Dear Aunt Silvia,

I married my wife three years ago and we have twin daughters. I met her in a certain church where I had attended a friend’s wedding and she was one of the bridesmaids. We struck friendship almost immediately and from there on we started dating and walked down the aisle a year later. Now what surprises me is that immediately after marriage my wife was no longer interested in going to church.

I am very disturbed because I need to attend church service with my entire family, but I am always the one attending church with my daughters. I need to know what is happening. I am not a religious person-but going to church to pray is very important to me, because this is how I was raised.

Bertin

Dear Bertin,

It is always very difficult to know the true intentions as to why some people seem to be very religious, but once they get what they have been seriously praying for -then their true selves come out. I remember there was a young lady whom we used to go to the same church. After a long time praying with us she suddenly disappeared; I met her in town one day and I asked her whereabouts, very candidly she told me that she now prays in another church where there seems to be more eligible bachelors than in our church! I was very amused-but I wished her the best in life. In a twist of fate, she met and fell in love with a young man who is a member of my church community, they got married in the same church that she said had no eligible bachelors and she is now back in my church.

If you ask me this girl’s intention of going to church was nothing else but to seek for a man. But somehow God showed her He is the only one who makes decisions in our lives; we can only be where he wants us to be.

The story of your wife sounds like this lady’s, only that your wife got what she wanted in that church (you) and decided that was enough of praying. You see matters of one’s faith are complicated. Different people go to church for different reasons. There are people who go to church because they have a certain problem and they think praying at that time will solve their problems immediately – forgetting that God acts at his own time. There are other people who were brought up in a strict Christian family or whatever religion; that whether you are comfortable or in problems going to church is a must, because either way you have to give thanks to the Lord and continue praying for God’s mercies. Other people will tell you that for some reason they are not believers and do not have a religion and this can be very scary.

Let me not speculate as to why your wife has changed from being religious to a non believer, but my sixth sense is telling me that something is not right and for this you need to talk to her and remind her that a family that prays together stays together; Happy New Year!