Letter to an Atheist

A Letter to Ryan Culbertson-Faegre

I read with great interest the letter from the reader who explained his non-belief in God and why he feels he is an atheist. (Springfield News-Leader, Friday, February 13, 2009)

The past year and a half had me questioning my “faith” and “belief” in God. The morning my husband died from cancer I yelled that I no longer believed there was a God. How could there be when so much pain existed in the human world? After all I had seen my husband go through I struggled with the concept of a loving, healing God. I told my pastor that I just didn’t believe in God anymore—flat out. I threw away my Christian literature that spoke of God’s healing power and all encompassing love. I was beyond angry. I was convinced God was a hoax—a lie. I didn’t see the picture I had in mind--the one where Jeff was healed--become the reality therefore, God was not real and never had been.

My entire forty plus years on this earth, I was a firm believer that God was just there. I believed that no matter what God could fix it or heal it or find it. I just had blind faith that God would handle everything. When Jeff got sick, we didn’t understand it. We had lived a Faith-based life—we repented, we forgave, we prayed, we quoted and read Scripture. Surely, God would know how great a person Jeff was and heal him—Jeff of all people deserved a miracle.

Here’s the thing—the catch—that always took my breath away when I was in the middle of an “I hate God” cry. Jeff, the one person who had the right not to believe, not to trust, not to have faith—Jeff felt completely enveloped in God’s loving, protecting arms. He often told me that he knew without a doubt that God was there caring for him and that his cancer was in no way an act of God or his not being deemed Spiritual enough in God’s eyes. Jeff reminded me, taught me that God does exist. And He exists in our lives in ways we won’t see until a time comes when He chooses to share His ultimate, Divine Grace with us. Ryan, you have evidence of God in your life everyday—maybe you don’t see it as God, and that’s OK—but a Higher Divine Power is guiding you every step. If you keep waiting for tangible evidence that you deem proof of God’s existence, then, I am sorry, you will never believe in God—with or without religion attached.

Ryan, go to a NICU nursery where the Proof is born. Go to the cancer clinics where the Proof walk through doors everyday. Talk with the hospice nurses and the cancer patients who know their time left on earth is short. Talk with the wives, husbands, mothers and fathers, and children who have lost someone who was as close as their very breath. Proof of God is there.

It has been almost a year since Jeff died. It has been a battle and a struggle to let go of the anger and the pain. The grief will last—it just does. Grief is a void we feel when a part of us is lost—humanly. Something else will last for me, though. It is my Faith, my Trust, my Belief that God is there. Only now it is not “blind” faith. I don’t take for granted that God is there. I have seen and felt proof of His love, His care, His existence with every step and every breath my children and I have taken this past year. It has been demonstrated to me and it is being demonstrated to you. Look closely at your life—the proof is there—God exists.

We all have to examine our relationship with God at different times in our lives. It will change as we change—it will grow as we grow—the relationship will look much differently tomorrow than it did ten years ago, or even ten days ago. God won’t change. The ever-present, all-knowing, all-wise, loving God won’t change. He will be there whenever we decide to look down and see the single footprints of the times He carries us and the side-by-side prints of the times He is there next to us.

You aren’t “rampaging around downtown Springfield…” because you are proof of God’s goodness and an example of His love—whether you want to believe that right now or not.