I Wasn’t Looking for God But He Found Me Anyway

My dad passed away on November 6, 2023 after a five-year battle with prostate cancer. It's been two years, and in some ways, it still feels like yesterday.

He died in his living room, at home. I was sitting beside him, along with my mom and my sister. I remember the sound of his last breath, and how the whole room shifted. There was relief, and there was weight. Then, silence.

But this isn’t really a story about death. The real story is how I came back to life that same weekend.

I’d been angry for a long time by that point. For most of 2023, my dad’s health had been declining fast, and quietly, so had my faith. Between the slow fade of our church community and the slow unraveling of his body, I started unraveling too. Spiritually, emotionally, even physically. I slipped back into patterns I thought I’d moved on from. I was numbing out, avoiding, hiding and running from a God I wasn’t even sure was listening anymore.

One afternoon, I hit a wall. I was sitting in my office, frustrated and scared after another gut-wrenching call with one of his doctors. The cancer was spreading, and the options were narrowing. I was angry, not just at the disease, but at God, at the unfairness of it all, at how helpless I felt watching someone I loved fade away. And I could feel it starting to change me. I was hurting, but mostly, I was just getting bitter.

That’s when I said it. Out loud. If God didn’t want me to keep becoming someone I hated, He was going to have to come down here and do something about it Himself. Because I couldn’t. And truthfully, I didn’t even know where to begin.

That was the only prayer I prayed that year. And it wasn’t some dramatic moment of faith. It was just all I had left.

I didn’t say it with hope. I said it with nothing.

But even that was enough.

The weekend my dad passed, something started to shift. Not just around me, but in me.

I started to sense God again. Not loudly, but in small ways. And one of the most unexpected moments came through my half-sister.

She hadn’t spoken to my dad in twenty years. But that weekend, she came. She stood by his bed, crying, and told him how sorry she was. For the anger, for the distance, for all the birthdays and milestones she missed. And my dad, as weak as he was, forgave her. Then he asked for her forgiveness too for the ways he hurt her, for what he didn’t get right.

I watched that exchange and something in me cracked open.

It felt like God was saying, “If you don’t lay down your anger, it’s going to cost you more than you want to give. And I don’t want that for you.”

That moment did something to me. It didn’t fix everything, but I felt something shift. My heart started to soften. I wanted to feel again. I wanted to be grateful again. I didn’t want to miss out on life because I was too busy being angry or numb.

I had only given God distance and trouble. And somehow, He met me with grace.

Still does.

These days, I’m still trying to live with that same heart. Two years without my dad has brought a lot back to the surface. I miss him. Some days more than others. There's still a hole. I think there always will be.

But in that space, I can see God’s goodness. I see how He met me in a place I didn’t want to be. How He stayed with me in it. How He started growing something in the dark, even when I thought nothing good could come out of that year.

He didn’t let me go.
I’m thankful for that.

If you find yourself in a place like that, whether it’s grief or numbness or just feeling far away, I just want you to know: God still sees you. Even there. Even if you’re not sure He does. He does.

And maybe the real story isn’t how far we’ve wandered or how much we’ve lost.

Maybe it’s that even when we’re not looking for Him, He still finds us.