Thoughts on God

I never understood gods will. I never bought into an all-powerful being having a plan for us as so many Christians would preach. I rejected the idea of an all-powerful puppet master making a marionette of people while claiming to have given us free will. I blamed the world for the atrocities in my life. If there was a god then why all the evil, pain, and suffering? Why did the horrors I witnessed and participated in Iraq and Afghanistan exist if god could snap his fingers and stop it? After all, he is all powerful. Why did god allow the incompetence of doctors during my son’s birth and why was he born with a disability? Why was he not afforded the same opportunity I was at birth? How is that fair? What did I do wrong? That led me to believe logically that there was no god.

I have always tried to be as moral as any flawed human being. I am far from perfect. I know right from wrong and was raised to do the right thing. Even though I was taught, deep down in a place I can’t describe I KNEW right from wrong. I have done my best to follow the instinct that said, “Do the right thing” and have come up short many times by choosing the much easier route of nihilism. I found that doing the right thing, though harder, sated that voice. Furthermore, the actions I took at the direction of my conscious would swell in my chest into a feeling of contentment that could never be replicated by impulsive pleasure seeking. The writing of this blog and being able to connect and help my fellow veterans is a good example. I took a chance. I went against popular ideas. I was honest. I expected ridicule but ended up being able to help open a new line of communication that benefited a lot of people.  I can’t tell you why I started to write but I continued to write to feel that contentment. It just felt good to touch people who were struggling. Fighting the same battles and offering nothing more than my prospective as I processed my own way through the aftermath of my experiences.

I still couldn’t connect the dots though until a couple of weeks ago. I was listening to Jordan Peterson on the way to drop off my son at daycare. He was discussing sacrifice and I found it fascinating. He told stories from the bible and drew lines from prehistoric man and the creation of social contracts. The idea is that sacrifice is work for something better in the future. The process is difficult, but I found that I agreed entirely. He kept going back to stories and the bible and god and that’s when, historically, you lose me. Yes, hard work mattered but what does that have to do with god?

After I dropped him off my ex-wife called out of the blue and told me the administrators at my son’s school wanted to have a meeting to discuss the plans for my son next school year. It was the first day of summer vacation and this was highly unorthodox because we had already had our scheduled annual meeting. My son over the last couple of years has made incredible progress and has proven so many people wrong. He could not talk two years ago and was diagnosed with autism after several inconclusive tests. In previous meetings we had even been advised to get on a waiting list now for a special school for his teenage years. It was always a bleak outlook. This meeting however, was to discuss the plan for him to transition into general population next year. All his teachers in the room were over the moon about my son, praising him and remarking on how they rarely ever get to do watch a child come so far and come back from what looked like life long disabilities. I have never been so proud.

After the meeting I got back in my car and sat for a minute. I was relieved, elated, content. My son had beat the odds and overcame a huge hurtle in his life. Not entirely, because there is still a long road ahead, but he’s gotten to a point where he can continue the fight to beat it for good.  I take no credit for this fact. He worked hard, and his teachers are excellent. I can’t begin to explain my gratitude for all the people who have believed in him and gave him the tools he needed to succeed.

That made me think. I turned the book back on and listened to the part on sacrifice. I listened to the biblical references a little closer the second time around. I reflected on how I got there. I always said that I would trade my life in a heartbeat for him to be “normal” and I meant it. I’ve constructed my post Army life completely around supporting him in any way to help him reach a point of self-sufficiency. Given the prognosis, I had to do anything I could because of one fact. I wouldn’t always be around to take care of him and that terrified me.

I fought for more time with him to ensure I see him every day.  I slept on the pull-out couch, so he could have a room to sleep in every night during those difficult post-divorce times because he deserved better. I took less paying jobs based on my ability to pick him up after school every day and work with him. When a note came home from school that said he was refusing to do his school work, I asked his teacher to send it home as homework that he will complete with dad. Dad was not nearly as nice as his teachers and it was a short-lived protest. I forced him to try to do things on his own. I never let him quit because I refused to let the world eat him up. I never looked at it as a sacrifice for a second. It was just the right thing to do. I just knew it.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I blamed god, but I was wrong. Dead wrong. The outcome I wrongly accepted in anger was wrong. It took sacrifice from him, his teachers, his parents and good came from it. “Impossible” odds were beaten. So free will was the choice to struggle with no guarantee of reward because it’s the right thing to do. Gods plan isn’t a script, it’s the ability to work to create good in the world. You get a chance to get back what you put in with no guarantees. In this case it was worth every second. What were the odds I would listen to that part of a book and have this impromptu meeting? Why was I compelled to publicly share very personal struggles relating to my time overseas through this blog?  Touché God, touché.