I Was An Atheist

How God Showed Me The Truth

I spent my first 28 years on this Earth as an atheist. I was so confident in myself and my ideology. I pursued physical beauty, advanced degrees, and frivolous luxury. I excelled in my pursuits, and the world around me congratulated me on my “success”. 

Why, then, was I miserable? I was seeking something, but I never knew what it was. I believed I needed to understand myself to fix that feeling. Maybe it was something from my childhood, or societal pressure on me as a woman, or the high demand of my chosen field. Maybe if I just took the right vacation, got enough followers or made enough money, then that deep feeling of emptiness would finally disappear. My secular based marriage was no longer “making me happy”, which obviously was one of the big issues (through no fault of mine, I believed). 

In 2016, I separated from my husband, took a higher paying job and set out toward the life I just knew would finally make me happy. But the opposite happened. I went into the darkest, deepest pit of despair I ever hope to experience. I lost everyone, or so it felt, including myself. I was lonely, directionless, and everything I believed would fix me left me feeling nothing but dead inside. Where else could I go? Everything the world said would fulfill me had left me in ruins.

Looking at it now, I thank God for that. I was completely broken so I could finally be humble enough to see the truth. My estranged husband began going to church during our separation, and at first I mocked him. He was “having a breakdown”. (Of course I ignored my own state of despair. I was never the issue, so I thought.)

I watched him change. Not just change, transform. He was renewed. He was kind, patient, caring and joyful. The opposite of me. He extended a forgiving hand toward me, and asked me to come to church.

I scoffed. Then I pondered. Could I do it? Would the church spontaneously combust when I walked in? Everyone would reject me once they knew about my past and the things I had done. I didn’t belong.

One day soon after he asked me to join him at church, I did something I had never done. I prayed. I was driving to work in the early dark of morning. I began almost sarcastically, out loud.

“God, I have never done this before. And I feel silly. Perhaps I’m just talking to myself. I know I shouldn’t ask this, but I think I need help if I’m going to believe. I need something to show me that this isn’t just some foolish joke. Please. Amen.”

Well, that was weird, I thought.

I went to work for a few hours, when I saw my coworker standing in the doorway to my office. She was not a Christian, I had not told anyone about my husband asking me to church or my prayer.

She stared at me until I asked her what she needed.

“I need to give you this.” She dropped a ring in my hand. 

I raised my eyebrows. “Because….?”

“I keep feeling it on my finger and it’s uncomfortable. It’s because I need to give it to you. It’s lapis lazuli. Look up what it means.”

“Um. Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say. People didn’t usually take their jewelry off midday and give it to me as a gift.

I texted my husband (who was living in a different town as me since I had moved about 130 miles away), who shared it with his pastor and his wife.

They sent this back:

“Afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will rebuild you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with lapis lazuli.”

Isaiah 54:11 NIV

I read those words in my office, and clasped my hand over my mouth. Tears poured from my eyes. God had answered the first prayer I ever prayed. He gave me the one thing I had asked for, and in a way I would have never expected. I have since learned that this is exactly what He does. Even now, it makes me cry to remember it.

I started studying the Bible a few days later with a group of women. I quit my job, and moved back home within weeks. I was baptized a few months after that.

I have never forgotten what God did for me that day. Of course my life isn’t perfect, but it’s joyful. It’s hopeful and meaningful and I have a purpose. I’m no longer the center of my world, He is. God has blessed my marriage and our beautiful family and I have only Him to thank, every single day. Jesus has healed me, and I am rid of the shame that bogged me down for years. I am free.

I pray deeply that everyone can experience this. Jesus can transform anyone, no matter who you are, or what you have done. He will use the hurts to make you an even more effective warrior for His mission.

No one is too far from God to come back to Him. Yes, you will have to change. You may lose friends. You may be mocked. But these things are nothing when compared to what you will gain.

Perhaps we can never understand what a gift we have been given by Jesus until we accept it. I pray daily for those who don’t believe me to experience this for themselves someday. 

You may think that Christianity is for the simple minded and foolish. But the truth is, Christianity is for all of us. It’s for you, even if you don’t know it yet. Some of us come to Him on our own, willingly. Others come to Him after we are humbled and forced to see the truth. But no matter how we come to Him, He will accept us with open arms. I pray you can know this kind of love.