I grew up in a religious home and was baptized into a religion when I was eight years old. It's assumed that an eight year old is old enough to make a decision like this, but I surely don't remember much about it. During my formative years I was taken to church by my parents and required to attend the various classes and such. I never cared for it, but it was what I had to do, seeing as how my parents were well…my parents. I attended all of the meetings and such, but it never felt right. I never understood the logic of following something blindly, just because everyone else said it was "right". When I turned 18, I almost immediately left the house and didn't attend church anymore.



My life continued as everyone's does and I was left with a lingering thought in the back of my mind as to who or what God was. I definitely believed in a higher power, something bigger than myself if you will, but it pretty much stopped there. Then something interesting happened. I didn't have any children and never really wanted any, but then my daughter was born. Experiencing this event changed my life. Suddenly it wasn't about what I thought God was or wasn't. God was obviously real, otherwise how could something like this happen? I began studying spirituality.

Through my studies of spiritual texts such as the Bhagavad-Gita, Science of Mind, and the bible, I began to learn about things like peace, forgiveness, non-judgment, and love. It was an awakening for me. The reason it happened was because of my daughter incarnating into this world. Now that she was here, I knew what love was. I not only knew what love was, but through that I knew what God was. And what was that? I think Gandhi said it best when he said, " Where love is, there God is also."

As I studied these subjects; peace, love, forgiveness, etc., My entire life changed. I stopped drinking and smoking, both of which I engaged in fairly heavily for more than fifteen years. Was I necessarily trying to stop these practices? No I wasn't, I believe it was just a natural progression of my journey. Now I wouldn't dream of wasting my time doing either practice. For me my daughter being born and me subsequently quitting drinking and smoking, was proof of God.

I gave up the notion of needing to describe or define such things as what or who God is. All I have to do is take a walk along a flowing river and I know what God is. I think Ayn Rand put it as well as I've heard it described: "God... a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive." That is the answer to whom or what God is.