quote:
Since we do not know each other beyond our verbal typed exchanges, none of you would have known me so as to see the changes that the internal, living presence of God has made in my life. Even if you had seen the changes, known my passion, and experienced the relationship with me personally, you would still be the judges of whether to attribute the changes to other reasons rather than to belief in God.
I was once a very unhappy person.
I had a rather, shall we say, interesting upbringing which left me with a low self esteem and a lot of anger and fear.
I worked really hard at getting better because I didn't want to live my life like that. I read books, I talked to people, I wrote letters to the people who hurt me that I never sent, I confronted some of the people who hurt me directly.
I am surrounded by wonderful people, and I have found meaningful work that I love.
The reason I am telling you all of this is because I am a nearly COMPLETELY different person than I was before. I interact very, very differently with everyone I have ever known.
I am really glad that many of my current friends never knew me 10 years ago, because I was, frankly, a mess.
It was before all of this metamorphosis began that I started to question my belief in God. Throught all of this self-improvement and becoming healthy and the transformation, I had no faith at all.
People noticed a difference in me for the positive, just like those people who get "Born Again" tell about, yet I just did the work myself and gave myself the credit for a job well done. I never once, in all of the tears and anguish, ask God for help. It just never occurred to me to do that, because it was ME who needed to do the work.