Is there really a God?

Have you ever taken a moment to just look at all the things around you? The sky, the mountains, the grass, the oceans, the animals. Everything that makes up this earth goes together and works together for the survival of all living things.
Science is something that people use often to "prove" that there is no higher power, no master creator, no God -- But for me, science is the complete opposite of that. It is everything that proves that there IS a higher power, a master creator, a GOD.

I have spent much of my life asking questions, especially that include the word "Why?"

"Why do innocent people die, if there is a God?"
"Why do bad things happen to good people, if there is a God?"
"Why do I feel so much pain and suffering in my life, if there is a God?"

The "why"s of life are never ending. Something that I have learned from asking these "why"s is that it is not what we ask, but how we ask it. There have been times in my life when I asked these questions out of anger or resentment. Those times I have not really received much of an answer, leading me to believe that if those questions aren't answered, there's no way God exists. He can't even answer me when I'm asking about his existence, so he must not be real, right? WRONG.

At other times in my life, I have asked these same questions, but with pure intent and with purpose. It wasn't out of anger, but out of real curiosity and with the faith that I would receive an answer. So let me tell you what happened and try to answer those "why" questions that I'm sure we've all asked at some point in our lives:

Why do innocent people die, if there is a God? The first time I asked this was my 8th grade year of high school. That year was the hardest of my teenage years. Three different people my age, that I was either friends with or close with their families, died. Why, if there is a God, did these 3 innocent young people have to die? I asked that in anger because I was suffering from the grief I felt. I didn't receive an answer. I was angry.

Several years later, another death occurred that was extremely tragic and made me ask the same question. This time, I asked it to know the answer, knowing that if I had faith in God, I would get one. Although I still had that grief, I wasn't angry, but more confused. Sometimes in life, things happen and we don't really understand why. We may even ask, and still receive an unclear answer that leaves us even more confused. The best answer I can give to this question is this: Innocent people die, good things happen to bad people, and I feel pain and suffering because it's all a part of God's plan. When we take a step back and look at an eternal perspective, we see that death is part of the cycle of life. An earthly life doesn't have a timeline. We don't know when our time on this earth is up, but does it matter? If we are doing the right things, we should rejoice knowing that when we die, we are going to be in the holiest of places, the highest glory, among the most high God.

Something else that I'd like to point out is this: Pain is essential to our time here on earth. But why? Why do we have to hurt? Why, if God loves us so much, does he want us to hurt?
Let me ask you this: If you had never experienced cold, would you understand heat? Heat wouldn't be heat if there were no opposite. Heat would just be a temperature, not good or bad, but just it. But because we know cold, we also know hot. When summer time rolls around and we can't bear the 105 degrees outside, we talk about how we can't wait for the Winter time to experience that coldness that comes along with it. But would we appreciate that coldness if we hadn't first felt the discomfort of the heat? Same goes for coldness and feeling the warmth that comes in Spring and
Summer. We love that warmth when we haven't felt it for several months.
The same principle applies to the feeling of pain. If we didn't experience pain, grief, sadness, heartache…we wouldn't appreciate the feelings of being happy. We wouldn't know what happy was. For fun, I asked a group of kids what Happiness was to them. Here were there responses:

Haley (age 5) "I feel happy when I get ice cream after I've finished all my dinner."
Jake (age 8) "I feel happy when I go outside with my dad and toss the football."
Karly (age 7) "I feel happy when my brother gets in trouble…he's a stinker!" (This was one of my favorite responses)

I then asked the same kids the same question, but switched "what makes you HAPPY" to "what makes you SAD"

Haley (age 5) "I get sad when my ice cream melts all over my hands and they get all sticky."
Jake (age 8) "I get sad when I don't do what my mom asks me and she gets mad at me."
Karly (age 7) "I feel sad when…well, I don't really know. I guess when my friends are sad."

What simple answers. What profound meanings. These kids have such simple things that make them sad or happy, but what they all had in common was this: They knew the feelings well and they loved being able to feel happy.

Now, back to the existence of God… of course he exists. If you don't believe me, do your own research. Pray, even if you don't know who you're talking to. Ask God yourself if he is real. I promise that as long as you know the feeling of joy, sadness, happiness, grief, you will be able to feel the happiness that the fulness of God brings. What do you have to lose?

"There is no God." What an easy way out. What an easy excuse for everything. How can you explain that? "There is no God." That's the end of the discussion.


If you have bee struggling with the knowledge of God and his existence, I invite you to watch this video about a man named Todd Sylvester.

The Deadliest Disease: Depression

I close my eyes and just for a moment I am free. I imagine myself on top of the highest mountain in the world. I overlook everything and for a moment, I feel peace. I'm away from anyone or anything that could hurt me. All I see is the beauty of God's creation that we call Earth. I see tree's and mountains. I see the sun and feel the warmth of it on my pale skin. I can hear nothing but the small whistle of the wind and the trees as they sway to the movement of Earth's natural songs. And then I open my eyes.

Darkness, scared, alone, anxious, pathetic, selfish….depressed. 



This topic is one that is hard for me, or for anyone really, to talk about. It's extremely difficult when the whole outside world thinks that you've got it all together. You're always happy and you seem like everything is going your way. Why is someone that seems like their life is near perfect, depressed? 

If you've ever had to experience the feeling of depression, then you will understand the following situation: We'll call these two people Jan and Sally. 

Jan: "It's all in your head. You're making it way worse than it actually is. You can control your emotions. Just get over it. Move on." 

Sally: *thinks to herself*"Is it really just in my head? Can I control this?" 

Let me tell you the first thing I learned about depression: NO. You cannot control it. It literally has the ability to hit you out of nowhere. We all have those people in our lives that have never truly experienced the mental illness of depression. It is not something that we can turn on and off like a light switch. 

Depression is a very tricky thing. Some people that suffer from depression have what you would call a trigger. A trigger is something that sets off the imbalance in our brains that causes depression mode to kick in. It's never just one event that causes depression. That's probably the most misunderstood part about depression to the people who don't know what it's like. They often think that one certain event happened and caused us to sink into our depression. That's why they often make comments like Jan and think that we can just "get over it" and "move on". 

Let me explain something to those of you who have not suffered from depression: 

Imagine breaking 5 different bones in your body at once. Your natural morphine starts to kick in but you're still in so much pain. It hurts so badly that you get to a point that you'll do whatever it takes to just stop the pain. You are rushed to the hospital and they give you pain medication, but that only helps so much…I mean, you've just broken 5 bones for heaven's sake!! 

This is what depression feels like. It actually gets so mentally painful that you start to feel physical pain. When you get to that point, you want to just get your mind off of it completely. This is what causes people to hurt themselves. They would rather have their minds on physical pain than on the mental pain that they are feeling. The thoughts of suicide start to circle in their heads. 'But how can I be having these thoughts? My life is so great. I have no reason to be thinking like this. I have no reason to be in this much pain.' 

Trust me, we know. We know that we are blessed. We know that we have no reason to feel this way. But that's why depression is so tricky. People don't get depressed because they have a sucky life. People don't get depressed because they're lonely. People don't get depressed because they are poor. Sure, these could all be factors of depression, but depression, like I stated before, isn't because of any one thing. It is a mental illness. It is a mental imbalance. It's like catching the flu. We don't know when it's going to happen. We don't know how long it will last. We don't know how bad it's going to get. But what we do know is that, like the flu, we will get better. 

So what can you do to help your loved ones that suffer from depression? The answer to this is simple. We don't need someone to check on us every second of everyday. We don't need someone who walks on eggshells around us. We don't need someone to treat us like we're 5 years old. What we need is genuine friendship and love. What we need is a reminder of our purpose in life. We know that it will get better, so don't remind us every time we talk. Instead, remind us that you love us. Remind us that we have a purpose here. Remind us that there is no way in the world that anyone that matters in our lives would be better off without us. 

Here is a short video to kind of put everything I've said into perspective. I hope that after reading this post, you either 1. Know that you're not alone in your fight against depression or 2. Better understand the seriousness and how to handle your loved ones who suffer from this illness.