In hope of happy endings

I had a sad moment tonight. I was reading a study of some feral children who had been raised by animals in India. These two girls were discovered when they were young adults and brought back into civilization. They were able to come a long way from acting like wild animals, but the one thing they were never able to grasp was language. Similar studies with other feral children have confirmed the theory that if you do not acquire language skills as a child it's impossible to learn it as an adult.

Sometimes I think the same is true of belief in God.

To feel on a deep level that the world and its people are a product of something more than just platetectonics and natural selection seems to require synapses that I just don't have. Intellectually I am convinced of intelligent design, but it's a concept that I can't wrap my mind around emotionally. I remind myself to look around and see God in the world but I end up just seeing traffic and the grocery store, nothing more. I don't feel God's presence right now, just the chill of the air conditioner.

I have read so many stories of skeptics who became Christians that at the beginning of this adventure I kind of assumed that that's how it would end. I mean, everyone who goes looking for God with an open heart finds him, right?

But I'm starting to worry that that's not how it'll end for me. Maybe, like the feral children trying to learn language, I'll always be a reluctant atheist, trying to find God but just not seeing him anywhere. It makes me so sad to picture myself as a 60-year-old, saying, "Yeah, I really did try to believe in God. I researched and prayed and opened my mind and wanted it more than anything. But I just couldn't force myself to believe." At least I'd never need to worry about the story of my life getting overplayed on the Hallmark channel.

Anyway, maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I need to get involved in a church. But I keep having to fight the disheartening feeling that this whole thing might have a horribly lackluster ending.