| I have been a regular contributor to a Christian | | | | bad. |
| magazine for Women for many years. And yet, just a | | | | I was simply someone who could not live my life |
| few years ago I was a staunch agnostic. So how did I | | | | without any proof. I was a too rational (which is a gift |
| end up becoming an active part of a Christian | | | | that came in handy when I served as an editor to our |
| magazine for women? Here's the story. | | | | Christian magazine for women). I needed proof that |
| Many times, a person encounters severe tragedies in | | | | God was here. I was an avid reader of philosophy and |
| her life that can really bring you down to your knees. | | | | theory. I have heard all the arguments. Miracles, the |
| We've all heard it before: the death of a beloved, | | | | existence of the word, St. Aquinas' and St. Augustine's |
| hearing from the doctor that you have terminal cancer | | | | arguments - all of these can and has been |
| or even such a simple thing as a bad breakup can | | | | successfully disproved. I have even experienced those |
| cause some people (not all) to have doubts about their | | | | mystical, spiritual moments of oneness with God |
| faith and to even loose it. But this doesn't always | | | | before. But even that was not enough to convince me |
| happen. Sometimes, really bad things happen to the | | | | because in the end, these ecstatic and electric feelings |
| faithful and the tragedy only serves to strengthen their | | | | of extreme oneness with the universe can be |
| fait. I have even heard of a pious woman who had her | | | | explained away as nothing more than a mental |
| whole family killed before her while she and her | | | | occurrence, in short, a hallucination created by the our |
| daughter were raped and left to die in their burning | | | | own subconscious needs. |
| house. She was the only one who survived, and the | | | | So how did I end up as part of a Christian magazine |
| ordeal, though terrible to the extreme, somehow | | | | for women? Well, it is almost inexplicable for me. One |
| strengthened her faith even more. Perhaps, in her | | | | day, I woke up and decided I no longer wanted to be |
| destitution, she found that there was nowhere and | | | | sad. I wanted God's order back in my disordered life. |
| no-one else to turn to. Or perhaps she had found a | | | | Living without a God was simply too hard to bear. I |
| profound acceptance of the unfathomable (some | | | | realized there was no proof that God did not exist |
| would say absurd) wisdom of His will. But anyway, I | | | | either so why can't it be possible? I finally took the leap |
| lost faith not because of any specific tragedy. Sure | | | | of faith and I feel so much better now that my life is |
| my life at that point in time was bad, but it wasn't that | | | | anchored by meaning. |