My battle with bedwetting started when I was a child. I have two siblings, an older brother and a twin sister. My twin sister never had this problem, but my brother and I did, though his was more consistent and drew a lot of attention to him. My episodes, on the other hand, were very occasional. However, my brother stopped experiencing this when he entered secondary school, but mine continued. I spent most of my secondary school days in the boarding house and less time at home, so my family did not know about it, and I did not bother to tell them.
Like I mentioned earlier, I would experience this on average of 2–4 times in a year. They were mostly random, so I couldn’t predict when it would happen and what would precipitate it. There were times I took a lot of water before sleeping, and I would wake up several times at night to pee. Then there were other times I didn’t even take water, and would experience this. I slept mostly in fear, especially when I was not in my personal space, because of the embarrassment this could bring me.
I have been embarrassed when I peed on myself once in night class, and also in a night meeting I went to in my former church. I concluded that this issue was out to disgrace my life. I also started thinking that maybe I had some congenital anomaly in my urinary tract.
This issue affected my self-esteem and was one of the reasons I kept telling myself that I didn’t want to get married and would prefer to just stay on my own. This was out of fear, and I wondered who would accept me with all my plenty wahala, including this one, which was the most embarrassing of them all. I accepted this as my thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12:7, lest I be exalted above measure. This was after I had prayed, fasted, begged God, promised and even attempted to enter a covenant with Him, if only He would take it away.
Whenever I had an episode, I would just clean up and keep to myself. I didn’t use to talk to anyone about it, including my parents, and just a few people around me would notice it. It was one of my secrets that I didn’t wish to expose. It made me cry and think about how miserable my life was, and indeed it humbled me and kept my pride in check. One time it happened, after crying and everything, I told God that it’s the two of us that will experience this shame together, since He didn’t want to take it away. I added that people knew me as His child, and if He was fine with the shame it brought to Him, then there was no problem. I had even told Him at another time that I don’t have shame anymore, as my shame had finished because I didn’t know what else I could face again that was more humiliating than this.
My Deliverance
When I came to God’s Lighthouse, I started learning how not to keep secrets and how to confess things to my shepherd (the leader assigned to care for me). At first, I just talked to my friend about it and we prayed together, and when I went home, I told my mum about it too. This was when I realised that I had inherited it, as my mum shared a similar experience with me from when she was younger. I also remembered a dream I had when I was a teenager or so, where I was in a room that seemed like a prison with high brick walls and a tiny window high up the wall. It seemed like my mum had been there, and now it was my turn to be in that prison. This was when I realised that some of the things I faced were afflictions from my mum’s lineage. It seemed like my sister inherited my dad’s lineage issues while I inherited my mum’s own—and this is the same way we took after our parents in physical appearance.
When I told my sub-shepherd about it, I believe she prayed for me. I started experiencing victory as I obeyed the instructions she gave me. She told me to stop taking carbonated drinks, although I didn’t see how this contributed to the issue, since out of the hundreds of days in a year that I likely took them, this issue occurred about 2–4 times randomly and even on the days I didn’t take any. But I chose to obey, knowing that obedience is the strategy. Now, I fell a few times, but the majority of the time I obeyed.
Also, I had started believing that this was going to be my fate forever and accepted it. But when I realised it was the devil, I rejected it. I also stopped allowing him to steal my joy when this event occurred, and so I’d praise God for the ability to even pee.
Usually, when an episode was to occur, I would have dreams of peeing and then wake up to realise that I had peed on myself. After I finally opened up to my sub-shepherd about this, I had a dream where I wanted to pee in the toilet, but someone was peeping at me. I wasn’t comfortable, and so I tried to find out who the person was, but the person hid. I tried to go back to pee, but the person resurfaced again to peep at me. It happened a couple of times until I decided that I was going to find out who the person was. That was how I was successfully distracted from peeing in my dream before waking up. I think I had this dream again, and since then, I’ve not experienced bedwetting! It’s been more than a year now, and there has been no embarrassing episodes.
Note that for more than 20 years, I lived with this issue. Since I started counting, I don’t think I have ever experienced a full year of no bedwetting episodes. Last year was the first time I’ve ever recorded. During that period, I just kept telling myself, “let us reach the end of the year first”—and we reached, and nothing happened. Not even my clothes got wet once (sometimes the bed would be dry, and only my clothes would be soiled).
I know God has healed me of this affliction, and I’m here to return all the glory to Him. Amen.
– Sis B. O
29th Jan 2025
© God’s Lighthouse
