Atheism was the cause of my suffering

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Atheism was the cause of my suffering

Author: Testimony,
"Love One Another!" 33/2015

I felt disgust towards the Church. I couldn’t look at a cross.I found it repulsive. I regarded Jesus’ words in the Holy Scriptures as utter nonsense, and I couldn’t read them.

Atheism was the cause of my suffering

I’d like to explore a problem which affected me and was a cause of many of my misfortunes. And not only for me – also for many people throughout the ages. I’m speaking of atheism. It’s horrible: complete separation from God.

My faith began to decline when I was in the seventh grade in primary school. In those days I began to ask myself a lot of questions that I couldn’t answer. Who created the world and why? What is the sense of my life? If God exists, why does He allow so much evil in the world?

After some time, the answer became apparent: God doesn’t exist. There is no higher power. I explained everythingaround me in a scientific way, if you can call it that. The universe began as the result of the Big Bang. And what was there in the beginning? Nothingness. Life on our planet? Just another coincidence. I regarded all the beauty that surrounds us as a chance occurrence. I began to explain everything rationally. Nonetheless, after a short time, doubts began to appear. There were some questions I couldn’t find any answer for.

Little by little, I began to hate the whole world. I went looking for solace in alcohol, but that quickly failed to satisfy me

Little by little, I began to hate the whole world. I went looking for solace in alcohol, but that quickly failed to satisfy me. The first time I took narcotics was equally simple, like the first sip of wine. Ah, how relaxed a person feels after that, how wonderful! But, of course, that only lasts for a certain time. After a brief experience of euphoria and escape from all problems comes the headache and the malaise. And what’s worse — the bitterness and the feelings of emptiness, rejection and helplessness. It’s like a neverending cycle.

Time passed and I found myself in high school. I quit the drugs and alcohol, but I had still turned my back on God. The feelings of emptiness and hatred for the whole world and for myself grew stronger. I felt horrible. Sometimes I sat in my room and cried without knowing why. As I looked at everything around me, I felt disgust. Some innervoice told me that everyone hated me, and that the only way I would find relief would be in my own death. Now I can see that this was the voice of the world’s greatest liar and enemy of humanity: Satan himself. I felt disgust towards the Church. I couldn’t look at a cross. I found it repulsive. I regarded Jesus’words in the Holy Scriptures as utter nonsense, and I couldn’t read them. I lived in the clutches of sin, in many different forms. I felt good with people who were like me. My life was dominated by monotony: school, television, sleep, school, television… intolerable monotony. The futility of existence, life in sin, daily masturbation, treating people like objects that I could exploit and then throw away – that was what my life looked like.

Until…

Jesus wanted me to come back to Him. One day, after an evangelisation event at a rock band concert, I felt like I needed to talk to someone. I talked to two young people who were in love with God. I was fed up with my everyday life, full of pain and bitterness. I wanted a change in my life but I couldn’t recognise that the change was already right in front of me. Talking to these two people, I no longer felt any disgust for their words of praise for God. I truly wanted to return to God, I just didn’t know how to go about it. I felt a need for someone to speak to me in Jesus’ language: a language of love which could truly reach me and make it possible for me to love others again. Jesus was speaking to me through these two people. He dispersed my doubts, filled me with His love and came into my heart. Now I wouldn’t let Him leave again for all the treasures in the world.

I finally understood that the cause of my interior pain was the atheism in which Satan had cloaked himself. I went to confession and received the Body of Christ in Holy Communion

After that experience, I went home and started reading Holy Scripture. I no longer felt disgust towards Jesus’ words; I absorbed them with all my being. That night, I couldn’t fall asleep. I constantly felt the presence of some immeasurable goodness. I finally understood that the cause of my interior pain was the atheism in which Satan had cloaked himself. I went to confession and received the Body of Christ in Holy Communion. After mass, I sat in front of the altar and cried profuse tears. I felt Jesus’ love filling my entire soul. They were tears of joy as God was acting in my being.

Jesus, through His love, freed me from Satan’s clutches and gave me a renewed appreciation for the sense of life. Thank you, Lord God!

Your brother Przemek

Source: https://loamagazine.org/archive/2015/2015-33/atheism-was-the-cause-of-my-suffering

The article was published with the permission from "Love One Another!" in September 2020.