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I'm sorry to hear about your loss.

I know what it is like to lose a child. My ex-wife and I had a daughter who was born with her intestines closed off in numerous locations. She had to be fed intravenously and had to have a colostomy bag. She lived for a couple of months before we made the decision to bring her home from the hospital and let her die in peace.

My ex-wife and I were not what you would call particularly strong Christians---although, we did seek out a priest to administer last rites for our daughter. The death of our daughter pulled us farther away from God and each other. It eventually destroyed our marriage and we divorced. I became an atheist and in my hatred, since I am a physicist, I sought to disprove God's existence once and for all scientifically.

For over ten years, I actively worked on disproving God. I started by using evolution as a proof. Surely that would work, right?

At first, all was going well until I noticed that the "evolution" of horses' hooves was clearly falsified data. I dug further and found evidence of even more falsified data by paleontologist trying to support macro-evolution. Rather than just presenting the data as it were, even if it was in conflict with their theory of evolution, they would actually falsify stuff! How can you call yourself a scientist and be party to such deception? So what if the data doesn't fit the Macro-evolution model? Let the chips fall where they may!

Anyway, the obvious biases and falsified data running rampant in the paleontological sector of the scientific community had me looking elsewhere for something that was a little more tangible and less subject to conjecture and falsification.

So, I switched to microbiology (my ex-wife was a microbiologist). Again, at first glance, it appears that cells are just byproducts of random chemical combinations which eventually locked into DNA and RNA sequences. But, then you start to realize that cells are amazingly much more complex than just random byproducts of DNA and RNA. They ingest specific chemicals and make copies of themselves.

What is the minimum number of amino acids required to create something that will "eat" and replicate? No one knows for sure. Estimates vary widely. But, they are all just that; estimates. No one has ever found that first "Genesis" cell in the fossil record. Nor have they ever created random life in a test tube. Suffice to say, the odds against life are staggering. Yet, here we are---either by chance or by a Creator----there is no definitive answer to be found in microbiology.

So, I switched gears and read all the various theories out there on the origins of the Universe and discussed them ad nauseam with other physicists. However, all those theories were sorely lacking when it came to explaining what happened BEFORE the Universe came into existence. So, I focused in on that aspect and started out with a postulate: Before our Universe came into being, there was a Something, and there was a Nothing.

From there, I went on to develop my own theory of the pre-birth of the Universe in which the Something and the Nothing are both infinite. I have yet to publish my pre-birth theory and I feel that a large portion of it is revolutionary, so I won't elaborate on it here in this open forum. However, there came a point when I had sufficiently fleshed out the details of my theory that I realized that if I accept the existence of life in a finite Universe/Dimension such as ours, then I had to accept the possibility that a form of sentient life could also exist in an infinite Universe/Dimension encompassing our own.

Anyway, one day I was ruminating over Dimensionality and Reality as we perceive it vs. reality as truth, and the possibility of the existence of an absolute God-like entity/life-form. It was at that moment that the Words of Jesus came to me, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life..." I stopped dead in my tracks!

You see, it came to my mind with a Greek subtext; The Way is hodos (ὁδός) which is a path to something. It implies direction and dimensionality; The Truth is aletheia (αλήθεια)- that which isn't hidden, reality; And, finally, the Life is Zoe (ζωή)which means Absolute Life. It was at that moment that I realized Jesus was saying to me---a physicist---He was Dimensionality, Reality, and Absolute Life!

That jarred me enough to seek out a professional in these matters---a pastor at a nearby church. It was from this pastor that I learned that I could actually test God to see if His claims were true! What scientist doesn't like conducting tests?!! So, I undertook the task of testing God. Long story short, the results of those tests led me back to God. And, not only just back to God, but with an unshakeable, passionate conviction in God and His existence!

I even became an assistant pastor at that nearby church where I had once sought out advice.

Over the years, I have come to realize that God loved me so much that He sent me a daughter for just a little while and then took her back to send me on a spiritual quest which would, in the end, be more than enough to satisfy my doubting scientific mind that He is Lord of all.

I have often tried to imagine what else God could have done to send me on that long spiritual journey, but nothing short of the death of my daughter would have driven me with such a fervent passion for trying to disprove God's existence. I thank Jesus and my deceased daughter with all my heart for giving up their lives so that I might truly live.

And, to wrap all this up with a happy ending, when I was testing God, true to his end of the bargain, He blessed me with Mrs. Bulldog and continued to further bless both of us with a wonderful, healthy, almost 4-year-old daughter!

Cheers

P.S. - Yup, I was about to get back to your email you sent a couple days ago when I noticed your comment here and decided to spend a little time with you, here. I figured you wouldn't mind if I addressed this comment before getting back to your email.

That is an amazing testimony of your willingness to wrestle with God, and of His faithfulness and persistent pursuit of you. If you don’t mind, I’m going to share that post with my 15-year-old son. He’s fascinated with science, and what you described is SO similar to the things I’ve mulled over with him both privately and in the youth Bible class I teach. A lot of his friends are atheists so we talk a lot about the evidence and about positive deconstructionism - how to find what is both true and false about different worldviews.

I can’t even say how much I relate to the sorrow, confusion, bitterness, questioning, searching, and realization (making real) of the Lord. Sometimes it takes a lot of pain before we can see what’s right in front of us.

My dad was very bitter for most of my life. His mom had emotionally abused him - the first child of her second marriage based on expedience after her beloved first husband died. He was never quite good enough for her, and it ate away at his soul - especially after she died and he had no chance to get the approval he so longed for.

My freshman year in college I was in a near-collision on my bike and realized that I could easily have been killed and if I had been killed I might never see my dad, 2 of my brothers, and 2 of my sisters again because I had no idea whether their faith was real or just a cultural facade. I prayed that if it took having me die to wake especially my dad up, that God would do that.

About a month later my brother and 2 sisters were in a pick-up collision that should have killed them all. We still don’t know how one sister made it out of the pick-up, which had the hood crushed to the steering wheel after rolling 3 times down a steep embankment. When they found the pick-up it was on top of my other sister’s leg, my sister’s ear and a piece of her scalp were torn and dangling, and her neck was rested against a barb-wire fence. My brother had a punctured lung. I remember saying, “God, I said You could take me, not them. They’re not ready.”

They are all fine and have come to know the Lord, but the most miraculous thing of all was the change it effected in my dad. The man whose bitterness had kept him from attending my confirmation bought my mom a string of pearls and told her if she would get dressed up then he - after all those years of leaving her alone to deal with 12 kids in the church pew - would go to church with her. Now none of us can even mention the Lord’s goodness without my dad crying. It was he who spoke faith to me after we lost our Melinda Rose.

Just yesterday my Mom told me that Dad had gotten those pearls restrung and wanted to go pick them up as soon as he got word of it. And this morning she reminded all us kids why that string of pearls means so much to him, and to her. That was Dad’s way of telling Mom that he was back, that God had won him over from his bitterness. Just thinking about it makes me cry for joy. How many prayers were answered by that string of pearls and what it represented.

At my son’s confirmation my daughter is going to sing a song by Twila Paris called “He Is No Fool”. I would sing it but I know I wouldn’t get through it without crying. It talks about two people who were expected to do great things but who instead gave up everything to follow the Lord’s call to them. “For the love of his Savior, for one priceless jewel. They could not understand so they called him a fool. He is no fool if he would choose to give the thing he cannot keep to buy what he can never lose, to see the treasure in one soul that far outshines the brightest gold. He is no fool. He is no fool.”

I always thought that Christians are the wise man from the parable who discovered the pearl of great price and sold everything he had to get that glorious jewel. And certainly it would be worth losing everything to get that one priceless Redeemer. But I’ve come to think that even moreso, we are the pearl of great price, and God Himself the wise one who was so taken by the beauty He saw in us (even when we were ugly and dirty) that He sold not only everything He had but actually allowed Himself to be sold into death for 30 pieces of silver to buy us back from sin’s slavery.

He gave everything for us, and the greatest honor in the world is that He allows us to give everything for Him.

Someday maybe you can introduce your daughter to me and I can introduce mine to you. As we gather in Jesus’ lap.

I like that “test”imonies. lol

Quite a few years ago I conversed on atheist boards and the thing I eventually realized is that a person’s epistemology decides so much. There are people who are willing to believe in “anything but God”. “Coincidence” is always the default answer that works for somebody who wants to write off the uncomfortable facts.

And it can be that way with anybody too. Ken Davis describes in “Super Sheep” being on a bus praying that if God wanted him to tell somebody about Jesus, He should give a sign. So this kid comes up to him and says, “My life is so messed up. I wish I knew about God. Do you know about God?” So he shot up another prayer, “Is that you, God? If this is really you, turn the bus driver into an armadillo...”

I think about the archaeology on Jericho. One archaeologist claimed that the evidence showed there was nothing miraculous at Jericho; the walls fell down because of an earthquake.

Never mind that there happened to be an army at hand to overtake Jericho at the precise time that the earthquake hit and that this army did not plunder Jericho. That precise timing would just be “coincidence”. Like the timing of the events in your “test”imony was claimed to be mere coincidence.

Right now the closest friends I have in the church here almost all used to be atheists. But for the sake of their kids they wanted to be very earnest and sought answers. As a result they really treasure the evidences we’ve been given, and there is a solidity and substance to their faith that is deeper than those who have lived their life on spiritual “cruise control”.

As a teacher I’ve often been drawn to the kids who get in trouble - usually boys - because they so often seem to be bored by the easy answers. When they can ask tough questions and get real substance to grapple with they so often come alive. Like my son. For a while I had despaired of whether he really cared about the “God stuff”, but when I started addressing in youth Bible class the materialist worldview he realized that was what his friends believe. I gave a sample statement for a materialist and Joel said, “That’s exactly what my friend says! I never know what to say back.” Turns out he’s been having deeper, more spiritual conversations with his friends than I ever thought. The rest of the class got tired of discussing scientific theory and apologetics but Joel devoured it. Kind of a kindred spirit. =)

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