The Part Where I Had My First Crisis of Faith

I was fifteen.  I was at EFY.  And I was absolutely and terrifyingly alone.

I had gone to EFY the year before and had an incredible time.  I made some great friends (and I met a boy who I was in a sort of relationship thing with for like four months afterward) and I just felt like my testimony grew so much.  I felt closer to God and more desire to live the gospel than I had ever before experienced.

My second year was so different.  Every single other person in my group had come with a roommate.  I had gone potluck.  For some weird reason, that year half the people who roomed blind wound up getting stuck in RA rooms i.e. a single.  No roommate.  I kind of felt like an outsider.  Which was too bad, because the group as a whole was so close that year.

On Tuesday night, I found myself in bed staring up at the glow in the dark stars someone had stuck up on the ceiling long before me.  And for the first time, I realized how alone I was.  Not just without friends or family at my side, but the absolute crushing aloneness of realizing that God is not there.  That your prayers are inside your head and nothing else.

I cried.  So much.

And when I came home from EFY that year, I wasn't the happy talkie person I was when I came back after my first year.  I didn't have a million stories for my mom.  I went up to my room and went to sleep for about six hours because the world was different and I didn't know what that meant.