Throughout the rest of the school year, my faith in God seemed to shatter like a boulder blasting down the side of a rocky mountain. By Christmas, I was pretty much a full-on angry atheist, frustrated by the Christians I'd grown up around, and the teachers and peers I was now forced to deal with nearly every day. I felt betrayed, lied to, duped, stupid, etc. For believing in the Christian God in the modern day, where a quick Google search could topple the literalist, fundamentalist view of Scripture I was trapped by. And, for teenage me, that really fucking sucked. Especially because I was getting quite sick at that point. 

But, what really crushed my faith, not just in God, but also in people in general, were the many times my teachers, peers, and even a handful of pastors alluded (or just straight-up declared) that God punished the faithless and sinful, and only blessed the faithful. The sicker a person was, the more bad luck a person had, the more bumps in the road someone endured, were all indications that they were doing something wrong and God was punishing them for it. 

And, according to so many Christians in my life at the time (particularly at my school, but also at outside churches), I had a lot of sins to atone for. I needed to be more feminine, wear skirts and leggings instead of dusty jeans and camo hoodies. I needed to be more meek and quiet in church, I needed to be less crass and less critical towards Scripture, I needed to pray more, I needed to be more extroverted and talkative with peers, I needed to, I needed to, I needed to...

Because, in the eyes of such Christians, my health wouldn't improve unless I obeyed God. And, until I obeyed God, I would only suffer more and more. 

While I now know how unbiblical and morally fucked-up that is, it still brings me to tears whenever I reflect back at that time. After all, how could someone, who claimed to be a Christian, look at me and say such dreadful things to me? All without showing even a hint of sorrow for me. Looking at me like I'd just rode a skateboard off a roof knowing damn well what would happen.

I've thought about this for years, and I still can't answer it. I can't even try to think that way.

It's just too wrong to look at someone suffering from a terminal condition (or any number of tragedies and hellish shit) and think they must've done something to piss off God. And, therefore, deserve to go through that Hell.

Yet, that's exactly how so many people have viewed me. 

But, God never viewed me, or anyone else for that matter, in that way. Even in the Old Testament (specifically Job), God is quite clear that He isn't transactional, even when some other Biblical authors viewed Him as such. It becomes especially clear in the New Testament, when Christ specifically says, many times, that He never used bad things to punish people. Shit just happened, because that's just how the world worked (and still works).

I wasn't born sick because of mine or my parents' sin. I was born with CF (and other conditions) out of pure chance. I had a 1 in 250,000 chance of being born with CF. I had a 1 in 10,000 chance of being born with Pulmonary Atresia. I had a 1 in 200 chance of being born Autistic. When I was conceived, the die were rolled, and I ended up getting wrecked, not because my parents did anything wrong. Not because of generational sin. Not because God specifically chose me to bear those conditions. It was simply luck-of-the-draw. 

Evolution at its finest.