Well, if praying meant asking God repeatedly in my head why this happened to my parents then yes, I had been praying.
Nikky Abe
Still 2
In the process of writing Still 2 and in the process of living life in general, I could never answer certain questions.
The above is a quote from one of my characters aka Nikky the feisty one( if you have read still 1) of the second part of the bestselling four book series.
Yes, it’s a shameless plug for book 2 *Insert Nollywood Dramatic Voice * Coming in December
I aint ashamed.
But I digress.
See, I didn’t understand why bad things happened to good people.
Why women get raped, why innocent bystanders get murdered and the people that are the kindest patients have the worst disease processes. A sure way to know if a patient will die is how kind there are. If the patient is nice there’s a high likelihood of death while the more cantankerous ones must be drinking the “everlasting life” cool aid. There’s a woman that was particularly kind whose death hits me till this day.
John 16 vs 33, KJV say Thesethings I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
The truth is I could not be of good cheer.
My mind would be filled with questions of why a good and kind God would allow children he claimed to love so much to go through devasting events in life. And I wasn’t satisfied with Christianese answers.
There is always a tacit ideology among Christians that those questions should not be asked? That those questions are for unbelievers, agnostics and atheists. However, I believe it is a question that comes from the base of human instinct. It comes from a hurting heart, full of questions trying to make sense of life.
See in my quest, I also found the word that we have a high priest that is empathetic to our suffering.
I asked myself why did God go through the drama of having Jesus born, having him grow up from a toddler to a teenager and then an adult then have him suffer and die.
The answer is empathy.
There is an empathy that can only come through experience.
When he sits on the right hand of God he really empathizes with our struggles because he lived the full human experience.
See the point of life and our relationship with God is not to make heaven, if it were we would have been taken to heaven immediately we gave our lives to Christ.
Why should he risk losing us while we continue living in a worldy system that is under Satan’s control?
Let me speak a little christianese and say he did it so we could be little “gods” on earth. See God believes in us more than we believe in ourselves, He believes that the devastation will not kill us like the enemy intends but it will only make us stronger. We can get up and like nemo in “Finding Nemo, and we just keep swimming.
See when you go though some experiences you can look at another hurting soul and really mean it when you say “I have been there.”
Unfortunately, God cannot simulate losing a loved one or debilitating illness or grave injustice. You must go through it to become a “high priest” for that situation.
Then you can tell someone else in that situation confidently, “You will be fine. If I made it through, then so can you. “
When we yield to God in that painful situation, he uses it to empower us to help others.
However, sometimes the pain fogs our views and we play into the hand of the enemy. We become brittle and bitter.
I certainly don’t feel all situations are that simple and there are complex nuances in every painful experience we go through.
And the maddening thing is sometimes it will not make sense. Refer to Proverbs 3 vs 5
But I have learnt and continually learn to trust God and believe that He will make it all beautiful in his time.
I clear my head of stinking thinking mindsets that attributes these situations to God. God doesn’t want me to suffer but He allows the suffering for his purpose.
In trust, I have learnt that God may not be simulation expert. That while I hoped he would simulate certain experiences in my life, I have gotten to the point that I can say like the psalmists, I was glad I was afflicted that I may learn your statutes