Higher Power or Wishful Thinking

[Brandon James Johnson]

Hey everyone. I’m 18 years old, and I used to be a very strong believer in God and was very active in my church until my summer before sophomore year. I love math and science, and I've wanted to be an engineer to help build a better world around me since I was young. I've always loved challenging myself to solve problems or let my imagination come to life, whether it be with my treasured Lego collection, with wood and nails, or even just on paper. However, I have also had an unexplainable force drawing me towards music since I can remember. I can't think of a time in my life when I wasn’t weightlessly suspended in music. As far back into my childhood as I can remember (4 or 5), I would be dad's recording studio watching him write and play new songs or Staying up late in bed listening to the Pianists I listened to on my Cassette Player, consumed by each note that filled the room. Then even in silence I could hear this strangely familiar sound. It’s like this nameless song, unheard by anyone else. It’s just always there, unspoken of, giving me the strength and passion to move through each day. Every time I feel things the music is playing, not as if in reaction to how I feel, but like it’s part of how I feel. Happiness, Anger, Peace, Longing, each feeling with their own keys, and tempos. There was a time in my life when I felt so alone and insignificant that I questioned everything that I was. Then I felt a sudden change in the song, like a rise, like dawn finally broke after a seemingly endless night. It was as though God himself had reached down and lifted me back to my feet. This music I hear pulled me out of the darkest places I’ve known, and given me the strength to push through everyday. I want to be able to share that same music that has helped and carried me through things in my life with others. I haven’t been to church in almost two years, but I remember hearing there once that God speaks to us in ways that we can understand and connect with, and lately I find myself believing it more and more.

I just want to know what other people’s beliefs are about if there really is a higher power and purpose, or if it is all just us wishing we were meant for more then living and then dying.