“Do you believe in God?” It is a question I have been asked time and time again. The first time came when I was about 7-years-old. My mother had sat me down on our old, blanketed couch and looked me straight in the eye. For a moment I thought I had seen the devil sitting on her right shoulder. The scary thing is, God wasn’t on the other one. “Do you believe in God?” she had asked me. I stayed silent, my fingers becoming tied together by a knot of sweat. I knew I couldn’t tell her the truth. Who knows what she would have done to me. “No, I don’t believe in God.” I had said. It was the first of many times that I had deceived God. I still think about it now because I wonder if denying his name as a kid is going to have consequences when I need to climb the gold encrusted steps into heaven. I’m more worried about deceiving God than I am my mother now. But as a kid, I didn’t understand why God was writing my story the way he was. Why did God give me a mother that hated him?
Growing up in my mother’s household was anything but heavenly. She hated God, she hated church, and she hated religion. Anything that had to do with believing in a bigger power other than herself, she was against. She is and was queen in her eyes and the idea of being anything less than the ultimate power was revolting to her. This reign of power even extended over my father. I never really knew much about my dad because he worked all the time and our schedules never seemed to agree with one another in the typical father-daughter way they should have. Even if he was at home or not, my mother’s word went over his every time. I don’t think my dad is very religious either. I think it might be one of those things he finds too complex to understand. He comes from a very religious family and when I would occasionally go over to my grandmas, I treasured the time as much as possible because it seemed like the only time I would get with God. I remember apologizing many times asking God to forgive me for denying his name. It seemed that as a kid, my mother’s hand and sharp tongue were more terrifying than what God would do to me if I denied his name.
I would pray at home when my mother and father were yelling. “God, please let them stop. Please help them to stop.” Becoming the primary caregiver of my brother and sister for a while made me hope that God was there even more. He was the only one I knew was there for us during those days. I think about it today and I wonder if God gave me a hateful mother because he doesn’t want me to become one. He gave me disagreeing and impatient parents because he didn’t want me to become like them. It’s like he’s writing a heart aching beginning to lead to the heartwarming ending. And if not, I hope he’ll explain it to me one day. Maybe if I finally get to climb those steps he’ll give me the plot summary of why he chose my life to go the way it has.
When I was almost seventeen, my mother's new boyfriend didn't like me and I was kicked out of my house (my dad had been booted about a year earlier). At the time this was the hardest thing I had ever had to deal with. My 4.0 GPA slipped, I lost contact with my siblings, and I was moving into an all Christian household. My siblings and I were the only three kids in the immediate family that did not attend a private Christian school. I constantly felt judged for the first few months because they were judging me based off of what my mother wanted for me and not what I wanted for me. But eventually I got to know them and they got to know me. I learned things about my family that I would have never known had my mom not kicked me out. But most importantly I have been able to find my faith again. I know a lot of people do not believe in God but I do. I like to think that there is someone out there willing to be there for me no matter what. I like to think that when He comes back one day, I will be able to proudly say I am on his side and not against Him. Christianity has given me hope that I will be able to raise a beautiful family one day under important morals and values that were set by God. I know what it's like to be an atheist and I know what it's like to be a Christian.
I choose God.
