Growing Up, I thought my grandmother was the most wonderful person in the world. She was kind and gentle and never criticized me. I adored her and always tried to behave perfectly in her presence. The rest of my childhood was very challenging, but I never told her about it, because I loved her so much and didn't want to cause her any pain.
The summer before I started high school, my grandmother became ill and slowly grew worse. Meanwhile, I prayed morning and night for God to heal her. As her suffering increased, I finally lost what faith I'd had in a God of love and mercy. I started to believe, instead, that God was cruel. I thought He might be willing to trade one sufferer for another, though, so every night I asked God to transfer my grandmother's disease to me. Each morning when I woke up without the disease, I was disappointed.
As the years went on, I made one last request of God: that He would take my grandmother's life, thereby sparing her further suffering. But even this was denied, so I came to hate God. To me, if He knew what was happening and didn't stop it, He was infinitely cruel. If He didn't know, then He had abandoned us. Either way, He was not a God worth worshiping.
