She doesn't believe there is a God. She says the Bible was just written by men and it's no more than any other book written by any other man or group of men.

And Jesus? No real thoughts about Him at all.

Talking with her was thought provoking, to say the least. She believes she is everything she is, and does everything she does, because of her own will and her own choices.

Time was when I shared some of her feelings.

But, like I told her, there has never been a time I did not believe in God. My earliest memory includes an awareness of His existence and of His love for me.

“But that's just because somebody told you and you believed them,” she countered.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” I said.

It's not my nature to “believe” easily. I have simply always been aware of the spirit of God, of His love for me and others. Sometimes, I think I was born with such an awareness.

Perhaps, just perhaps, we are with God in some form or other before we are given the bodies we wear while we are on earth. (Though there is no better source for timeless truth, the Bible has not given me all the answers I seek.) As sure as I am of God, I am just that certain of life after death. So, it has occurred to me that perhaps there was life before life as well.

As much as I cherish all that is my life today, in this realm, I must admit I have never bought into that bit about “You only go `round once...”

That line infers a beginning and an end here and now on earth as we know it, limiting our existence to life as we know it, to what we can see and easily believe.

Such a thought is so absurd I have a major problem believing any sane, thinking person would ever buy into such a suggstion.

She was a thinking person. She had many arguments. More questions than most. She is searching.

She said she enjoyed talking to me. Most of the time when she talks to “Christians” they tell her she's “full of it” and in no time at all they try to avoid her. Some have actually told her to stay away from them.

I wanted to not believe her, but I knew better. I could only try to assure her that God did not write her off.

“How do you know?” She asked. “How do you know?”

“Could you write off your own child?” I asked. “Because he or she did not believe your love for them, did not be what you wanted them to be, do what you wanted them to do, could you turn your back and deny your love for them?”

“That's different,” she responded. “They know I am real. They see me.”

“I know God is real,” I assured her.

“And Jesus?”

“Yes, I know He is real, too. It took me over 30 years to know, but I know now.”

“How? How do you know? Tell me. Make me understand. Maybe you are just one of these people who has a heightened awareness. Maybe some of us don't have it and can't ever know what you think you know.”

For well over an hour we talked.

Today, I am still thinking about our conversation. I have considered how sincere she seemed. How much she appeared to want to believe, to want to “know.”

And then I recalled a conversation I had with a young man one time who appeared to share my sense of heightened awareness. His words still ring in my heart.

“Believe it or not,” he said, “no matter how much you think you know because of how strongly you feel, you still had to choose at some point to believe in God.”

He spoke at length of the battle between good and evil, of how strongly aware he is of the war that is constantly waged. He told me of his love for God and his belief that good will win out one day. And he said something else.

He said, “I think God is powerful enough to make anything happen. I think He could have created mankind and programmed us to love Him. But when you choose to love somebody then they know they are loved. And so He left the choice to us...”

Happy Valentine's Day, Week, Month... to all!

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