They say God is love. They say God is just. They say God has a plan. But if God is love, why is there so much hate? If God is just, why is there so much injustice? If God has a plan, why does it look like chaos?
I've prayed. I've begged. I've pleaded for answers, for relief, for just a sign that someone is listening. But there's only silence. A deafening, suffocating silence that makes me wonder if anyone is really there.
They tell me God knows my pain. But if He knows and does nothing, isn't that worse than not knowing? They tell me suffering builds character. But what kind of loving parent watches their child suffer to teach them a lesson?
They tell me to have faith, but faith in what? In a being who created a world where children starve? Where the innocent suffer? Where good people die young and bad people die old and wealthy?
Maybe God doesn't exist. Maybe we created God because the alternative—that we're truly alone in this universe—is too terrifying to accept. Maybe religion is just humanity's way of coping with the randomness and cruelty of existence.
Or maybe God exists but doesn't intervene. Maybe we're an experiment He lost interest in. Maybe we're a simulation running without oversight. Maybe prayers go nowhere because there's no one listening.
I want to believe. I want to have faith that there's meaning, that there's purpose, that someone cares about the pain we're in. But every day I see evidence to the contrary.
I see children dying of diseases. I see good people destroyed by circumstances beyond their control. I see cruelty rewarded and kindness punished. And I wonder: if there is a God, what kind of God allows this?
Maybe that's all prayer is—screaming into the void, hoping something echoes back. And when nothing does, we tell ourselves it's part of a plan we can't understand. We make excuses for silence. We rationalize abandonment. We call indifference "mysterious ways."
If God is all-powerful, He could end suffering. If He's all-knowing, He knows we're suffering. If He's all-loving, He would want to end our suffering. Yet suffering continues. So either God isn't all-powerful, or isn't all-knowing, or isn't all-loving—or God doesn't exist.
They say we can't understand God's ways. But if we can't understand Him, how can we trust Him? If His ways are beyond our comprehension, how do we know they're good?
I'm not angry at God. I'm confused. I'm hurt. I'm searching for answers in a world that seems designed to provide none. And the silence—the eternal, crushing silence— feels like the only truth I can count on.