give her fifteen minutes. She is wrapping up a meeting online.”

“It’s fine, ma. I’ll wait,” I said, dropping heavily into the seat and resting my handbag on the glass tabletop.

The balcony looked over a neatly manicured lawn lined with potted ferns and white hibiscus bushes.

I leaned my elbows on the table and buried my face in my palms, the silence of the backyard letting the echo of the fight back into my head.

Some minutes later, the glass door behind me slid open with a soft hiss.

I straightened up quickly, wiping the corners of my eyes with my thumb just as Pastor Olive walked out.

She was dressed in a simple, elegant kaftan, her hair wrapped in a silk scarf, her face completely bare of makeup but radiating that deep, unshakeable authority that always made her presence feel like a sanctuary.

She didn’t say a word at first. She walked straight to my chair, and as I stood up, she opened her arms and pulled me into a long, firm embrace.

The moment her arms wrapped around my shoulders, a small, ragged breath escaped my throat, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut to keep from sobbing again.

She held me until my shoulders stopped trembling, then gently guided me back down into my seat before taking the chair directly opposite me.

“I am so sorry for keeping you waiting, my darling,” she said, her voice a warm, soothing balm.

“The regional board meeting with Pastor Uzor ran over time. But I am here now.” She reached across the table, her soft fingers folding over my cold hands.

“Now, tell me. What is the problem?”

The dam broke.

The words came pouring out of me in a frantic, chaotic stream, my voice cracking as I tried to lay out the ledger of the past week.

“Mama, Akila and I had a fight. There is this client of mine that has been making advances at me. Honestly, it has been annoying and very irritating. I have been trying my best to contain it. One day, I was on a call with Akila when this guy called Akila a boy toy and he heard it. A few days later, he asks for his contact, tracks him and goes ahead to beat him up. Actually beat him up” I gasped out, my hands gesturing wildly.

“He... he didn’t just beat him up, he did not even regret it, mama!”

Pastor Olive listened quietly, her face calm, her intelligent eyes tracking every line of distress on my features.

She didn’t interrupt, didn’t gasp, didn’t offer a premature judgment. She just let me empty the vessel.

“I was so upset,” I continued.

“I drove straight to his house to confront him. I was shouting, mama, I won’t lie. I asked him why he had to resort to brutality, why he couldn’t just have a normal, cordial conversation like a civilized man. And instead of apologizing, he flared up at me! He told me not to disrespect him in his house. He looked into my eyes and asked me if I kept the contract because I wanted the boy’s attention! He asked me if I was a flirt or a cheat!”

My voice hitched, a hot tear spilling over my cheek.

“I don’t know what to do with him anymore, mama. He is so annoying. He carries himself like a complete loner, like nobody on this earth has any right to speak to him or influence his decisions. He acts like his own god.”

Pastor Olive remained silent for a long moment after I finished, the soft sound of Michelle’s piano keys floating out from the living room.

She heaved a quiet, measured sigh, her thumbs tracing the back of my knuckles.

“What exactly did you say to him, Soteria?” she asked softly.

“After he said you were being disrespectful. Tell me your exact words truthfully.”

I swallowed hard, looking away from her searching gaze toward the white hibiscus bushes in the garden.

“I... I told him he needed to work on himself. I told him he was too proud, too uptight, and too stubborn. I said he doesn’t listen to his family, and that I doubted if he even bends to the leaders in church. I told him... I told him a man without authority over his head cannot lead a home, and that he isn’t a good leader. I told him I couldn’t be with a man like that.”

Pastor Olive’s face didn’t harden. Instead, a very small, incredibly gentle smile touched the corners of her lips.

She let go of my hands and leaned back against the wicker frame of her chair.

“Soteria baby,” she said softly.

“Yes, ma,” I murmured, my head dropping slightly.

“The book of Proverbs tells us that a wise woman builds her house, but a foolish one plucks it down with her own hands,” she started, her tone light.

She raised her palm immediately as she saw me about to speak.

“Now, hold on. Do not conclude on that scripture yet. Don’t look at me with those defensive eyes.”

She leaned forward again, resting her forearms on the glass table.

“A wise woman is not a perfect woman, Soteria. A wise woman is simply one who knows how to handle the affairs of her home, whether she is legally married or still in the season of courtship. A wise woman seeks counsel — just as you have done today. A wise woman would not see a wrong thing in her partner and call it a right thing. You saw that Akila’s approach to your client was illegal, violent, and dangerous for your career, and you refused to look the other way. That is wisdom, my darling. A wise woman advises her partner when he falters. And what you did by identifying his blind spot was amazing.”

She paused, letting the affirmation settle into my chest before her expression turned deeply instructive.

“But you see, Soteria... a wise woman also knows how to go about that advice. A wise woman understands times, and she understands seasons. She knows when to bring up certain conversations, and more importantly, she knows how to handle the tool of truth.”

She gestured toward the open doors of the house.

“You, as a woman, are a builder. One thing I love and admire so much about you is your resilience and your wisdom. You are very young, but you are mature, extremely mature for your age. But as a builder, you must understand that different buildings sit on different foundations, and you cannot use the same sledgehammer on a granite foundation that you use on soft clay.”

“You must note something very critical, Soteria. You are dating a man who is not only a soldier, but a man who is actually far older than you. He has commanded men in battle, he has survived seasons of total desolation that would break an ordinary spirit, and he has spent years functioning as his own defense mechanism because life took away his cover at a very young age.”

She leaned closer, her eyes locking onto mine with an unyielding intensity.

“Men love respect, Soteria. Oh, they don’t just love it, they thrive on it. It is the oxygen of their masculine identity. Does that mean you should remain silent when they are stepping into error? Never. A woman who loves her man will hold up a mirror to his face when he is straying. But you must do it with wisdom, not with the weapon of your tongue.”

I lowered my eyes, my fingers folding my handkerchief into small, tight squares.

“When you are hurt, your feelings will always try to dictate for you,” Pastor Olive said, her voice dropping into a tender, cautionary frequency.

“Emotions are terrible leaders, baby girl. They lead us wrongly. They make us see things through a distorted lens of panic and self-defense. Whenever you find yourself in a misunderstanding with Akila, your very first conscious thought must be this: ‘He is not the enemy. I am not speaking to him from a point of hate, but from a point of absolute love.’”

“This single scriptural positioning helps to realign your mind. It changes your tone from an executioner’s ax to a surgeon’s scalpel. Akila is not your enemy here, Soteria. He was a man trying to protect you, even if his execution was entirely fleshly.”

She paused, her expression turning slightly stern as she shifted the weight of the counsel.

“And we must talk about that client. Let us be entirely honest with ourselves before God. You allowed that boy’s inappropriate advances to slide for a long time. His advances were a direct violation of your sanctity, and you kept it quiet because you wanted to protect a contract. That was totally wrong, Soteria.”

A sharp pang of guilt hit my stomach, and I looked down at the table.

“You thought you were being professional,” Pastor Olive said, her voice gentle but unyielding in its correction.

“But by allowing him have access to you without shutting it down it taking actions, you left a window open in the spirit. You allowed the boy to have access to you for too long. Akila felt threatened. He sensed the intrusion, and because he is a protector by nature, he reacted the only way his flesh knew how which is to neutralize the threat.”

She reached across the table again, lifting my chin until I was looking back into her warm face.

“Soteria, you cannot use your sharp tongue to dismantle the leadership of a man you intend to submit to. When you told him he wasn’t a good leader, when you told him he had no authority over his head, you didn’t just correct his actions, you castrated his spirit. You took his deepest vulnerabilities, the things he is silently wrestling with before God, and you used them as stones to pelt his chest. That is why he said those words to you. Not because he hated you, but because he was bleeding from a wound you inflicted.”

The tears came back, but this time they weren’t hot with anger, they were cold with a deep, crushing realization of my own error.

“Mama...” I choked out, my voice trembling.

“What do I do? I was just so scared. I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

“I know, my darling, I know” Pastor Olive whispered, her eyes full of a mother’s compassion.

“That is why we are here. The scripture says in James 1:20 that the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. You will go back to him, Soteria. You will apologize for the manner in which you delivered the truth. You will apologize for attacking his identity as a leader.”

I stiffened slightly, a small remnant of my pride resisting the directive.

“Mama... it might not be that easy to just walk back in there and bow my head. He also hurt me. He questioned my loyalty. He hurt me deeply too.”

Pastor Olive smiled, a beautiful, knowing expression that carried the wisdom of decades of marriage.

“Then you must pray that God gives him the wisdom to apologize to you too. The AkilaHyel I know is a wise man, a man who truly fears the Lord beneath that heavy armor. He is not a fool. When the Holy Spirit is done breaking the granite in his heart, he will know exactly what to do as God leads him. But your assignment is not to wait for him to bend first. Your assignment is to ensure your own garment is white before the altar.”

She stood up from her chair, extending her hands toward me.

“Come. Let us take this layout to the One who knows how to mend broken foundations.”

I stood up slowly, my heels clicking softly against the balcony floorboards as I reached out and took her hands.

We stood, our fingers locked together, and as Pastor Olive lifted her voice in a soft, powerful stream of prayer, I closed my eyes and allowed the living water to begin washing away the soot.