I have a confession to make, and I hope it’ll help you better understand where I’m coming from.

There was a time, not to long ago, when I tried to live as an atheist, and I started to question my faith.

I wondered if Christians were guilty of circular reasoning. I wondered why there was so much evil in the world if God was all-powerful, all-good and all-knowing.

Even if Satan is responsible for the evil, I thought, why would God have created the angel Lucifer, who fell from heaven and became Satan? And why would he have let it happen if God has foreknowledge?

Then I noticed that there were a lot of really rotten, selfish, prideful, ignorant, intolerant people wandering around calling themselves Christians. Moreover, there were super nice people, even nicer than these alleged Christians, who respected human life more and loved others more than the Christians.

Everything came to a head when I left the country, was stripped of everything familiar to me and studied abroad in Australia. For those of you who don’t know, Australians are renowned for their hedonistic, live for the moment, “no worries, mate” perspective in life.

This idea of enjoying life while we have it and not wasting my time slaving away trying to follow the “rules” of the less-glamorous Christianity was extremely appealing to me.

I watched the carefree, fun-loving non-Christians partying their lives away nonchalantly, while all the time laughing at the uptight, judgmental Christians living miserable, servile, restrictive lives — desperately trying to change the world and people’s hearts to the “only truth.”

Then, I watched the Christian attempts to “guide this blind” person to the “light” so that they’ll believe in the same thing. The whole dichotomy was sick.

I saw that all of them, in their own minds, were “right.” For no one, in sanity, follows what he or she thinks or knows in his or her heart to be wrong.

And, in trying to convert people, I found that nothing I could say they’d hear, and nothing they might see in me would help them to know the “truth” because I’m a horrific example of Christ (as we all are).

So, for a while, I decided to live apart from any faith. I refused to accept the existence of God, and I became an “atheist.” Soon, however, I found that being an atheist left me with just as many nagging questions.

Where did the world start, and how did it become so rich with complexities and intricacies? If there’s such a plan to life, where is the planner? What’s the purpose and the meaning of life?

Then, I thought about how the more pain I lived through, the more substance there was to me. Each tear brought a sparkle to my heart, and each tragedy increased the depth of my existence.

After each season of devastation, my life and my self seemed to be more clear, more real. Making it to the other side of a tribulation made me appreciate the richness of life.

What if, by chance, that was the case with God? What if, in the end, all of the evil in this life will work out for the good in the next life? What if there is an overriding purpose that we cannot perceive that is being fulfilled outside of our comprehension?

By this time, I’d decided that I’d better believe in God again. But then I had the issue of which religion was right and how I knew that to be true. They can’t all be right, I reasoned, because they teach many things completely opposite from one another. They may be all wrong, but they certainly can’t all be right, for the claims of one will exclude the other.

Christianity seemed to have the most substantial evidence and rationale. I found that it is also the only religion where a prophet or teacher claimed to be God incarnate — and what could better prove God’s existence than showing himself on earth, I thought.

And what could better clarify His character and heart than the words he spoke in the flesh when we couldn’t doubt our interpretation or the revelation? What better proof could we ask for?

Jesus also fulfilled the prophecies of the Messiah written about in the Torah. And any document that can do more than simply create explanations of why things are the way they are but can also predict and then fulfill such forecasts should be looked at with respect and careful examination.

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April Goodwin is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Ames.