Assuming God

      When my mother once fell down the steps at the front of the Methodist Church she had attended all her life, she swore, piteously from her reclining posture on the couch, she would never go again, but she lied. When I was about nine I made a profession of faith and joined the Church on Palm Sunday morning, and when I looked behind me she was there being supportive, though tearful.

      (This is the United Methodist Church in Bogata, Texas. The ramp on the left side has been added since I grew up.)
     I won't say I never had a crisis of faith, but I never rebelled in any significant way. I just always assumed that God was real and I was a Christian from that time on.  
     Since then I have born 6 children, loved and lost a husband, earned a degree, and worked in the Texas Prison System as a psychologist, and now I can say without reservation, I believe in God as my Father and the source my life, and Jesus as my Lord, my Savior, my Rock, and my Redeemer. During this process I have had many challenges to my faith, but I never lost my deep respect and reverence for God.
     Over the years and challenges to my faith, I have explored the questions about God's existence and found nothing in them to replace my faith and the peace it brings me. I have read C. S. Lewis's books and writings for many years. I have examined some of his works in regard to belief in God. One thing that impressed me about Lewis is that he was a highly educated man who was an atheist who became a Christian after 30 years of age. 
Then I read about Albert Einstein who, even though he was a world renowned theoretical physicist, was still a believer in God. These two brilliant scholars both found reason to believe in an invisible God in the face of much argument not to. 
     One thing seemed obvious to me: Believing in God has little to do with reason or argument. Building a beautiful argument to believe is a sterile and lifeless discipline if you are doing it as just a parlor trick. Believing in God extends beyond the limits of physical and astronomical bounds. It is born in the depths of the soul and draws on more than we have the capacity to understand, so it may be useless to appeal to the mortal mind. But that is a place to begin. Read the Bible, listen to the sermons, watch life unfold in people around, view joys and disasters, and see for yourself where God is and what He is doing.