I am from a Christian home and my dad is a pastor. Every morning, we do a devotion and it has been like this for years. But looking back, I wasn’t serious about religion. I went to church because my family did. I did everything related to religion because my family did. I was a child, so I was following by example.

Religion – all kinds – is deeply patriarchal. Women are taught to be this and that, to do so and so, to be able to keep a man or hold down a marriage, with men being taught nothing.

I started to take religion seriously after being ghosted by a boy when I was 16. I had watched the popular Christian movie, War Room, prior to being ghosted. So when I got ghosted, I did everything women were told to do in the movie to get back my relationship.

I prayed, I fasted and sent him countless messages. I was only 16 and in secondary school, yet all I was focused on was ways to get back a relationship with a boy who ghosted me because I had been conditioned into thinking that is what women were supposed to do.