My Daughter Died While Our Church Was Fasting for Her Miracle. I Still Cannot Forgive God.

I was 41 that year, a tailor in Mushin, Lagos. My daughter Ifeoluwa was 9. She had sickle cell and had been in and out of General Hospital. Our pastor said our family had a covenant problem, that there was a strongman in my husband's village sitting on our glory. He said the fast would break it.

So we fasted. Twenty one days, dry fast from 6am to 6pm. My husband and I. Ifeoluwa too, small as she was, she would cry and say she was hungry but the pastor said her own fasting would release her healing faster. We were in that church for six years. I had paid tithe on every single cloth I sewed, even when profit was 2,000 naira. I believed.

On day 18 of the fast, Ifeoluwa started vomiting. I wanted to stop and take her to the hospital. The pastor said no, that the devil was fighting back because we were close to breakthrough, that if we broke the fast now we would open a worse door. My husband said we should obey. I obeyed.

She died on day 20. At home. On the mat we laid for her in the parlour.

The pastor came to the burial and said God knows best, that her death was a seed. Omo, I sat there and looked at that man's face and something in me just died quieter than my daughter.

I have not stepped into a church since then. My husband has remarried and found a new church. I am not angry at people who still believe. I am just done pretending I do.

What I tell people now: do not let any man stand between you and your own common sense. If your child is sick, carry her to the hospital. God gave us doctors for a reason. That is the only sermon I have left in me.