As a young child growing up in a Christian home whose father is a pastor, I never thought a day would come where I would feel like I had lost my faith in God and no longer believes in him, especially after the many things and testimonies that I've seen and heard all these years.
But it did happen to me. After a tragic event in the year 2020, I saw myself not wanting to go to church or believe in all of those things that I've been taught in church while growing up. For a while, it felt like I got hit the most with the tragic news but it only felt that way because I was alone and away from home at the time and I had no one to talk to or tell how I was feeling. So I found myself trying to look strong during the day while silently crying my eyes out at night, asking God why me.
I remember during that time, we had an hostel prayer at my and a lady friend had seen me sitting upstairs and had asked if I wasn't going to join the prayers downstairs. My response had been pretty direct.
"What prayer? What's the point?" She knew what had happened to me and so she understood and had left, that was probably the best thing she could have done and I was glad she did it.
But as time went on, I started to have deep conversations with myself about my faith and believes. I spoke to my dad a couple of times and the man was always ready to counsel me and also point me to the bible, showing me places in the scriptures where people went through a lot of things and how their faith were tested.
I won't lie, I still had my doubts but then I decided to travel back home to go be with my family and that was probably the best decision I took that year. Seeing my family happy and trying to be strong amidst the whole thing just gave me a reason to want to believe again, a reason not to give up just yet. I soon realize that sometimes, the love from our love ones is what we need in times of trouble.
But to be honest, that wasn't what entirely restored my faith, that happened some few days later when I went to church and saw my dad preaching. It reminded me of why I was a believer once more and why I should never stop being one. His message on Faith gave me a whole new meaning to what I thought I already knew and it made me realize that being a Christian doesn't mean I won't have challenges, it's how I face those challenges without my faith wavering is what shows the kind of Christian I am.
Learning this lesson wasn't an easy one, and I pray I never have to go through this process to learn anything new ever again in my life.