Confession 6: Thankful for the Atheists

I opened my email today and there were a few letters of support from people all who have read my blogs and relate to them. I have to say, although I love the notes from my mom, there is more validity to people who I do not know! As my mom has to love my writing!) There was one in particular, that was so unexpected, I had to take a moment to read it and let it resonate with me. I sat and reread it, read it again; out loud and in my head. I waited and prayed...it never did, there was no resonation in my soul with this letter or to the person who wrote it. It was mean, accusatory, at times unintelligible and a little demeaning. Had I received a year or so ago, I may questioned many of the motives within in and may have shut down the blog and let my thoughts be just that...my own thoughts. I would have not known how to exactly defend myself and would have probably written back out of anger, not wisdom. With that said, I found myself today feeling appreciative that I had received this note, because in some surreal sense, it meant that it caused someone to step outside their comfort level and think of something higher. So I am thankful for being on a higher level to understand it, but also to be able to respond from my heart and for the chance to let God do some of the talking on this one.

While I will not share all of the details or post the email for people to read, I will share some of the questions that were in it, some were honest and others were just irrationally mean. The first sentence began with..."I am sorry for your children, that their mother has been blinded by a faith which there is no God for and a religion that promotes sexual abuse and hides it."

Go ahead, reread that, I sure as heck had to...how does someone compassionately respond to such an accusation as if I promoted all of the bad things within my faith and let my children be hurt by them. The next one said, "If there really is a God, then why doesn't he show who he is and why doesn't he heal the world of all the bad things that happen...I am sorry for your ignorance and sheepish following, but most of all I am sorry for your children whom you are teaching to be bigots."

Yeah, that paragraph is wonderfully perplexing...go ahead and reread it again!! Seriously, had this been last year, I would have slammed this email back with angry words, a how dare you attitude and a "God" will show you in the end kind of come back. I would have fumed on it all day and called my friends in disgust as if I was the victim of a horrific attack on my personal character. I would probably have been most hurt by the accusation that I am not a good example for my children and I am leading them on a path full of lies and deceit. I would have called a "girls night" happy hour in which I could console my wounded heart with some good, like-minded friends and an Amaretto sour...probably two, throwing in a few carbohydrate filling comfort foods to make it all better. I would show them...as I carried it angrily away from my heart for such ignorant words!

Not today...although a Girl's Night is much deserved and needed to maintain sanity every few weeks! I sat for a moment and prayed. I prayed for the wisdom to even answer such an email and I prayed for my heart to not take it personally. Most of all, I prayed for this "devout Atheist" as they put it, I prayed for their heart to be softened and see what joy that I have found in my own. In the midst of my prayer, it made me realize a couple of things. (1.) When you write publicly, you are bound to find people who do not agree with you and (2.) I thanked God for this Atheist email, it caused me to take a moment to be closer to Him and find the answers inside of my heart. See, I can handle not being agreed with, or else I would have had robots and dogs to raise, not children. But questioning me on the life experiences that has lead to my faith, that is something that is harder to release from my heart.

You see each day, I wake up and go on in my life, I am prayerful, I am kind and I try to be an example for my children...even when I want to sell them to a South American prison because I am convinced they are possessed! (Moms, you know the days I am talking about, no one wants to admit it for fear that Social Services will be calling and your perfect June Clever image is outed for Mommy Dearest; those days when you just need a "mommy time out".) Even then, on the hardest of days, I may ask God, "why this is happening?", but I never say God, "I do not believe you are there." I can't imagine ever living in a world without hope or the knowledge that this is all for not. Scientifically, I know my body will go back into the ground and the super-computer which is my brain will cease to work...but not my soul...the one connection I have to a higher existence, that will move on. I realize that I take that all for granted each day. There is usually nothing out of the ordinary that causes me question the validity of my faith, but also give me the want and desire to fight all the more for the right to it.

This email makes me do that. It makes me hold my faith all the more close and gives me the desire to learn much more than hearsay so I can defend it and know that I am leading my children on the right path. I am not going to pray for the conversion of the person who sent me the email, because that may not be the path that their soul is on...and whether they like it or not, God ultimately does control that and has a plan for them. He has a plan for us all, even when our free-will chooses a path He may not like, He still has a plan for that path's end. It is the ultimate lesson of full surrender that we choose to walk. I am going to say a prayer of thanksgiving that technology has allowed this person to email me and to express their thoughts. Without this note this morning, my day would have not put me in uncomfortable situation to think about my faith. I would have "blindly" walked today and not thought about how I can fight for it, not through a war, but through my actions and the wisdom I get from prayer. Today an Atheist made me all the more thankful in my relationship with God, Christ and my children. Today, this letter, allowed God to show his presence to me in a way that I can confirm He does exist. I will pray that same grace on this letter writer and hope that he writes again to challenge me to stand on a higher level and respond as Christ would.


(Note: This Confession will be a two part one, as tomorrow I will answer the email's question as to how I can defend Catholicism.)