It is a Sunday morning, and my heart is heavy. I am on my way to praise God, but something feels off. My mind drifts, not to the divine figure of the heavens, but to my mother — the first creator I ever knew. How do I pray to God when the divine has already been so vividly personified in her? As I prepare to offer my reverence, my mind lingers on her — her presence was the foundation upon which my understanding of the divine was built.

You see, the disciples of Christ actively worshiped in the church and talked about God. But they didn’t know God. They never saw God’s face, not like how I have. 

They haven’t seen my mother’s dark brown skin and the way her smile seems to hold the very essence of creation within its depths. To me, she is a bridge between the infinite and the intimate, making it difficult to separate the God of society’s understanding from the love I experience in her.

Is it blasphemous to say that in her presence, I have glimpsed something divine? Maybe everyone is right about me and that I am inherently full of sin. But what’s God to a mother’s love anyway? What has heaven got that I can’t find sitting next to her?

We define holy differently.

Traditional religious views depict God as an omnipotent, omniscient being — an abstract entity existing beyond the confines of human comprehension. This Creator is envisioned as the ultimate architect of the universe and a divine presence whose grandeur and mystery evoke awe and reverence. God is a distant, transcendental force whose actions shape the cosmos and guide the moral compass of humanity.

I grew up going to church every Sunday. I’d wake up at the crack of dawn, put on my best dress and sit by my Aunt Vivian’s side as I watched with my own eyes what it looked like to embody faith and devotion. Her prayers were heartfelt, her hymns resonant and her presence a testament to a faith that seemed both steadfast and deeply personal.

But once my Aunt Vivian passed away, the familiar rhythm of faith became an echo of something I could no longer fully grasp on my own. I spent years trying to find God again after she left this planet, only struggling to feel the presence of something so abstract and vast, often finding myself isolated in a sea of theological concepts that seemed to drift further from my reality.

Her death catalyzed my endeavor with the idea of a distant God, proving that I never truly had my own, personal relationship with Him in the first place. This profound loss exposed the fragility of the faith I had inherited. And my failure to connect with Him revealed that the divine I sought was not a distant deity, but rather a deeply personal connection that had been anchored in her presence.

In the wake of her physical departure, I confronted the stark realization that my spiritual journey needed to be redefined — not by the grandiosity of traditional belief, but by seeking the divine in the immediate, the tangible and the deeply personal connections that persist even in the face of death.

“God knows all of your ugliness and loves you despite it,” my aunt used to say.

Reflecting on this now, I find myself questioning, “Is that supposed to make me feel loved? I am still ugly. He is still God.”

The notion that God loves me despite my imperfections underscores a divide between the idealized divine and my lived reality. It’s a concept that acknowledges my flaws but does so in a way that feels detached from the more tangible, human expressions of love.

Because it was not “God” who lifted me from that bathroom floor and gently wiped my tears and snotty nose with His sleeve. It was not “God” who desperately pleaded for my worth and beauty. It was not “God” who carried me inside of His womb for nine months, nurturing me with a love so beautiful that it breathed life into my fragile existence. 

It was the tangible touch from my mother’s hands, it was the essence of humanity that offered the solace and affirmation I needed, a testament to the divine not as a distant ideal, but as a living, breathing presence felt in the arms that held me close when I wanted to die.

I don’t believe in God, but I believe in my mother. I believe in my grandmother’s aged wrinkles and how her fingers feel grazing my back as I lay across her lap. I believe in my aunt’s ability to show kindness and love to everyone she once met. I believe in the universe in the same way that I believe in human beings.

We are the universe, cloaked in flesh and bone. Every breath we take is the universe inhaling itself, every heartbeat the pulse of stars long extinguished. We are not people, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. We are the universe, expressing itself as a mortal for a little while.

The universe has no edges; it is endless, expanding and in its infinite wisdom, it chose to experience itself in myriad forms. And for a moment, it is you.

I no longer lose myself in the abstractions of heaven and hell. The notion of being a “sinner” unworthy of divine gates on judgment day no longer troubles me. Instead, I find tranquility in the profound certainty that though I may not have felt the presence of God as others describe it, I have encountered glory in the most immediate and personal way possible. This glory manifests through the love I have given and received — through loving myself, those I have once cherished and those I will come to love in the future. It is in these tangible expressions of affection and connection that I discover a sacredness far more meaningful than any distant divine promise.

The universe and the divine are a part of our existence, woven into the essence of what it means to be alive. In acknowledging this, I have come to a more profound understanding of God — one that is grounded not in abstract notions of deity but in the real, lived experiences of love and connection that define our human existence. It is through these experiences that we find our own version of the divine — a version that is as immediate and personal as the touch of a loved one, and as enduring as the pulse of the universe itself.

The kingdom of heaven is nestled at my childhood home. In this heaven, my mother reigns supreme, not on a throne of gold or a celestial seat, but upon her simple, yet hallowed bed. Here, she is my goddess, her aura a radiant halo that envelops the room with a divine light.  

In this sacred place, I rest at her feet. And it is here that the boundaries between heaven and earth blur, and I am filled with a quiet reverence, knowing that here, I am experiencing a slice of the eternal, a glimpse into the heart of the divine.

God is not a man in the sky or a strict set of laws but is instead found in the giving and receiving of love. Salvation is achieved through the act of loving other people and accepting their love in return. So wherever my aunt may be, may she feel the warmth of the love she imparted and know that through the kindness she showed me, she became the very God she worshiped.

Jasmine is a sophomore in Media.

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