I’m going to put in the
effort to pray to You. I'm going to sit there quietly and
listen and not be distracted. I’ve done what You asked me to do. So I felt like, yeah, I felt
like I deserved an answer. And when I wasn’t getting it, that’s where the anger came,
as I was like: “OK, I'm not going to try. Like, if You’re not going to
answer me, I’m not going to try.” It was like I didn't feel like
God was talking to me. I just felt alone, like
no one was there. To me, that didn't feel right. It didn't feel like
there is no God, because there's a lot of things
that show me that there is a God; that just, I couldn’t
really believe that. I felt like there is God. I just I need to learn
how He speaks to me. It was about 10 years ago,
I was in a car accident. It was somebody messing around,
and I was at the expense of that. And I have dealt with pain for
like the last 10 years. But it got really, really
bad to the point where I couldn’t even lift up my kids
at some points. And sorry, I’m emotional because
I really felt so low, like nobody my age knows
what this is like. And it just made me more angry
towards God. Like, “Why me?” Like, “This is too much.” You know, it felt like more
than I could take. It's hard to deal with physical
pain and feel like I'm doing the things that I’m
supposed to. Why, why am I having these huge trials
that other people my age don’t have? It was just like this
downward spiral of like, God's not there for me. And, you know, like
I felt very alone and like no one understood
what I was going through. One time, I just prayed
to God, and I said, “Will you just tell me
how you speak to me,” because what I was doing, I felt
like it wasn't working. I had a friend reach out
to me from high school, and she had been in the Army. She had gone away to
Iraq and she had a lot of back problems
and stuff like that. The way she described her pain
was exactly the pain that I was having on a daily basis. And she also had three
young kids like me. And it’s like, “You’re not alone; someone else is going through
the same thing.” And it just made sense to me that
God talks to me that way, because I have always
loved people. Like, I can’t even explain it. I will talk to random people
in the grocery store. So why wouldn't he have me
talk to other people and have other people talk
to me to get my answers? He wasn't giving up on me. People
were reaching out to me. And so I felt like, “OK, He cares because He’s having
people reach out to me.” And I don’t know, I just felt like
my burden started getting lighter and lighter as I realized
I wasn't alone. And I felt like He put people also
in my life that had been through the same things. And randomly they would reach
out to me and tell me very, very similar stories. And now I actually have a good
relationship with God. You know, I think sometimes it
takes going through something like this to truly know where
you stand with God and understand how He talks to you
and have a real relationship. And so it just made sense for
me to go on a mission, and it just made sense to follow
these cultural norms and go forward with faith. And so when I found out that I
didn't really believe anything, I also realized I never really
believed anything in the past either.
I can appreciate how she feels. I sometimes get into a period of my life where I also feel like God’s not speaking to me. I just persist in doing what I know is right and keep up hope.