Thursday, October 25, 2007

God answers my prayer, after I'd already ditched him

Our story so far: I'd begged God to turn Steve P.'s heart towards me and ask me to marry him. Though he (Steve) seemed interested, he said not a word about marriage, and seemed reluctant to even consider it. I got tired of asking God for help and decided there probably wasn't even a "god" out there hearing me. So I stopped praying, stopped going to Church except on Sundays (mainly so as not to hurt the feelings of the nice people at my church, just yet anyway), and rejoined the Internet Infidels. I even became a moderator! Life was good.

And then, Steve and I went to Kansas City for my grandpa's birthday party. We stayed in the same hotel room (sexy!) just down the hall from where my parents were staying (not so sexy!). And the night before the party, when I'd given up all hope of any kind of long-term relationship with him and had decided we should just have a fun "fling" and remain friends -

He proposed.

And I accepted.

And then I realized - to my discomfort - that this was *exactly* what I'd asked God to make happen, and son of a gun, he'd done it.

So now what? I couldn't just make myself start believing in God again. Belief isn't like that - as I patiently try to tell both theists and atheists, when they attack people on the "other side". You either believe or you don't. I personally think it has a lot to do with what's going on in your life, what books you're currently reading, and what you had for dinner last night.

So right now, I had an upcoming wedding going on in my life - a good thing, and definitely pointing me back towards theism (in my opinion anyway).

But - I was still reading books from the atheist point of view. I read all the big bestsellers - Christopher Hitchens' "God is Not Great", Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" - and of course, as a moderator at IIDB, I was daily exposed to the arguments - some of them pretty compelling - in favor of atheism and agnosticism. So that still pointed me in the direction of atheism.

As for what I had for dinner, well, since I knew that after I was married I wouldn't be able to enjoy pigging out on junk food in the evenings while watching "American Idol", I threw myself into that with a renewed enthusiasm. That pointed me towards indigestion and obesity, but I didn't really care. As long as I could fit into my wedding dress (and I could! and I looked gorgeous!), I was going to enjoy being single till the bitter end.

Well, to make a long story short, I got married to Steve P. in April of 2007. From the time he proposed till about a month ago, I was still leaning heavily (in more ways than one!) towards atheism, or at least agnosticism. I continued attending church with him on Sundays, but wasn't praying or actively believing in God AT ALL. I felt like a hypocrite sometimes, but I was okay with it. I figured I'd work it all out eventually.

And about a month ago, I worked it out.

Next: How I worked it out!