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!