The Day God Died

A year ago today, Sarah had her first seizure.

A year ago today, God died in my life.

Up until last year I have always been a believer in God. I may not have always gone to church or seemed very faithful, but I have always believed. I felt closest to God in nature. I saw him everywhere and felt his presence acutely in the desert, on mountaintops, by the ocean, in the forests...

Sarah's first seizure happened in the middle of a forest on a walking trail surrounded by nature. The irony of this is not lost on me.

There are moments in every persons life that they will be able to recall down to the minutest detail for the remainder of their time on earth. Lifting my head to the heavens and screaming for God to help me, to help Sarah, and feeling nothing but vast emptiness and being completely alone is one of these moments for me.

I knew in that very instant as my plea went unanswered that the God I had believed in for as long as I can remember was not real.

For weeks after Sarah's initial seizure I was so devastated about the loss of a belief in God. It broke my heart and the shattered pieces were unable to be put back together again. I mourned the loss of God in my life like a death of someone I had known for my whole life. I felt as if I had lost someone intimate and close to me.

When I am in nature now its magic gone for me. I didn't realize just how much God dwelled in those wild spaces until I realized he was nothing but a figment of my imagination; a kind of Santa Claus.

There are those in my life who believe in God still and try to sooth me and convince me of his realness. I know that their words are shared with good intentions, but they do not penetrate into my heart though. I read the words they write and listen to the words they speak, but it is as if a foreign language is being spoken. The words have no meaning to me.

For a while after Sarah's seizure I read my bible and tried to speak with God, but I found that this practice was pointless as the spell of my belief was broken. To this day I will catch myself talking to God, but then quickly realize I am talking to nothing but the air as God is not real. The disappointment of this awareness is astounding. My bubble of certain belief has been burst, replaced instead by the understanding that it was all smoke and mirrors.

I find myself searching and searching for something bigger than myself to believe in, to hold on to, but I cannot find anything but darkness and a great void. I do not know if the God I once believed in will resurrect himself. All I know is that God is dead in my life and, as of right now, I don't think he is ever going to come back.