Somebody asked me why I believe in God. He was not mocking me. He was trying to make my life add up. I did not give him a speech, and I did not open a debate. I asked him if he had ever been hungry and still eaten, hurt and still standing, broke and still making it. That is God looking out. I believe because I have a record, not because I won an argument.
The record is ordinary on purpose. A plate I did not plan. A morning I did not think I would meet. A bill that cleared after I had already cried over it. None of that photographs like a miracle meeting, and all of it kept me. I am not interested in a faith that only counts the spectacular. The spectacular is easy to applaud. The ordinary keeping is what taught me His name.
I used to explain my life as hustle. Hustle was in the story. It was not the author. I worked. Sisters helped. Doors opened that I did not knock on alone. When I erase heaven from that sentence, the sentence gets thinner than the life was. Belief, for me, is loyalty to the evidence.
If you are still here, you already have a reason, even if you have not said it out loud. You do not have to like every chapter to tell the truth about the Keeper. Purpose is not a costume you put on when the room is watching.