give me your eyes, so i can see.

Okay, so I grew up in a Christian home that went to church every time the doors were open. I grew up being a practicing evangelical. I grew up thinking I knew what I believed.

Then I came to college--more specifically, I came to work. I work with homeless youth. I work with youth who have been molested, physically abuse, emotionally abuse, thrown away, forgotten, the list goes on. They make silly decisions. They are drug addicts and delinquents.

They are beautiful.

Anyway, I've blogged before about the fact that working with these kids has made me question a lot of my beliefs. Specifically, I grew up believing that if you did not accept Jesus as the Son of God, you would go to hell. Point blank. Who cares what you did or didn't do? Who cares who you were? You lose.

Working with these kids has made it clear to me that it will be mentally and sometimes physically impossible for certain people to accept Jesus as the son of God--and to accept that there even is a God at some points. It's changed how I look at things, to say the least.

Today I spent two hours talking with a youth about his depression. At the end of the conversation (as things were leading in this direction) I asked him if he was a spiritual person. He said, "I have tried and tried to believe in God and make that fit into my life--but I cannot believe that a God who created me to be physically and sexually abused would punish me for not believing in Him, and I cannot believe in a God that would create me to live a life such as this."

Now, obviously this young man was in a desperate state of mind and things were not adding up for him like they would someone who wasn't battling depression. But, he said exactly what I've been thinking for so long. I really don't believe that God would send this boy to hell for making some less than desirable decisions when he has experienced what he has experienced (his story--so traumatic...i didn't really think things like that actually happened to people). I can't believe it. And I won't.

I don't usually blog about religion or controversial things like it, but this is important for me. This is a huge change in my life and it scares the hell out of me...but I can no longer ignore what is in front of my eyes.