As I peer into the depths of the Grand Canyon, my breath hitches, my heart jumps a few beats. Magnificent and amazing are not enough to describe it.
Wow.
Yet, when my camera tries to capture the infinite beauty of nature, it refuses to be confined to man-made technology… and when I look back down at the photograph, something is missing. The Grand Canyon stuffed into the electronic device seems to have lost its spark. The spark that makes you stops breathing.
The reason I believe in God is simple, but complicated. It is personal, but universal. It comes down to one idea but several things, love, hope, and joy. The first time I really experienced God was probably a million times more breathtaking than the view of the Grand Canyon. God, something that cannot be defined in mortal vocabulary, had a spark. It sounds ridiculous, but I believe in God. This is why:
It was 1998, May 30th. My sister was born that day. Not long afterwards, she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Along with the disease came vision, hearing, and speaking problems. It brings tears to my eyes to watch innocence suffer in the hands of evil, and not be able to do anything about it. When she was just a few months old, my sister had surgery on her eye. Even though physically, she was the victim, my parents may have been suffering even more, for while physical pain attacks from the outside, emotional pain eats you from the inside out, like parasites, feeding on your flesh and blood, slowly and torturously, sucking your life out of you.
I used to wonder, if God were good, why would a He let this happen? Why should He let innocence suffer? Sometimes, she was bullied; kids her age did not want to be friends with her. As I stood seething in anger at the heartlessness and cruelty of those children, it would soon disintegrate into pure hopelessness and grief because I could not do anything about it.
I have learned over the years, that it hurts to suffer, but it hurts a million times worse to watch someone you love suffer. She was seven when the demon attacked. It was morning, warm sunlight pouring lazily into my bedroom, as if nothing was wrong. But something was wrong; I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and turned my head to where my sister was sleeping. Except, she wasn’t sleeping, she was convulsing, violently convulsing. Her breath quivered as invisible hands shook the life out of her. Eyeballs rolled into the back of her head so that all I could see was white. She was having a seizure. Panic, shock, and fear: words that can’t describe the emotions I felt. I shouted for my parents, I shouted for my sister to wake up. I could not breathe. My mom’s face was white and my dad was horrified. We prayed for her. It seemed like hours, as time forever lingered on the clock. “Jesus, please save my sister.” She stopped shaking. Her breath retreated back to normal inhaling and exhaling. She whimpered and cried tears that broke my heart drop by drop.
At that time, I saw plainly, that my sister had a disease that was not going to heal, that her condition would not improve, that while I went to college, my parents would have to support her. I saw that, while other siblings grew up together, I was growing up, and leaving her behind. I hated it. I hated the thought. It was so unfair and unjust. Isn’t God supposed to be a just God, too? I hated God. I doubted his existence. I hated life in general. I hated my own existence, for, maybe if I was never born, my sister may have been born normal. That maybe, if she had been normal, it would have spared my parents the early and unwelcomed white hairs on their heads.
Not many people know this about me, but I used to have seizures myself. For one moment, I wanted to be the protector, the protector of my sister, and so suddenly I was thrown into the position where I needed a protector. I lay in bed at night, afraid to fall asleep, trying to keep guard of the ever so swift demonic earthquake that might invade. I felt so beaten up. I felt as if there was no hope. No hope, no God. I was depressed for I no longer saw the world with the colors of the rainbow; it was completely grey… and nothing more.
My heart had been shredded up into pieces; the leftover carcass that the parasites used to feed on, now rotting from the inside out. I never really talked to anyone about my problems, for there never seemed to be the right person to share to and carry the huge crushing burden of heartbreak. I prayed. And prayed. Whether or not he was there, what did I have to lose?
Comfort did not come immediately, but it did eventually arrive. The Bible says seek and you will find and that God draws near to the brokenhearted. It is hard to describe what it felt when I felt God. It was like a wildfire spreading across my soul, a soothing wildfire, then tears, tears of joy and relief, and these were only symptoms. What I was really experiencing is so incredibly hard to describe, like the Grand Canyon, so hard to explain what it looked like unless seen through a person’s own perception. Amazement came next, then finally peace. Pure joy is what I felt: pure joy and pure hope. I was on a spiritual high for the first time of my life; and I felt comfort and healing, I felt God say, “This is going to be okay. I am with you, and I love you.” The presence of God was the best thing I have ever experienced, the amazement and awe surpassed anything I have ever felt before.
They say you don’t realize that God is all you need, until God is all you have. Funny how I grew up in church thinking I believed in God, when I really didn’t. Funny how I thought Christianity was just tradition and culture. It’s so unbelievably hilarious that I thought that was all there was to life. Growing up, going to school, getting married, getting rich, growing old… They say live your life to the fullest. I firmly believe that if you want to do so, know God, and experience it for yourself.
In the Bible, it says God created man, that we were created in his image, to have a relationship with him. When we sinned, we were eternally separated from him, which is why so many people go about searching for the “meaning of life”. Without God, we are incomplete. I believe there is sin. We all try to be perfectionist, and why? -because truthfully, we are all just downright imperfect. I believe there is a fine line between good and evil, God and the devil. We are the fallen example of perfection, for because we were created like God, we try to be perfect, but always fall short of his glory. And that Jesus came into the world, God incarnate, to remove the barrier of sin, so that he can be with his people once again.
Just Christianity in a nutshell, I could go on and on, but as much as I can say about the Bible, it boils down to personal experience. And the only thing I can say is that God took away my depression and worries, and replaced it with joy and peace. My sister recently did an MRI scan, and the doctor says the activity that causes seizures in her brain has lessened. She is not completely seizure free, but she hasn’t had seizures in two years.
Hope is a beautiful word. And God is hope.