Letter to a Beloved Atheist

By Janet Morris Grimes –

Dear Friend,

I am not sure where to start. I see you over on the opposite sideline, pacing, contemplating, but never wondering. Often, our eyes meet for a second too long, but we just turn away, afraid to address our differences.

But I love you, and with that comes this obligation to share what is on my heart, whether you want to hear it or not. Because I love you enough to allow you to be mad at me, if that’s what it takes.

I love you enough to no longer remain silent.

Here is what I know about you. Your path has been difficult, filled with betrayal by the people you loved the most. You craved acceptance, but received just the opposite. You feel as if you have let everyone down at one point or another, so rather than carry that guilt around with you, you had to let it go. Your survival demanded it.

You lost most of the people who have been close to you; some to death, painful and unexpected. Others walked out of your life by choice, which left even deeper scars. You searched for a life raft to keep you from sinking when surrounded by one storm after another. But a timeline of disappointments left you feeling more abandoned than ever, and you decided the only person you could truly depend on was yourself.

Still, I know that at one time, you believed.

But something within you has changed. Did it become easier to decide there was no God at all, than to consider the possibility that if He was here, He must not care about you?

After all, how could a God who loves you allow such terrible things to happen?

I have asked that same question many times.

So, I get it. And I know this relationship I have with God is not something I can shove down your throat, nor can I be the extension cord that connects the two of you; it is something you have to discover for yourself.

At times, I hear you mocking me, even as I pray; even when you are the one that drops me to my knees. You stand with your guard up, ready to debate every theory from evolution to eternity; the beginning to the end. You crave the argument, and any chance to spread doubt in others, as if you enjoy keeping score.

I will never buy into the battle that pits God vs. Science. Science is the study of all that God has created; the universe is too magnificent to have happened accidentally. The One who knit the world together thought of everything, and He does not need our help to figure it out.

Still, I love you enough to listen to your opinion. For now.

But, Eternity is where I draw the line.

Because I love you too much to allow you to be separated from God forever. Away from God, no good thing can exist, which is the definition of Hell.

It all points to Heaven. This is the reason life makes little sense at times. This world is only temporary.

In the end, I need for you to be there with me. In Heaven, back in the arms of the One who created you.

Because you are perfect in my eyes.

And I love you.

Luke 16:27–28 “…I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.”