The First Time He Prayed for Me Out Loud
ABOUT US - Episode 4
I didn’t hear the knock the first time.
I had just cried myself into that strange stillness where your chest is tired, your head is pounding, but you’re too exhausted to feel anything. The kind of quiet that makes you forget your phone is on vibrate, and the curtains are still drawn.
Then the knock came again firmer this time. I wiped my face like I was erasing some kind of evidence. I wasn’t expecting him.
He walked in gently, like he knew not to ask too many questions. He just looked at me for a beat, look in my already swollen eyes, the hoodie, the blanket on the floor, and the untouched bowl of cereal I had poured three hours ago.
“Hey,” he said, simply. And just like that, I started lying. “Oh I’m fine,” I said, smiling too quickly. “Just tired.” “Work has been crazy.”
“I’m okay.”
Lie. Lie. Lie. Lie.
He didn’t push. He Just sat beside me on the floor with our backs resting on the couch. He gave me space to exhale. And eventually, I did.
It had been a tough week. The promotion project I’d poured myself into working late nights, handling what felt like ten people’s jobs was over. And instead of feeling proud, I was like going insane. I felt like I hadn’t done enough. Like I had missed the mark. Like I had proven to everyone that I wasn’t good enough to be moved forward.
I couldn’t tell anyone that I was scared. Scared that I’d messed it up. Scared that I wasn’t moving fast enough in life. Scared that maybe I’d always feel this overwhelmed.
And somehow, it just kind of annoys me that he never seemed to feel like that. Olamide, with his calm, steady self. The man who never raised his voice, who always had a quiet smile and a quiet answer. Who seemed to know what to do, and when to do it. Who didn’t flap or panic.
I envied him sometimes, and I felt guilty for it.
Why was my own life always so loud, so much, so tangled? I remember saying something like, “I just want peace. I want peace in my mind. Peace in my heart. I don’t want to live in fear anymore.”
He looked at me for a long time. And then, without making a show of it, he took my hand.
He didn’t start preaching. He didn’t tell me “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
He just whispered, “Let me pray for you.”
And right there, on the floor of my apartment, in between all my unfinished thoughts and silent prayers, he started talking to God for me.
He prayed like someone who knew I was tired. Like someone who had listened. Like someone who wasn’t just in love with the parts of me that could hold it all together but the parts that crumbled too.
He said things like, “God, remind her that she’s not behind.” “Teach her how to rest in You.” “Let her know she’s already enough.”
“Give her your peace, the kind that doesn’t make sense.” “Take fear out of her chest.”
By the time he said amen, I was crying again. But it felt different this time like release, peace, not shame.
We didn’t talk much after that. He just stayed. We watched something random on Netflix. I finally ate. He didn’t rush home. And I kept thinking, this is what it means to be safe.
Not fixed. Not rescued. Just held.
I don’t remember what I wore that day. I don’t remember what we watched. But I remember that prayer. I remember the tone of his voice. I remember thinking, “If this is love, I can try again.”