My Winding Road Back to Faith: Reflections from a Life Between Church Doors

For most of my six years in boarding school, church was something I avoided. I only went during holidays when I was home. Confession? That was never on my radar. Since 1999, I hadn’t faced a priest to confess anything. But when I got to university, things began to shift. I explored various Pentecostal churches, joined Bible studies, and found myself in the middle of passionate debates about doctrines I had never thought to question: infant baptism, confessions, abstaining from meat on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

The deeper I dove into Scripture, the more questions I had. I began ‘sampling’ churches, looking for one that felt right. But more often than not, I was pushed to speak in tongues, fall under the anointing, shout, or jump, things that felt unnatural and robbed me of the peace I expected from worship. By my third year in university, I was burnt out. I had done it all, crusades, street preaching, even dramatic moments where we wrote letters to Jesus, burned them, and prayed for the smoke to rise to heaven. One such episode nearly triggered an asthma attack, I can’t handle burning paper. I laughed about it later, but it wasn’t funny at the time.

After university, I returned to Catholicism during my NYSC year in Abuja, mostly because I lived with my mum. When I moved to Bonny, I went to church only when someone made eye contact that suggested I should. It felt boring, the readings, the music, even the preaching. I didn’t care for any of it anymore.

Then I moved to Canada. Homesick, I tried the Catholic Church again. It was the most uninspiring church experience I’d ever had. Still, I went occasionally in Ottawa. Later in Calgary, I joined a friend’s church while job hunting. For a while, I actually liked it. But that’s a story for another day.

Marriage and the journey to motherhood brought a new twist. After three failed Letrozole cycles, I left my job and joined my husband in Dubai. I wasn’t actively Catholic — just the occasional Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and Easter. I always liked Lent. There’s something reflective and grounded about the season, especially the Stations of the Cross.

But the Church’s stance on IVF troubled me deeply. I spiraled into a rabbit hole: studying, debating, and questioning when life really begins — at fertilization or implantation? My first IVF cycle gave me six embryos. I was overstimulated, so we froze them all. When we transferred three and I got pregnant, I remember telling my husband, Hendrie, about the Church’s position. I said, “Even if I have triplets, I’ll go back and use the rest of my embryos”. I hear embryos can be adopted now, this may ease some of that guilt of abandoning unused embryos but ultimately, new ethical issues may arise.

My first pregnancy ended quickly, so heartbreaking. I used my remaining frozen embryos and also miscarried soon after. By the next IVF cycles, I had firmly closed the door on the Church.

A restlessness stirred in me. I started a chronological Bible study over a year and found myself questioning more. How could the Church ban contraception and IVF, when the Bible showed evolving instructions? Jacob married two sisters in Genesis, but by Leviticus that was forbidden. If Scripture wasn’t 2000 years old, maybe IVF would have been seen not as sin but as a blessing, an answer, not a rebellion.

Then Pope Francis came along. His message of love, peace, and compassion for the marginalized pulled me back. His voice resonated with the version of faith I had been searching for, one centered on mercy, not judgment.

Today, I attend a different church, one close to home, manageable with five kids in tow. I may not align with every doctrine, but I respect those who do. I’ve learned to sit with the tension, to embrace grace, to understand that faith doesn’t have to be tidy to be true.

As the conclave begins soon, I pray that the love of God continues to guide the Church. Pope Francis, thank you. Rest in peace. Your legacy lives on in the hearts of many like me, who wandered, wrestled, and still found their way home.