Don't Believe in God? Really?

If you don't believe in God, please watch these videos and explain to me how this happens.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/28340481#28340481

(So far, nobody has died and only a few remain hospitalized a day later.)


http://video.maycontainnuts.com/video--amazing-car-crash-survivor--357.html

(Not even a scratch on this guy.)


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/flatpages/video/seattletimesvideo.html?bcpid=1543292770&bclid=1543290205&bctid=5337338001

(Nobody seriously injured.)

Where was God?

One of the obstacles I felt I had to overcome before I became a Christian was to accept that nearly everything I had been taught about God was incorrect. I found out very quickly that obstacle was not one that could be overcome in a day and accepting that it would be a process of learning and growing would be most important.

The thing I struggled with and still do at times is where was God? Where was God through all the years that I was a helpless child? Did God have a presence in my life at all?

Growing up in the home of an Atheist, exposure to church, the bible and God was very limited. When there was exposure, it led to untruths about God and the bible.

There were opportunities, but I was sheltered from them. When I did get exposure, my family always countered with what they wanted me to know as truth. They were very quick to tell me that if God was real then bad things wouldn’t happen and bad things wouldn’t happen to me. I was made to believe that if there was a God then he wouldn’t love me because I was a bad child. It was repeated over and over that the bible was a book that was written to make people feel better about death.

There are a countless number of times that we were forced to hide in the basement when the “bible thumpers” rang the doorbell on a Saturday afternoon. And, the bibles that were left on our porch were quickly destroyed by burning them or using the pages in the bottom of bird cages.

My hometown has a biblical parade every October. I was not allowed to participate rarely allowed to attend. When I was able to attend, I never understood. I didn’t understand why there was a giant whale with a man in its mouth. I didn’t understand the pretty float with the cross and John 3:16 written on the side. I didn’t understand the man in a robe that drug a giant wooden cross.

When I was in grade school, a friend of my parents was able to take me to a Baptist church a few times. It was truly my only exposure to church until I was in my later teen years. The women at the church were so nice to me. Several of them would take turns cleaning me up and making sure I was taken care of while I was there. On Easter, one of them brought me a new dress and shoes.

The same year I was given a snow globe for Christmas. It had a manger scene in with the gold and silver sparkles. I didn’t know what the significance of a baby in a manger was at the time. What I did know was that watching the sparkles float around the baby for hours was an escape from the reality of my life.

When I was younger, a neighbor gave me a gift. It was a children’s bible story book. I read some of the stories and looked at the pictures. There was a picture that I grew very fond of. It was of a woman who was picking up a child from a river bank. I didn’t understand the story, but I would go to the picture during really bad times and dream of a woman picking me up and caring for me in the same way.

My parents were very much against me having the story book. I did not know why at the time that they were so against it, I just knew that it was a gift to me and I wanted to keep it. Many times I found the book in the trash can and dug it out. Each time I would become more enraged and get more creative with where it was hidden. As a teenager, I was unable one day to find the book. I was positive that it had finally been taken from me for good.

Many years later after I was married, I returned home to visit on a weekend that my parents were having a garage sale. There in a pile of items for sale was the bible story book I had lost so long ago. I did get the book back, but had to purchase it from my parents.

One day last summer, I carried up a small box from the basement that holds all physical memories of my childhood. Exhausted from the constant struggle of trying to answer the where was God questions and accepting the truth, I fell onto the box and cried. I cried out to God to show me that even in all the untruth I was given that there was something to show He was there with me even then.

At the bottom of the box, I found the bible story book. The outside was filthy from having been thrown in the trash. The spine had a prominent clean spot from the price tag used in the garage sale. But as I opened to the familiar pages, I found the same comfort I had found as a child.

I may still struggle with the hard questions. But I do accept now that as a child, God did have a presence in my life. I am so blessed to have the reminders to hold onto when the obstacle still seems too big to overcome.