It’s Ash Wednesday and Catholics all over the world are preparing for Lent. I roll out of bed excited for the Lent season to come. I’m fully aware that God gave his only son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for me. Now is my time to give something up, too. It seems so small compared to what he has done for me. Nonetheless, it is a time of commitment and love to the Lord.

I have never been one to push my Catholic religion on others, I personally feel that people worship God in many ways and that it is entirely up to them how they choose to do so. I must say, though, when I opened up the Iowa State Daily on Ash Wednesday to see a column titled, “Declare trust in people, not God” I felt sick to my stomach. I felt the urge to stick up and speak out for God who I and many others around campus worship daily. Most of all, I felt disappointed that our generation has fallen into this mindset that people have more power in this world than our own Holy Father.  

I am a firm believer in the Bible. Through it, we are told that God created everything. God created you and the kid next to you and the kid next to that kid. God does not control how we live our lives — that part is up to us. However, God can lead us along the way. We as humans make mistakes. We fight, and wars are started. We create false and inhumane ideas of things we can do to others, and slavery begins. God cannot stop us, but he can guide us and this is what he does.  

I understand the author who wrote the column was speaking out of freedom of speech. I am simply providing a different explanation to the column. I will say this: At one point, I was at a bad place in my life. I had lost one of my closest friends, and I was devastated for quite some time. Two years later, I was working on our local ambulance squad and experienced two separate deaths in a matter of two months, one of which had passed away while I had been administering CPR.

Death happens. I am fully aware of this. But during these two times in my life, it wasn’t people who brought me out of the darkness and helped me realize that life would go on. It was God. God made me realize that I was alive for a purpose and that life is short. God made me realize that I only have so much time to make an impact while I am here. God has made me realize that some things are inevitable and that only he will determine our fate in the end. However, we get to choose everyday what our middle looks like — this is the part known as life.

We can sit around all day and say that God didn’t end slavery or choose the next president, and if that’s what you believe then say he didn’t. But just like every day we as people wake up and make decisions for ourselves. These decisions form who we are, who we become, and the impact we leave on this world. God doesn’t make up our minds for us. He simply guides our way. So why should I trust in people instead of my Holy Father? Can people choose what paths and struggles I will choose along life’s rough way and the lessons that these will teach me? Can people guide me to a wonderful place called heaven? I personally say no.

Don’t misconstrue my words completely. We do need to trust in people. We must trust in people to be loyal, to be leaders, to love and not hurt, to have sincere hearts and to care about the good and well-being of those around them. We must trust in people to make changes in our world, to be the change that we are so hungry for and ultimately to change the course of history. But a nation without God is a nation without hope.

I pray that the United States of America will never see the day that we stop trusting in God. Without God to guide us, how do we know what purpose we are serving? As it states in the pledge to our great country, “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one Nation under God.” Our people in past years knew that without God our nation would not amount to what it is today. So with my own freedom of speech I would like to say, may we trust in people, but with that, may our nation always remain one nation under God. Under a God in whom we continue to put our trust, just like the people who helped make this great nation what it is today.