Tinu and I have been friends since we were three months old. Our mothers met on the way to the Annual women meeting. They remind us daily of two flustered women and their fussing babies secured tightly at their backs bumping into each other. Their heightened frustration ended in deep belly laughter and a sisterhood that has stood the test of time --- 23 years of unbreakable friendship and joy.

They cajoled our fathers to build a friendship too. Our mothers are inseparable, joined by long years of laughter, tears, prayers and child rearing. Naturally, Tinu and I became best friends. We did everything together. We lost teeth, had crushes on identical twin brothers, we loved, got dumped and healed together. Tinu was my everything. When our siblings came, they would mock us and call us ‘ibeji’ then wrinkle their noses before they called us coke and fanta. We became ‘ibeji coke and fanta’.

When My father started beating my mother, it was Tinu who held me, who wiped my tears and bought me suya to cheer me up. When my ex-boyfriend dumped me for a fresher, it was Tinu who bought superyogo and swore to castrate him. Tinu was Godsent, my own guardian angel.

As the months bled into years, Tinu became someone else. I did not understand her evolution until the year I met Jesus. It was not a dramatic story, I did not fly off my seat like an aerobic dancer when the Pastor called us to the front of the pulpit. I did not hear a voice announcing my salvation to all the congregation. It was a nudge, it felt like a whisper and a hug. My legs moved straight to the altar but my soul was weary of this invitation. As the salvation prayer rolled off my tongue, it was Tinu’s face that stuck like dry concrete to my mind. My rose-colored lens melted, there was a newness to my life, an unexplainable joy that somehow coexisted even with the disfunction at home. I was not like the brothers and sisters in the campus fellowship, my journey started with hymns and long hours with just sitting with the Lord. I tried to pray like them at first, to writhe and vibrate as I spoke in ‘other tongues’ and I did. Deep down I really wanted to sit and let Jesus speak.

As with every important milestone, Tinu was the first to know. It was not her laughter that shocked me. It was not her poor imitation of praying that shocked me, it was her eyes. Tinu looked at me like I had become a stranger. Our conversations started to have more lulls. The first time I evangelized, Tinu laughed until her sides hurt. She started to accuse me of antagonizing her. It was either my lack of excitement, soft correction and sometimes quiet disagreement that bothered her. Sometimes we fought like when we were children over lip gloss, over the last piece of meat and coordinating outfits but even our fights were never the same. Tinu and I’s friendship started to fade away and no matter how I tried, we never remained the same.

Shutting Tinu out was the best thing for me, at least that was what Brother Bode said in Bible Study. He said ‘Evil communication corrupts good manner and If you are a child of God, you must avoid children of the other side’. The testimonies of the brethren in the fellowship winning their friends and family over caused me great shame. If I couldn’t win Tinu then there must be something wrong with me. So, if Tinu was coming my way, I would cross over to the other side of the road. If she came to visit, I would pack my things and leave. On one of these days, I started a rant to God about her. I did not know why she was mule headed. I had done everything, showed her how to be Christian and she wouldn’t listen.

Very quietly, Jesus said to me, ‘It is true that each must choose me but you Yinka do not get to choose how and when Tinu comes to me’.