From skeptical to believer
By: Roxane Gonzalez
Tags: Universe, Skepticism, God, Religion, Believe

I was born Catholic more by heritage than beliefs. My family was never religious, we never went to church or prayed consequently I have always considered myself an atheist. We can tell that I really was not predisposed to believe in God and somehow he found me anyway. From skeptical, I’ve become a believer and it’s kind of a funny story.

When I was young, we used to have these religion courses at school, but it would only introduce the Catholicism and not even the other religions, which as a kid I found strange from the start. I knew there were other religions but I was always wondering why we would only study one of them. At home my dad would say that religion was bad anyway and I thought people felt that way regarding religion because nobody appreciated being told what to think or how to act. Despite the effort of Christians to introduce an idea of modernity and open-mindedness, there is still a sour taste of indoctrination remaining, forgetting that experiencing God is different for everybody and you can’t oblige someone to believe in something.

Later, when I was a teenager, 9/11 happened. The whole world was in shock. People were divided between horror, incomprehension and wrath: it was the beginning of a new phase. Political debates about religion started to show up on TV, mentioning a new kind of war: terrorism. Truly, there was nothing new, for the first time, you could see clearly how religion was used as a powerful tool and how it was so easy to manipulate people with it. Just the old fashion way! Depending on the country, culture and environment, modern religions are used by politics to decree their vision of the world, setting up an us-against-them kind of mentality. At the time, it only reinforced my idea that religion was only causing trouble and wasn’t bringing any good to the world. Consequently, for a long time, I was anti-religion, I had no interest in it and I didn’t understand how people could believe and follow principles of a religion that could push some minds to such savagery and carnage.

Then during my adulthood, I suffered from self-confidence and emotion management issues that led me to this phase where I was unable to make decisions. Additionally, I was stressed and depressed as my lifestyle wasn’t really matching my personal idea of life. I would get support but for some reason I couldn’t find any comfort. My concerns were affecting a deeper level of myself. Meditation was helping, calming the thoughts, decreasing the stress so I decided to go deeper in that direction to understand what was going on with me. For some reason, I could feel a connection to something powerful and transcendent, it was like I could heal from it. As a very practical and rational mind, I could never consider such thing to even exist! However it was there and I could feel it. Something was out there, apparently listening and it was comforting me. I started to read self growth books which help to understand myself better but it wasn’t all.

Once, I acknowledged and accepted that there were other possibilities to explore, I started seeing the world from a different perspective. I discovered an all new range of the opportunities, a weird medley of curious signs, that before, I would call coincidences, was appearing to me as indications from the universe. A strange relationship has grown between me and the universe, it was like it had it all planned for me already, I could choose to take the path that was offered to me and by my actions demonstrate my trust. It was a bit like following clues that would lead you to the next stage of your life. From the time I have started to follow those hints, strangely I got better. I strongly believe now that the pain, the stress, this weight that I was carrying within me and all the emotional and physical symptoms were an alarm sent by my body and mind telling me: « This is not the path you are supposed to take, you are going in the wrong direction! ».

From there, I really decided to get back on track and take care of myself. I started questioning myself, I had still a lot of problems going on and I needed to solve them.

Conclusion

Today, my idea of God has sharpened, it remains difficult to explain to others what I believe. Most people linked God to Religion, yet I have discovered that you don’t need to be affiliated to a religion to believe in God. Some people prefer follow a God, his story and his principles, others might like a more flexible relationship with spiritual things.

With spirituality, you choose what you want to believe and how much you want to be involved in your relation with God. Because there are no obligations, experiencing God becomes simpler, more personal and elevates you to a higher level.

We are all different and it’s in our uniqueness that God reveals itself, in a way that you will be the only one to understand; and it makes sense. Personally, it was good to grow up not being forced to believe in something because I could explore other religions that made me understand people’s beliefs consequently I ended up more open minded and tolerant.

In the end, your connection and relationship with God/the Universe is not something to be learnt or taught but something to be felt.