The long dark tea-time

There are major problems with thinking of God in the abstract. The Christian
God is very much a theistic one, therefore one can't fully claim to be a
Christian while largely thinking and behaving like a deist. This is what I did
throughout childhood till age 15 (I was a very unhappy pastor's kid).

What snapped me out of it was a girl at a camp I got sent off to. Of course I was bored and miserable through most of the camp; at that age I didn't deal well with being thrust suddenly into situations full of strangers. They were almost all ABCs, and ABCs are too weird for me. The last night was an open mic night where they darkened the meeting hall and let people say whatever they wanted to. Most people said the typical sort of things you hear at the end of church camps, like thank you all so much for ministering to me, or God has changed me here, or I've learned so much and met so many good people, et cetera. Then one girl came up. Since it was dark you couldn't see the speaker's face.

And she said:

When I leave this camp, I'm planning to go to a pharmacy and buy some pills. I was planning to kill myself. I don't love anyone. I'm so proud.

And she cried, and some counselors and some of her friends went away with her...

And I realized I was a knife's edge away from being in her place, and wasn't quite sure what was keeping me from it.

It does you no freaking good to believe there is a God if you don't ever look at him. I have to remember that, sometimes.