It was June, 2012 when my friend was diagnosed with a condition that only needed surgery to be healed. Even though surgery was the only option it wasn’t definite the surgery would guarantee healing or even be a successful surgery. My friend was so dear to my heart he was a brother and a mentor, he actually introduced me to Jesus and through his persistence I got born again and dedicated my life to Christ. I remember it was nothing but an abdominal pain that forced him to go to the hospital but when he called me, I could tell from the sound of his voice that he was crying. He informed me it was a fifty-fifty situation; the surgery could help or not. This is someone who left our room laughing and was full of life, but he was now living between life and death.
I remember we even created a WhatsApp group and we were praying and believing that God will come through and the surgery will not have to take place and see the hand of God work. We could fast twice a week in the group and pray everyday trusting God to move. We had so much faith we were believing he will be healed without even the surgery taking place. Because of our faith we managed to make him stand on our faith and gave him hope again. Even before the day of surgery we prayed and trusted God our friend will get healed without it. On the day of surgery, we were told the condition is there and he will still need to go through surgery.
As heartbreaking as the news was, we still trusted God will make a way through the surgery. While the surgery was taking place, we were praying. Believing the surgery will be successful and our friend will be made whole again, especially we knew by his stripes we are healed. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen and I did feel hurt and disappointed. I lost my friend, I felt disappointed, we prayed, we fasted, we had faith and above all our friend was a strong Christian why did he die so young? Why didn’t God hear our prayers? How come we prayed so much from the word go, just for him to die? I was extremely angry I failed to pray again.
-NK
The academic year started rough but I had faith, everyone was complaining but I was opportunistic, I was careful with my confessions because I knew word have power. I remembered Genesis could often say “words are more than just a combination of the twenty-six alphabetical letters they transmit energy waves that have power to create or destroy.” This made me remain positive throughout even though that academic year looked impossible to go through. Doubt started coming in when we wrote our first test and I only managed to pass two courses. Trust me I was studying, I was praying, I had faith everything will turn out good but everyday that came just made everything look impossible.
When our continuous assessment results came out, I was broken, I was slowly losing my faith, I called my mentor and explained my situation, she encouraged me to trust in the lord and focus on my final exams since my continuous assessments have already being made. She told me to meditate on the scripture that says, “If my people who are called by my name will humbles themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” I took these words personal trusted in the lord wholly and studied even harder. Unfortunately, when the results came out, I failed.
There I was a Christian, who had faith in God, believed God will help me pass, studied so hard that my friends who were not even Christians who made it mocked me about my failure. I was frustrated. What will I even tell the people I preached to last year, how will the juniors even look at me? We are now in the same class these are the people I encouraged to have faith in God and just study hard because everything is in God’s control. How do you even face the world as a Christian who just failed an exam? How do you even pray to God after having so much faith, working so hard, remaining so faithful but still fail? To be honest I was frustrated and hurt to the core.
-HM
It is funny how I still remember that day so vividly like it just happened yesterday, it was July 22nd, 2005 I was young but I knew what was going on my mum was sick for a month but that day it got worse, I was the only one with her because my grandma went out to sell things so we could buy medication for mum and put food on the table. My mum got worse she was in pain I could see it, but despite being in pain she started praying. It was like the more she prayed the worse she got. I was only 8 I didn’t even know how to pray, but I was so scared I will lose mum so I started praying too. I remember I asked God to heal my mum that night and I promised to serve him my whole life.
Fortunately, my grandma came back and she rushed mum to the hospital. We were living with my grandma because my dad died when I was two, I have never really had any memories with him. Apart from the pictures I don’t even know how he looks like. I remember we went with Grandma to the hospital and we kept praying. Asking God to heal my mum. We waited until the doctor came out and told us my mum had died. I didn’t know how to react because I was only eight but as I became a teenager every memory made more sense and I reacted then.
As I grew older, I became bitter with God, why did he allow mum and dad to die when I was still young, he couldn’t even answer the prayer of an innocent kid I was? I was only eight but I prayed so desperately so he could answer my prayer by healing my mum but he didn’t. The more I heard people say nothing is impossible with God the more I became bitter with him. If nothing is impossible with him then he had the power to heal my mum but why did he allow her to die? My grandma was becoming old and everything was getting worse, having food was a struggle, paying for school fees, having clothes or even school item was a struggle all this made me more bitter with God.
-JA
It’s even hard to share this struggle even with my close Christian friends because I am scared, I will be judged but this is something I have battled with since childhood, I have prayed, I have fasted but still the struggle persists. There moments that are so picky that you even see loud and clear that you are the only one struggling with this. Something you didn’t even decide to be, something that feels like it’s just in you alone everyone else is fine and the fact that even the Christian community, the only community you have grown in has classified that struggle as a struggle of its own and never willing to listen to you but immediately cancel you, makes it even more painful.
I struggle from same sex feelings but even before you act so shocked please hear me out, this is something I have struggled with from the time I passed puberty. I have rebuked it, I have prayed against it, I have fasted, I have done almost if not all things the bible recommends to do but still, I find myself struggling from the same issue. I fail to share this with anyone imagine you are just reading I am a stranger to you but still your reaction to this isn’t a safe space for me to open up most likely, I only managed to do this (featuring on this episode) because I am not even from Africa, there little or no chances you will ever know me.
I have prayed to God about this, I have undergone deliverance, I have fasted but still everything is still the same, this has made me frustrated and lost my faith anything will get better, I feel left alone by God, it is hard to say this but honestly, I feel disappointed with God, I am sometimes so bitter I cut myself. I have to fight this every day, despite consistently praying to God to take away this cup from me. It is hard to live each day knowing your struggle is different and many people who are part of your faith which happen to be your community are not willing to listen to you but will quickly cancel you and declare you demon possessed the moment you make mention of your struggles. As I earlier said they are hardships that are so personal, they will make it so clear to you, you are the only one going through this and honestly, I am tired.
-Carl
It was January 1st, 2021 when my mum was transferred from a private hospital to a public hospital to get specialist treatment which the private hospital was lacking. I was scared the treatment will go wrong, I was scared this might be the end, honestly, I didn’t even want to think because the whole thought of imagining mum might actually die was unbearable. I remember I cried throughout the whole process that day. It was the first new year day that my family was not happy, or was at the hospital. The transfer was success, when we reached the public hospital, we were told to wait for the specialist to come. I failed to be in the waiting room the entire event was too traumatic I decided to go away take a walk perhaps when I come back, I will find the specialist had come and the treatment was successful.
Eventually, I left the waiting room took a walk outside the hospital but still the thoughts were getting worse especially this time I wasn’t there, it was getting dark so I stopped in front of the hospital gate and remembered Joseph Prince word, “In the middle of the storm make your requests known.” Immediately I started praying, I was praying and crying at the same time in my entire life I have never been that emotional before God, I cried like cry, cry, cry. I was making my request known to him that he could heal my mum. I told him I am not ready for anything else, it will ruin me, it will break me not just into pieces but into dust that cannot be mended. I spoke every healing scripture I know, I poured my heart, I literally left everything that was going on in my mind that day before God. Afterward, I felt better but the doubt was still there. I left went back to the hospital and I was informed the initial treatment was successful but the condition was still not good.
Fast forward, the next day early in the morning I went back to the hospital I went in spent few minutes there then went outside since the hospital could only permit one person inside because of the current pandemic. Outside I found my nephew who I started asking how school is going because last time we talked he was complaining about school. Just less that twenty minutes my mother died, when I heard the news I was shuttered. Initially I failed how to react the entire news was too much for me this was the first time I lost someone very dear to be. I felt disappointed by God I remember thinking mum was a Christian if ok God couldn’t answer my prayer for any reason why didn’t he do it for mum’s sake? I was broken, I was shuttered I didn’t share this with anyone throughout the funeral because most people assumed, I am a strong Christian I will respond the expected way. After the funeral nothing was the same, I was even failing to pray, like what do you even say in prayer after such an experience? I was neve the same person, that person died immediately I was told your mum has died.
-Genesis Mwamba

If you noticed from all the stories, we share in this episode there two thing we are trying to communicate, first we want you to live our hard experiences in three paragraphs and secondly, we are trying to project one recurring theme “How do you bounce back in prayer after disappointment?” How do you even trust again after all your trust is crushed into pieces? How do you even have faith again when your whole faith is shuttered in dust? There things that break us into pieces and at least we have hope that the broken pieces can be picked again, put in order and use glue to mend them or put them back together BUT their things that break us into dust and to be honest you can’t mend dust.
Their things that happen and make you realise you are not as strong as you thought you were, they leave you so shuttered you understand why so many people have decided to live the kind of life they are living. There so many things that begin to make sense all of a sudden, there certain things that you will never, ever understand until you experience it and one of them is the brokenness that comes with the disappointment after prayer,
The distance between our expectations and reality is called disappointment and navigating through this distance is hard. While you navigate through this distance you will be hurt and you will be required to be strong, people are going to understand you the first few days that at some point they will all expect you to be better and move on, that will require you to pretend which doesn’t help but make the whole situation harder. It is not easy to bounce back in prayer after a major disappointment for some people it even become impossible to believe there is God again. Because certain people will battle the thought if God exists why didn’t he answer the eight-year-old girl prayer, isn’t he a loving and merciful king?
LEAD ME BACK
It is not easy though, I wish I could tell you how I am doing extremely better now but I can’t because I would be lying, yes, I am better than I was when I felt disappointed but I still have days where I doubt, I still have days where I am broken and even fail to say anything before God but I am grateful I am surrounded by a great community of believers who helped understand that when I hurt God hurts too because he loves me that much. We live in a broken world and brokenness will always be here. God understands this very well, that’s why his love, kindness and mercy is unconditional
He understands as we navigate through this distance between reality and expectations that it won’t be easy, this is why he is right there with us step by step. This is why he made it so clear in his word that I will never leave you nor forsake you even up to the end of the earth. Sometimes, this might feel like a lie but that’s where faith comes in, we don’t live neither by sight nor by feelings but by faith.
It’s not easy to walk by faith because our flesh moves by sight but this is where being surrounded by a right community of believers comes in. Friends who will carry you with their faith when you don’t have any, friends who God will use to LEAD YOU BACK. Perhaps you have being reading and you’ve never felt disappointed` with God you can be that friend that rallies around those that are broken and shuttered.
Yes, there situations that break us not into pieces but into dust, but dust is one of the best starting point, you can’t glue dust but God can create using dust! Dust was the ingredient that God used to create human his greatest and favorite creation of all time. You are broken into dust, embrace it, it’s a point of new beginning. Even though what’s broken is too much and you feel nothing can replace it embrace the new beginning.
HOW DO YOU BOUNCE BACK IN PRAYER THEN?
I am not anticipating disappointment when I pray and when it happens it doesn’t mean God doesn’t answer prayers instead, I must go back and talk it through with him and believe he will give me perspective. It is not blind faith but trusting faith. Mostly it is because we don’t talk it through with God that we fail to pray again. We are usually scared to be honest with God, like dead, brutally honest with him. A relationship needs honesty to thrive we must be ready to tell God how we feel even if it sounds extra to us.
There is nothing wrong with talking through with God about our disappointments. God is not scared of our emotions; he can handle how we feel and what we think. God is not scared of our questions and we don’t shock God when we tell him how we feel. Talking it through with God has really been helping. I can now tell God how I feel each day even when I don’t feel like praying because I am scared, he might not give me what I want I tell him that.
Prayer is a discipline and a discipline is something you do even in the moments you don’t feel like doing it, it is something you do but doesn’t mean you will always feel like you want to do it. When I wake up today and feel like I don’t want to pray as a discipline I will still pray and when I begin to pray, I won’t pretend as if my heart wants to, I will still engage God in what I feel so he can help me because he is the best communicator.
HAPPY EASTER HOLIDAYS, HE HAS RISEN!

Thank you very much for reading but before you go, I wanted to inform you that we now have merch for Relatable Monday available only in Zambia, if you want to purchase please contact me on my WhatsApp on +260979208425 or send me an email here. The pictures below are some of the merch currently available.



Thank you…. Be kind to one another