Let's Talk About God

I'm not proud to say I used to scorn God. You see, I came from a childhood of abuse that lasted for years since I was young. In the beginning, I saw hope in Him. And I prayed and I prayed and I prayed. I cried for Him. Read the Bible (well, the children's version anyway) fairly often.

But the suffering didn't stop. From a young age, I was forced to look at the world with old eyes. And I somehow came to the conclusion that God... wasn't real.

It's easy to think that. Thoughts drown you out at night, and all the existential questions pop out.

What if God is just an idea conjured by the human population to comfort themselves?
It's convenient to think that there is a God, especially if you're waiting at the hospital, anticipating the success of your loved one's critical surgery. It must be a relief to think that there's a God who's in control of everything, who you can pray to so that everything will magically just be better.

What if God was created by the human mind in order to keep control of everyone? The Bible's pretty big on morality, so you can see where I'm coming from. With everyone worshiping God and following his commandments, there would be less crimes.

And here's the most common thought that might have crossed everyone's thoughts, agnostic or not: How the heck did all of the Biblical events happen? What assurance do we have that they really happened? Historians traced all the way back to the age of the dinosaurs, so why in the world aren't there evidences of the great flood? Or the Egyptians' remains in the depths of the Red Sea?

I was inactive at church, and I asked my mom how could she be so sure that God was real.

She said she also wasn't sure. She just believed in religion because it was part of her upbringing.

I suffered from depression starting from age thirteen, and I attempted suicide at age fifteen via overdosing. To my surprise, all the prescription drugs did not do the trick, and my dad found my suicide letter way before I could even go to sleep.

I was rushed to the hospital where my parents informed the hospital personnel about what happened. And so I spent five days in the hospital psych ward. I was out so early because they said I'd been "good". No self harming. No episodes of lashing out. I was just existing there in my hospital room, alive and eating. They saw no problem in me, and I didn't tell them about the abuse. How could I? I didn't want to out my oppressor.

To this day, I still remember sleeping in that soulless hospital room with the CCTV camera pointed at me, and with rounds carried out by the nurses every fifteen minutes or so. I knew the best way to escape the place was to do nothing.

My parents would visit me there everyday, and it was very awkward. I was supposed to be dead, and there I was, talking to my parents and a bunch of nursing aids who thought I was a basket case.

My mom then told me, "God loves you. He didn't let you die."

At the time, I shrugged off her words, and dismissed her as the naive, religion-bound woman I thought she was.