Are you there God? It's me, Jeff.

I don't know if you've read the book Are you there God? It's me, Margaret. It's a coming of age novel by Judy Blume, about a young girl, Margaret, and her struggles with pre-teen issues, religion and her faith. Well, for the longest time, I've been in that very same boat (minus all the pre-teen, girl problems of course).

I've been attending church since the mid-80's. My friend, Vince, reintroduced me to TCPC (Toronto Chinese Presbyterian Church) in our last year of high school. It was a fun place to go. The fellowship life down there was quite active. We met every Friday night to sing, do bible studies... church stuff, you know. Most times we'd go out for a bite or meet at someone's house afterwards. It was like a theistic social club if you may.

The question of God's existence presented itself not long after. Being a church, TCPC's mandate was to promote God and the salvation only Jesus could provide. My friends there often asked me what my thoughts on that were. I had to be honest and say that I didn't know if God existed or not. They had their reasons for believing, but I was a born skeptic and needed more proof for myself. Sometimes they suggested books to read. Most of them started with the basic assumption that you believed God existed already and would take it from there. While that might be true for the general population, I had never reached that point. So they didn't offer much insight to me.

One thing I struggled with was that, if God is Love, then why is there so much suffering in the world today? I've accepted our pastor Tom's explanation about that. He says that God doesn't make bad things happen. He lets things play out and doesn't interfere. What we perceive as bad isn't necessarily so. Sometimes we endure trials to build our character or teach us something new. Though, sort of along the same lines... I really haven't seen anything that makes me believe God is out there either. Things just seem to happen in this world, both good and bad. How does that prove God's existence? I'm not sure it does. Of course, it doesn't disprove His existence either. And, that's where I've spent the majority of my life up until this point... not knowing.

Recent events have got me thinking again. This year, 2009, has been pretty tumultuous for me to say the least. I'm a person who doesn't like change, and, so far, this year has been full of it for me. First of all, I was laid off from my job after nearly 21 years there. I had grown so comfortable there I thought that's where I would spend the rest of my working days. It was disappointing at first. The work was relatively stress-free and I had made a lot of great friends there. Of course we would still keep in touch, but it wouldn't be the same. I wondered to myself if this was God's way of giving me a kick in the pants and saying, try something new, try something different... upgrade your skills, upgrade yourself.

The second thing that happened that made me wonder if God was looking out for me happened on my trip to Asia after I had been let go. The main reason I had gone to Beijing back in July was to meet a girl, Ling, I had met on-line. To make a long story short, things didn't quite work out. I was left kind of in a lurch after we parted ways, not having a place to stay or a planned agenda of things to do. That's where I wonder if God first interceded on my behalf by providing me with Yanfen, a friend I first met in 2003 (the same way, through the internet). I subsequently contacted her and she, not only took me in, but was able to show me around the city in a much more intimate and enjoyable way - by bicycle. I had a great time hanging out with her and her friends. Much more so than with Ling, the girl I had originally gone to meet.

As well, on the same trip to Asia, I planned on visiting Cambodia. Well, perhaps, that's an overstatement. There was next to no planning done on my part I have to say. That could have lead to dire consequences to say the least. All I had done to prepare was change money to $300 in US funds and book the airline ticket from Beijing to Phnom Penh. Nothing else. I hadn't even booked any accommodations for my first night or anything. I didn't even have a map of the city. And my flight was arriving into Phnom Penh late at night. Once again, perhaps, God intervened by sending Joanna my way. I met her at the airport in Beijing. She was also going to Cambodia to travel for a week. Her friend, Teresa, was already there and had made plans for their accommodations and to pick her up at the airport. Kindly, Joanna offered to text her friend to see if she could help me out. Teresa agreed and the three of us crammed into a tuk tuk with all our luggage for the ride into town after we arrived. Their guest house was fully booked that evening, but the tuk tuk driver offered to drive me around to find another place to stay. In the end I ended up traveling with Teresa and Joanna for the week. Their itinerary would have been pretty much the same as mine had I actually planned one. We were in Phnom Penh for a day or so, then took the bus to Siem Reap where we saw the temple ruins of Angkor the next four days. Teresa pretty much organized it all. I owe a deep, deep debt of gratitude to her. Same goes for Joanna. If I hadn't met her, who knows where I would have ended up?

Now, does any of this prove that God exists? I'm not sure. But, I'll tell you one thing... it's made me think much more about the possibility that someone's looking out for me than I had in the past. And that's a huge step considering where I was not long before.