Mary Katharine Ham: Look for God

This article is part of a Free Press series on “Repairing America in the Age of Political Violence.” Read the other entries, including from Abigail Shrier, Coleman Hughes, Sam Harris and others, here.

It was the summer after my senior year of high school. I was lying on my bed reading one of those neon splatter–painted Teen Study Bibles that were popular in the ’90s. I had one close Christian friend and a little bit of curiosity about the Lord that seemed to light his life.

I came across a page collecting scripture about prayer.

Though I’d never been religious, and didn’t grow up in a particularly churchgoing home, I had prayed since I was a child, taught by my parents to do it before meals and bedtime. It was a habit more than a devotion, but I remembered at that moment all the things I’d prayed for over the years—for my dad to get home safely from a business trip, for my little brother’s heart surgery to go well. I began to realize that God had always been there for me even if I hadn’t realized it, even as I doubted, even when I had outright rejected him.

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It was Isaiah 65:24 that hit me: “Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.”

At that moment, I sat bolt upright on my bed; I could feel that someone was with me. Like a crazy person, I asked the room, “Who’s there?!” And somehow, among the River Phoenix posters and Sublime CDs, I felt the peace that surpasses all understanding.

Somehow, I understood what a friend I had in Jesus. He has never left me since.

Back then I was just 18, and I didn’t understand just how much I needed him.

Then the worst happened.