Starting Over

After reading my friends' blogs about their struggles to follow Christ in the world, I am inspired to throw in my two cents. I will not be able to phase things so eloquently as they have, but I'd like to share my journey.

It's hard to be a Christian today. It's hard to see all the suffering around us and believe that an all-powerful, all-loving God would allow such things to happen. It's frightening, and for a time, I wondered if there was anyone listening when I prayed. Sometimes, you have to see something to believe it.

One month ago, I got on a plane in Phoenix with 31 other college students to spend a week in New Orleans doing relief work. I didn't know what to expect when we got there. As a journalist, the only expectation I had was the determination to return with a good story, a clean 450 words for the campus newspaper. I came back with more.

In these gutted houses, working alongside people who had lost everything, I saw God. God was there, in the city that had spent weeks under 11 feet or more of toxic flood water. God was there in the moldy rafters and down in the potholes filled up with oyster shells. Even now, it is hard to assign words to the experience.

One woman, who was in a wheelchair, saw the hurricane as a blessing. She told us about how happy she was that now the doors in her home could be rebuilt wider to allow her to move comfortably through her home. She wasn't angry at God. She saw the disaster as an opportunity.

I think that's why God throws hardships in our way. Just as a forest is healthier after a purging wildfire, our soul is stronger after our ego is torn down.

I have been torn down. Though I am young, I still carry a weight on my shoulder beyond my years. But God has torn me down, and I am new. The time has come to rebuild myself. I need to construct a new faith. I need a new life, and I trust God to lead me there. I'm ready to start over.