I'm 46 and just lived the most positive, life-altering moment in exactly 20 years. It wasn't because I got lucky but because experience mattered. I feel enormous and fully renewed motivation to continue living with a blended sense of awe, extremely humbling gratitude, yet very richly validating, quantified confidence.
It came at a time when I couldn't figure out what would define the next major phase in my already fairly unconventional and unconventionally instructional time on this planet so far. Articulating it here is my way of trying to say thanks to whatever multiversal forces brought it all together.
I'm in even more awe for a friend whose hard-won rewards have been even greater. Just wanted to dignify this person's happiness with a grateful echo in her honor.
Intentionally digressing, these are the moments I want to believe there is/are a god/gods. As Fox Mulder of the X Files would approve, "I want to believe." But he/she/it/they refuse(s) to show their faces in any form I could recognize with my feeble human senses, despite my efforts to initiate an actual dialogue that would put all my doubts to rest.
Thanks anyway. But why don't you show yourself? "Faith" might work for the masses, but not for me, and I even WANT to believe! What more do you want?! You gave me a brain, and I'm using it, and you can't blame me! If you're omniscient, then you already know this and understand. And for Christ's sake, don't send me your misguided minions as that sign...they're precisely the reason I doubt your existence. Amen.