Disappointed in God?

When my mother passed away, the sad event was so sudden and emotionally devastating that my immediate reaction was to lapse into an utter shock. Two questions kept nagging at my mind. The first was a simple-sounding word, “Why?” And the second was the whereabouts of God when that tragedy crept into our family?

My mother was a very religious woman, a good Christian filled with a very strong faith in God. Ironically, as the woman suffered a massive stroke and began to slip into coma on that fateful day, she was screaming and gesticulating with her hands out-stretched, for God to save her life.  But death still took her away. As far as I was concerned, God must have shrugged his shoulders in total nonchalance at a time the woman needed him most.

And so, for many years afterwards, I cut off all relationship with God!

There were some individuals, families, friends and colleagues, who tried to reconcile us but I rejected the idea each time. They must have considered me obstinate.

I know there are individuals out there who must be feeling the same way right now. Theirs could be loss of jobs, repossessed cars, loss of homes or some other issues. But what could ever be worse than the loss of a loved one as it was in my case? Whatever the case might be though, it is better to allow the affected individuals to reconcile and make peace with God at their own time. That was how it happened in my case. And I learned a lot of great lessons in the process.



In the first place, God gave me the grace to know that even though I no longer reckoned with him all that time, he continued to bless, adore and abide with me. The manifestations were glaring, much to my embarrassments. Secondly, God gave me the grace to “walk with him” and during the encounter, in retrospect, I began to ask for his forgiveness. I also decided to thank him profusely for my mother’s life. Within the short period of her life, the woman positively touched so many lives (one way or the other) that had she lived up to ninety, she couldn’t have done any better.  Her memory is fresh and alive in the hearts of many people she touched in her lifetime. Thirdly, I realized that my mother could have woken from the coma only to become a “vegetable”. And God knew very well that we (the kids) and our father were in no financial or emotional condition to be saddled with such a huge responsibility.

Therefore, I will advise those who are feeling disappointed in God over one thing or the other, to spare a moment to “walk with God”. The walk simply entails giving God the opportunity to “explain his own side of the story”.