God is Love

If we were having a normal conversation, and I was asked if I believe in god, I would say no.

No, I don’t believe in a man with long brown, magically soft hair who sits in the clouds making executive decisions like “No equality in California!” “How many kids died today? Okay, sure.” “Yeah, go ahead and let that murder take place.”

Other than his long silky and never frizzy hair being a fantasy, if there was a god, how could he let the world be run as it is right now?

When my father left my mother for a year, we started going to church every Sunday. In my life, I’ve heard at least 80 sermons. I was baptized catholic, and I can have communion.

Now I wasn’t a very opinionated kid, but when I heard a passage about God asking a disciple to deceive and kill his young son as a sacrifice, I made up my mind about one thing. That god was not my god. It was very conflicting to me that if God truly loved and forgave all of his people, why did he test them so much? So began my atheism.

Yet, one year ago, before my fifteenth birthday, another monumental thing took place. I was rushed to the hospital due to a mystery illness that was killing my kidneys. Endocarditic had consumed my aortic valve. I had emergency open heart surgery.

I had never felt so much love in my life. Cards, pictures, letters and posters poured into my room from friends, family, and people I hadn’t even met. Everyone gave me love in their own way, through “good energy”, prayers, or simply thoughts. I still have people come up to me to tell me that they had done one of the above while I was in the hospital. I felt it.

So no, I don’t believe in god, but I believe in something. I’m not sure how to express it, it has only been a year since I first started subscribing to this belief. I’m not even really sure what I believe in. But this I do know: I believe in the power to help and to love, I believe in goodwill and prayer. God is love. This I believe.