Nicaragua

There's a picture of me standing with my youth group in Nicaragua when I was 15. Everyone is clapping and singing something, and I'm scowling in the back.

Maybe it's because the sun was in my eyes. Or because I followed the rules for once and didn't bring any "nice" clothes for church so I got stuck wearing ratty old athletic clothes in a crowd of girls in pretty dresses. Perhaps even because that's just how my face has always been, even when I was 15. But it wasn't any of those reasons.

Standing there, sweaty, on the last Sunday morning of my mission trip to Nicaragua, I realized that I was an atheist. I realized that in the one place where everyone was supposed to belong and be loved, I would never feel those things. And I didn't even want to.

It's funny that I had to go all the way to Nicaragua to realize what I did. I had to spend ten days translating for doctors, helping distribute medicine, and building cisterns to understand. I had to do God's work to figure out that I didn't believe in God.

I guess I was scowling because I felt lied to. I didn't go to Nicaragua because God had chosen me. It had always been my choice. I went because I'd been learning Spanish for three years and I wanted to use it in the real world. I went because I wanted ten days of peace away from my family. I went because I knew it would look good on college applications.

I could only be called a "holy child of God" so many times until I realized that I wanted to be anything else but that.