How do I know that a higher power exists, and that he or she or it is good, godlike, and even more impossible, that s/he/it cares about me?

No one could ever know the answer to this question through rational thought. Smarter people than I have written heavy tomes offering very thorough rationales both for and against the existence of God. I’ve considered both rationales, and I’ve finally concluded that reason is not sufficient either to explain God, or to explain God away.

So I rely on my own personal experience. Here it is:

When I ask my higher power for help, I receive it.

And when I ask him to heal a situation through me—a relationship, a hurt, an anger, an injustice—God does that too.

I can see that he exists in the light in my friend’s eyes, the light of gratitude for what has been powerfully accomplished for him that I could never have accomplished on my own.

This amazingly creative higher power has achieved things I could never have dreamed up without him, and has healed things I feared were unhealable. I could never have come up with a blueprint for my uniquely suitable and lovable husband, or my children, or my life for that matter, my work, or any of the amazing twists and turns my life has taken since I turned my life over to “him/her/it.”

On my own, I pretty much made a big mess of things—my own life and the lives of others close to me. I have a pretty chaotic history. If anyone looked back at my early life as a journey, at the decisions I’ve made on my own, they would see paths strewn with the detritus of a refugee who carried enormous burdens and scattered them, exhausted, randomly and helplessly as I barely trudged along toward—where, I had no clue.

What I know is, before I began asking my higher power for help, my life did not work, and now it does. I have faith now, that as long as I stay (figuratively) on my knees, as long as I stay humble before my higher power, as long as I keep asking for guidance and strength and help, my life works.

What I know is, whenever I ask to be an instrument of his love and healing, power and achievement—far beyond my small abilities—flow through me, and I am able to help myself and others….

And that’s all the faith I need.