It was a quiet Monday in March when I lost my faith.
It didn’t come to me as a surprise, nor did it hit me with profound sadness as it left.
Long have the threads between God and I been severed.
I entered his home when I was young.
I remember my small, penitent hands clasped together in prayer, feet dangling from the velvety cushions of pews, wishing health and happiness for my friends and family.
I used to feel what I believed to be the Holy Spirit chill me, telling me that it was there and listening.
Then I remembered the rain.
I remember how my family sat packed around a kitchen table, eagerly awaiting my arrival in the night.
And just like the rain, tears fell from my face when I heard the news.
A single sentence like a drop of water creating harmless ripples across the surface of a pond,
threatening to wash me away forever.
I was only 10.
I went to my bed that night, kneeling before the congregation of idols that once protected me from
sickness.
I prayed, and the Holy Spirit was with me.
I watched as disease slowly took my sister.
First, her hair, leaving behind nothing but blonde bundles that littered the bathroom floor.
Then, her skin, leaving her bloated and jaundiced as poison coursed through her veins.
I prayed, and the Holy Spirit was with me.
Father visited us at the hospital. A man who had given his life to the Lord, a messenger of the word of God.
My mother, in tears, asked him a simple “Why?”
The man stood silent, for although he spoke from God he could find no justification for this action.
Yet we continued to visit our church.
We lit candle after candle, donated our dwindling funds, prayed upon beads and icons hoping things would get better.
Scars dotted her chest and knees as the doctors worked to piece her back together.
Now older, I clasped my hands and placed my feet upon the holy grounds, once again wishing health and happiness for my friends and family.
I closed my eyes only to feel a resounding, nothing.
I thought that was alright, for God has many followers to tend to, and he will come around at a different time.
Then I remembered the rain.
I remember the lurch of the car cutting across traffic to reach the shoulder, wheels grasping the road in an attempt to hold on to the slick surface.
Each ring of the phone cast the same shuddering boom as the thunder outside.
I received the news with quiet resignation, still refusing to believe that lightning would strike twice.
I was only 12.
I went to my bed that night, kneeling before the congregation of idols that stared at me with faded eyes.
I prayed, and the Holy Spirit wasn’t with me.
I slowly watched as disease took my mother.
It insidiously crept throughout her, threatening the veneer of stern courage she put up for her family.
Poison coursed through her veins as she was forced to give up the very things that brought me life in the first place.
I wondered if she saw the Lord in those morphine sleeps.
I prayed, and the Holy Spirit wasn’t with me.
I spent more time in the company of friends, for my home was split between hospitals hours away from one another.
They looked at me with saddened eyes, patting my back and apologizing to me.
They looked at me with hatred and closed fists and words of accusation.
I took to myself in their love and hate, hiding as the world itself seemed to become crashing down upon me.
And now I walk into God’s home, previously bearing the namesake of “Joseph” and the legacy of the two great men that walked the Earth with this name before me.
Hearing the news that again the Lord decided to cast plague upon one of my kin.
A pious woman, never leaving her home without a Bible, never eating or drinking or breathing without first thanking the Lord.
She who just welcomed great-grandchildren into the world.
I close my eyes, hoping to feel the presence that left me a decade ago.
I no longer pray, the Holy Spirit isn’t with me.