Still, I struggled with the idea that God's timing was perfect in every way. I struggled with how a supposedly faultless and perfect God could create a world full of so much imperfection. Why didn't God just create Heaven right away, without providing His creation a way to possibly screw everything up? Why did He create angels, only for 1/3rd of them, including Lucifer, to decide they were better than God, which led God to cast them out of heaven, turning them into demons? Why did He allow sin to enter this world, which resulted in death being introduced? If God truly was all-powerful and all-knowing, couldn't He have created creatures of free will without having allowed things like hate, evil, strife, and illness to exist? After all, if we didn't know what hate and evil were in the first place, surely that wouldn't interfere with our free will, would it? Suggesting that it did would be like suggesting an artist can't construct a beautiful painting without using red or blue.
These questions and more messed with my faith quite a lot. I still felt devoted to God. I couldn't deny the fact He provided me with a better school where I could actually learn and stay healthy at the same time. He did prevent me from dying or being hospitalized while I struggled with Pseudomonas for almost an entire year. God really was working very hard behind the scenes to keep me from dying. But, even that brought up feelings and questions relating to survivor's guilt.
Why did God keep me healthy and alive, but still let so many other people die? Why did God answer my prayers, but ignored the prayers of so many others? What did I do to deserve such special treatment? As far as I knew, I was the last person God should've continued to pay attention to. I'd continuously cursed Him, distrusted Him, walked away from Him, openly told other people that God did not exist, possibly sending them down a path of permanent faithlessness, yet God did not leave me alone. He continued to make Himself known to me, whether or not I accepted it, regardless of what I said or did to try and buck Him out of my life.
I ended up bringing up my survivor's guilt to my grandpa Lyle while we were on our way to North Dakota. For the next four hours, as we passed the plains of Wyoming and headed into the Black Hills of South Dakota, my grandpa and I had a deep discussion regarding faith and survivor's guilt. He agreed that what I was going through was pretty normal for someone like me, and that some questions like, "Why does God let some people live but others die?" didn't have an earthly answer. But, my grandpa did say that instead of getting upset at God for saving my ass but letting others die, I ought to think about it differently.
My grandpa said if anyone was the unlucky one, I was! Those who died despite begging God for healing weren't being ignored or punished by God. Instead, they were actually receiving the greatest blessing of all. They were going home to heaven, where there weren't things like death and disability! Those who survived their predicaments were bound to suffer again and again on earth until their time came, instead of going to a place right away where suffering was nonexistent.
Of course, at the time, I planned on using that as an excuse to remain resentful towards God, this time for leaving me to suffer even more in this merciless hellhole called Earth, but my grandpa stopped me in my tracks.
"You ought to be very, very thankful to God for where you are at now." my grandpa sternly said, "If God didn't intervene when He did, you wouldn't be healthy or passing high school right now! But, because God loves you and wants the best for you, He answered your prayers and brought you to a place in life where you can thrive! So, don't get so upset about the things you think God isn't doing that He should, because it turns out, God knows better than you do!"
I realized my grandpa was right, but his answer still didn't satisfy me. I almost had to know why God was the way that He was. What was the purpose of allowing so many people to die in such, horrific and seemingly meaningless ways? How could God sit back and just let things happen, and still be considered all-good, all-loving, and all-powerful? To me, none of it made any sense. The only answer to those questions that seemed to make any sense was, "He can't. It's not possible to be all-good, all-loving, and all-powerful and still allow little kids to die of starvation."
Of course, that was a very atheistic answer. So, naturally, I was again drawn more towards atheism than I was towards Christianity. Even though I promised God that I'd practically fall to my knees in worship if He answered my prayers regarding school and my health, which He did, I broke that promise. I was just too critical and inquisitive to surrender to the faith so easily. I just had too many questions, and not enough answers, to surrender myself to God.
Aside from those philosophical questions, I also struggled with God scientifically. I thought I'd resolved all of my scientific issues with God until I brought up my scientific beliefs to my grandparents, who viciously denounced my views as wrong. My grandparents had just come back from visiting Ken Ham's Creation museum, and gave me a bible study guide annotated by Ken Ham himself. They asked me to read it, and then tell them what I thought. I have to admit, I couldn't get through Ken Ham's biblical study book. It was just too cringey for me to get through. I skimmed through all 200 pages of it, all the while struggling to figure out how someone as intelligent and seemingly scientifically literate as Ken Ham, could believe in such nonsense.
My conversation with my grandparents was very polite, but none of us budged on our beliefs. My grandparents subscribed to Ken Ham's idea of creationism hook, line, and sinker, and I agreed with the modern scientific community in the same way. I figured if I had to pick between God and science, I was going with science, because unlike God, science was provable and easily observed. And, as far as I knew, science strongly disagreed with Ken Ham's version of creationism, or any version of literal creationism for that matter!
Like many times before, I isolated myself from the Christian faith, struggling to reconcile my faith with modern science that time. According to many Christians, the bible was very clear that God created humans right away, rather than evolving them into existence. The bible was also very clear that the universe was created in 7 days, not in billions of years. There seemed to be a lot more than just those things that the bible disagreed with modern science on, at least, according to the Christians I grew up around.
When we arrived at the farm in North Dakota after 12 hours of driving (and at least 10 of those hours were spent talking about theology), I was brain-fried and ready for a vacation. I still had school to work on, but since I had my laptop and a cellphone to tether off of so I had access to the internet, I could work on school while enjoying my stay in North Dakota.
I expected it to be a relaxing vacation, full of fishing, dirtbike riding, and other family activities. While I was right in some ways, my trip to North Dakota turned into a series of misadventures that I've been trying to forget about. But, some of the stuff that happened to me during that trip was so traumatic, that I've had bad dreams about those events, which were basically just memories being replayed in my sleep.
Out of all of the bad things that happened to me that trip, I think the storm that hit us in the middle of one night takes the cake, as far as how scary it was.
We knew to pay close attention to the weather report at all times, because tornado season peaks in late June and all of July in North Dakota. My family had me staying in a bedroom in my great aunt's manufactured home. As nice as that place was, especially since it had air conditioning and modern appliances, I didn't feel comfortable staying in that house because it didn't have a solid foundation or a basement. So, I decided to spend about half of my nights (and days) in the old farmhouse, about 10 yards away from my great aunt's house, because it had a basement and was much more solid than the trailer home.
At first, my entire family made fun of me for being such a wuss, because whenever the western skies looked even slightly threatening, I would bolt out of my great aunt's house, sprint across the lawn, and practically throw myself into the safety of the farmhouse, drenched in sweat and out of breath, regardless of what was going on back at my great aunt's. I think I abandoned the dinner table with my plate at least twice during that trip, after I was startled to my feet by the noise of thunder.
My great aunt said she'd lived in that manufactured home for five years, and nothing ever bad happened to it. She did, however, admit to fleeing either to the farmhouse or the neighbor's house when the sky turned an eerie green, black, and/or purple, and the sky began to churn, which happened often in the summer. Though, over the years, she stopped doing that. In her mind, if nothing bad happened before, it wouldn't happen in the future. I thought that was one of the dumbest things I'd ever heard, so I dismissed my family's teasing if that was their mindset.
Of course, during the first few thunderstorms, the storms were never very severe. We got some gusty winds, heavy rain, and small hail from the worst storm, but nothing that was life-threatening. That incentivized everyone to poke a little more fun at me for being so skittish, but I refused to let down my guard no matter how much my family gently teased me about it.
One evening, the weatherman got very serious. He highlighted Mercer county, which was our county, as the county with the highest risk of severe weather, explaining that we were at an alarmingly high risk of experiencing overnight severe weather that would likely be life-threatening. My relatives dismissed the weatherman's report, saying things like, "Yeah, they like to sensationalize things." and "We've had higher risks and nothing bad happened."
But, I took the weatherman very seriously. I grew up in tornado alley. I knew a moderate risk of severe weather meant it was likely we'd experience some serious shit, and there was no way in hell I was gonna ride it out in a manufactured home. So, I shamelessly packed a bag of clothes for the farmhouse, and headed that way as soon as I was done eating dinner. My grandpa and little brother (who were staying in a bedroom in the old farmhouse) weren't far behind me.
That night was relatively uneventful for the first half of it. Before he went to bed, my grandpa asked me if I really wanted to stay on the living room couch in the old farmhouse, rather than curl up in my very comfortable memory-foam bed back at my great aunt's. It was getting close to midnight, and so far, nothing was happening. All was quiet, except for a slight drizzle and the occasional roll of thunder. Still, I wanted to stay right were I was. I had every electronic I owned open and connected to the internet. I was tethering all of my electronics to my grandpa's phone, because I didn't have one. I fell in the river while fishing with my phone in my pocket several days before. But, I still had an iPad and a laptop, as well as my grandpa's phone, so I was all set to survive whatever was (or possibly wasn't) headed our way.
I was afraid to look at the radar at first. I had it in a tab, but I was afraid of opening it. I knew, just from the weatherman's report earlier that evening, that a very large and serious storm was headed our way. As it continued eastward, it was growing in intensity, especially since it was sucking up moisture from lake Sakakawea, and it was a storm that had already dropped a handful of very large and dangerous tornadoes behind its wall of wind, hail, and rain. But, because of how petrified of it I was, I refused to look outside or even take a quick glance at the radar. I'd rather be blissfully unaware of my impending doom rather than fully aware of the inevitable.
Just before the storm hit, I had the irresistible urge to pray. As attracted to atheism as I was at that time, I could not ignore such an intense feeling. So, I silently asked God to protect the farm, if He was willing to. If not, then I asked that everyone's lives would be spared. But, if it was our time to go, I guess there wasn't much I could do to thwart that fate. There was a basement for everyone to take shelter in, but it had been gutted, and there were windows every few feet or so, including a large egress window towards the center of the basement. There really wasn't a safe place to hide in if the storm got that serious.
About 10 minutes after I prayed, a very strong gust of wind rushed up against the house from the east. I had the window directly behind me open to cool the warm house down with the cold, wet air from outside. The wind caught the curtains and slapped me in the back of my head with them. The pressure difference was so drastic that the front door rattled in its frame. I startled out of my seat, slamming my knees on the bottom of the oak table, but ignored the pain and rushed to slam the window closed. My grandpa, who had been sleeping in the bedroom, came rushing out to close the windows in the kitchen before too much rain blew in. As soon as he slammed the windows shut, the wind radically shifted directions, so my grandpa rushed to close the windows on the western side of the house as well.
Meanwhile, I stood in the center of the kitchen, trembling in shock and fear. Just as my grandpa was returning to the kitchen, the power was knocked out. But, we weren't left in total darkness. In the dark, churning skies above us, lightning constantly flashed, allowing us to see inside and outside without any help from a flashlight.
My grandpa was fascinated by the storm. He was in awe of its power, and loved the constant lightning. But I remained frozen in place, waiting for my grandpa to stop talking, so I could chime in and beg him to go into the basement with me. I knew it probably wasn't a good idea to stay upstairs. Even if there was no tornado, the wind was probably just as strong, and it was getting stronger by the minute. The house was surrounded by large trees, most of which were rooted in soft soil. I knew if the wind hit them just right, those trees were going to crash through the roof of the house. There was also an old RV parked by the house that could've easily been picked up by the wind and thrown against the house, possibly breaking through the wall. I didn't want to get crushed to death by a fallen tree, or suffer any other storm-related death that could've easily been avoided if I'd just obeyed my instincts, and gone into the basement.
I didn't want to die, especially since there was a small part of me that fully believed in God, and knew I didn't have it right with God. After all, I'd disobeyed Him constantly and deliberately, denied Him, called Him horrible names, told Him I was better off without Him, so on and so fourth, all out of anger and hatred. I knew if I was to die that night, and God truly did exist, I'd be the one soul in my family who would've fallen through the basement floor, rather than ascended above the dangerous thunderheads.
Even when I did finally manage to tell my grandpa we should probably head underground, he told me we didn't have to, and he didn't want to. My little brother was fast asleep in the bedroom. The last thing my grandpa wanted to do was alarm my little brother. We both knew he'd lose it if he knew what was going on. Still, I figured it was better to freak my brother out than to stay upstairs and risk getting seriously injured or losing our lives, but my grandpa disagreed. He told me we'd only go into the basement if the storm got worse, as if it already wasn't bad enough.
Reluctantly, I headed back into the living room and sat down at the table, while my grandpa returned to bed. I don't think he slept, but he did lay down in the bed next to my brother to attempt to fall asleep. I finally had the guts to check the radar, after I'd situated myself on the opposite side of the table, away from the window, just in case. I regret checking the radar to be honest. We were just on the very edge of a bowed storm that was 400 miles long north-to-south, and 100 miles wide west-to-east. We were just 5 miles into the storm, and what we were experiencing then didn't even compare to what was coming.
The storm only grew more intense as the minutes ticked by. The wind was so loud that I couldn't even hear my own thoughts. It literally sounded like a jet engine. But what made it worse were the sounds of things hitting the house, as well as tree branches creaking and breaking. At one point, I glanced towards the front door, and through the window in a series of lightning strikes, I saw one of the large trees by the road break in half. That was the moment I decided it was time to head to the basement, but when I opened up the basement door and gazed down the dusty wooden steps into what was basically a concrete pit, I wussed out. I really didn't want to go down there alone if I didn't have to. So, again, I tried to convince my grandpa to wake up Jack and head into the basement, but he reassured me everything was fine.
Frustrated, I stormed out of the bedroom and sat back down at the kitchen table, and checked the weather reports as I chewed on my nails. The wind gust reports were terrifying. The winds outside were howling at a steady 70-90 miles per hour, with gusts between 100-120 miles per hour! The rain was coming down at almost two inches per hour, and there were widespread reports of golf ball sized hail and possible tornadoes. I also heard debris hitting the side of the house, and fully expected something to get launched through a window eventually. Yet, despite all of that, the house was still standing, and none of the trees surrounding our house had fallen. I'm sure they were pretty close to crushing the roof, but for some reason, none of them ever fell.
At times when the wind quieted down just before another tremendous gust hit, I could hear my grandpa's voice calling out to God from the bedroom, asking for His protection. A few minutes later, I also heard my brother's shrill voice saying prayers along with my grandpa. Even though Jack didn't seem very afraid (in fact, he seemed very confident that God was protecting us), I figured it was time to head to the basement if the guys were calling out to God for safety and protection. But my pleas to join me in the basement fell on deaf ears, and I still hadn't garnered the courage to go down there alone. So, I just parked it right back at the kitchen table, and sincerely asked God to keep the roof from being ripped off the house. If He could do that for us, then I'd be a staunch believer for life.
In hindsight, that roof really should've come off. That old farmhouse had basically sat abandoned and rotting for a decade before my relatives decided to fix it up again. We knew, just from inspecting the roof a couple years before, that it was weak and rotting. We also knew every tree surrounding the house was at serious risk of being blown down onto the house. We hired a few farmhands to remove some of the largest trees, but there were still a dozen or so trees that posed a serious risk when that storm hit. Those trees should've fallen on the house. They were so much sicker and flimsier than the oak tree by the road I saw get split in half. Yet, for some reason, those dying trees remained standing, and the house kept its roof and all of its windows.
Sleep deprivation finally got the best of me between 3 and 4 AM. I decided to sleep in my dirtbike helmet and boots, hoping they would save me somehow if the storm managed to tear up the house while I was laying on the couch. Looking back, I really shouldn't have slept on that couch. There was a large picture window just behind the couch, as well as two other windows adjacent to it that could've easily shattered if the pressure differences were drastic enough. The front door was also in that same room, still rattling in its frame. But, I was too exhausted to assess the risks, and passed out on the couch.
I woke up the next morning to my grandpa shaking me awake. Outside, the skies were clear, and I could hear birds chirping in the trees by the front door. Everything seemed remarkably normal. But, scattered throughout the lawn and piled in the ditch were debris of all shapes and sizes, proving to me that I didn't just have a horrible, horrible nightmare. It was all real.
I slowly got up, rubbing my eyes and stretching as I did so. I didn't really know what to expect once I stepped outside and gazed at my great aunt's house to the west. There wasn't enough stuff laying around on the lawn to suggest her house had been ripped apart, but there was no way in hell a manufactured home could've stood up to that weather, especially my great aunt's, which stood broadside to the wind.
But, when I stepped outside onto the grass, which squeaked under my boots as I walked, the house was still standing, completely undamaged as far as I could tell. The lawn chairs were gone, but that was the only thing missing from the house. Everything else was untouched.
My family fully believed God was watching over us that night, sheltering us from the full strength of the storm. 3 miles away from us, a farmhouse was destroyed by what had to have been a tornado. The family inside was woken up when the roof got torn off. As the parents rushed to get their kids, the walls began to collapse. The parents got their kids together, but when the father tried to get the basement door open, he couldn't. The pressure difference kept the door shut. So, he got his shotgun and shot a hole in the basement door, so he and his family could get to safety, all the while the house continued to fall apart.
Less than 2 miles away from us, a handful of grain bins were blown away, and a nearby tractor shed was shredded, leaving only a pile of debris on a concrete foundation. Not even a mile away from us, a historic barn collapsed, and several telephone poles across the road from it snapped in half. Plenty of telephone poles snapped in half in Pick City and Riverdale too, knocking out power to almost the entire county. Historic trees were also downed everywhere. In fact, not a single tree was standing on top of the Garrison dam, after winds gusting up to 120 miles per hour rushed across and down the dam. Along the road between the Garrison dam and Riverdale, which ran through a small canyon, the wind was accelerated and wiped out nearly every tree and bush that once grew in that canyon.
Unfortunately, the storm that hit us didn't just damage properties, take out trees, and injure people. Across the Garrison dam at the lake, a family friend was killed when his camper was picked up and thrown on top of him, while he had ventured outside to either get to safety or tie things down. Park rangers found him drowned in the lake under the frame of his destroyed camper. He was the only resident to pass away, but his death was a stark reminder of just how dangerous and destructive that storm got.
Needless to say, my family didn't laugh at me whenever I sought shelter in the farmhouse from then on. In fact, if I went running to the farmhouse, some of my relatives weren't far behind me, except for those who arrived after the storm had hit. They still made fun of me and stayed in the manufactured home, even when the skies turned threatening.
That storm, as scary as it was, did not really do much for my faith, or lack thereof. It just made me more skittish and alert of the weather. I had one of those "atheist till the plane starts falling" moments during the storm. But, as soon as it was over, I pretty much completely forgot how intensely I prayed to God. I was begging for His protection as the storm bore down on us for 6 hours straight, waiting for the storm to either move on or destroy the farmhouse my grandpa spent his childhood in. During that storm, I was a hardcore Christian. But, as soon as the threat was gone, I immediately reverted to my old atheistic ways, silently scoffing at my family members as they prayed over every meal, or raised their hands in worship during church the following Sunday, the same way they scoffed at me for being scared of North Dakota thunderstorms.
