WHAT is the difference between faith and foolishness? Two nights ago, as I was looking out of my window I heard a man hollering and screaming at a woman for misusing his money.

At first, I thought it was a father belittling his child for wasting his money. Upon a closer look, I realised that it was a woman in her early fifties.

This man publicly threatened to take the woman’s life. After he left, I asked her how she is feeling. She said that she feared for her life. I asked her what she is going to do about it. She said, she is going to go home. I said to her if she goes home, it’ll make it easier for him to hurt her, and I suggested that she shouldn’t go home until he calms down. She said, she has to go home. She told me that God will take care of her.

Then, I asked her this question: if you were bleeding to death right now, would you say “my, my, I’m bleeding but don’t worry God will take care of me,” or would you say “I’m going to the hospital to get some medical help?” She told me that she would go to the hospital.

I said to her likewise God expects us to use common sense and go to a safe place when we feel our life is being threatened. And with that exchange, she left for home.

This exchange led me to write this letter and to ask these questions: Does God expect us to use common sense? Does God expect us to go home and trust him to protect us when our life is threatened? Or does he expect us to use common sense and go to a safe place so that he can protect us? How is it that this woman can see the need to go to the hospital to seek medical help when she is bleeding but when her life is being threatened she can’t see the need to go to a safe place?

From this experience, I learned that poverty is a sad thing. This man feels because he is providing for this woman financially he owns her and could treat her worse than a dog. I believe if she wasn’t so dependent on him financially, she wouldn’t have stayed and put up with him. But because of her financial position, she feels stuck. I would suggest to this woman to get a job and don’t allow herself to be dependent on this man because this man will take advantage of her when he knows she is dependent on him financially.

This reminds me of another woman who, for 20 years, has been beaten by her husband and even almost killed. When I asked why she doesn’t leave, she told me that she is not leaving the house that she worked so hard to build. I said to her but if he kills you, you wouldn’t have the house that you built. She said, she didn’t mind if he killed her, as long as he didn’t kill their children.

In closing, there is a thin line between faith in God and the foolishness of a human being.