You Made Me

You made me.

My soul was poured into an innocent child, a baby with no clue about the storm he was stepping into. I had no say. No vote in where I would land. No map for what lay ahead. If there is truth to the spiritual—if the supernatural holds sway over the beginnings of life—then it was You, God, who placed me here. You made me.

But why?

Why was I born to two people who had no business being together? Why was my fate tied to a broken home, a single mother who worked herself raw just to keep food on the table, and a father whose gambling debts weighed more heavily than his promises? Why was I left to be raised not by stability, not by guidance, but by siblings only a few years older than me—someone who didn’t know how to raise themselves, let alone me?

God, if You are listening—if You are who they say You are—then You, and You alone, made me.

But for what purpose?

Why craft me only to cast me into disadvantage? Why bring me into this world poor, needy, broken before I could even crawl? From the very beginning, the deck was stacked against me. I was trapped in a web I didn’t spin, surrounded by people just as trapped as I was. People who didn’t know why they were here either. People who stumbled through life confused, desperate, clinging to small pleasures while the world pressed them into the dirt. Some turned to crime. Some to addiction. Some to bitterness. Some simply withered, fading into shadows of themselves.

And me? I was left to wonder which path would claim me. Would I be a criminal? A victim? Or worse—a monster in disguise.

They tell me You have a plan. That Your ways are too high for us to grasp, too mysterious for human minds. That everything is part of some grand design. Maybe that’s true. Maybe I am just too small to see the pattern. But here’s what I know—what I lived: I was born to a mother too young, too wounded, who drank too much to numb the ache of her own disappointments, and strayed too often searching for a love she never found. I was born to a father who lived and died at the edge of chance, who gambled away hope one bet at a time, believing luck was a god he could one day bend to his will.

If DNA really carries more than the shape of a face or the color of an eye, then I inherited not just their features—but their flaws. Their hungers. Their curses.

And where did that leave me? Raised in a neighborhood that stank of alcohol and desperation. Where men drank until their voices broke, and women sold themselves for a brief escape. Where dice clattered in back alleys like the heartbeat of the streets. Where violence lived around every corner, and temptation perched on every stoop like a predator waiting to pounce.

So guess what demons I wrestled with? The very same ones. The bottle. The lust. The thrill of the gamble. The constant urge to run. I became a mixture of my mother and father—a storm of addictions, distractions, and desperate grasps for meaning. Now, I deal with the same monsters in me.

Why couldn’t I have been born into privilege? Why not the soft cradle of aristocracy, cushioned by money and influence? Why not fame, with its glamour and glow? Wouldn’t life have been easier if I had started in light instead of darkness?

But, then again—maybe not. Because I’ve seen it, I’ve read it, I’ve known it. The rich have their monsters too. The powerful hide behind gates and titles, but their crimes are just as dark. Infidelity. Corruption. Exploitation. The sins of wealth are dressed in finer clothes, but they’re sins all the same. Evil doesn’t care what neighborhood you come from. It only cares that you invite it in.

So maybe my misunderstanding runs deeper. Maybe I’ve had You wrong all along, God. Maybe it isn’t about being spared from monsters. Maybe it isn’t about being placed in the perfect home, the perfect city, the perfect bloodline. Maybe the truth is harsher, simpler. Maybe the monster is in all of us. In me. In you. In everyone.

And maybe the purpose—the only purpose—is to face it. To wrestle it. To refuse it. To cast it out.

Because the monster takes many forms. Sometimes it’s rage, burning like a furnace. Sometimes it’s envy, gnawing in silence. Sometimes it’s the quiet resignation that whispers, stop trying. Sometimes it’s greed disguised as ambition, lust disguised as love, pride dressed up as confidence. And sometimes—it’s despair itself, pretending to be wisdom.

I’ve seen it in my parents. I’ve seen it in my neighbors. I’ve seen it in myself.

The truth is, God—or fate, or the universe—didn’t need to invent demons to haunt us. We were given enough rope to hang ourselves. The monster isn’t something that swoops down from the outside. It grows inside. Fed by neglect. Watered by circumstance. Strengthened by weakness. Invited by choice. And if left unchecked, it devours.

So what if the test isn’t about avoiding the monster? What if the test is surviving it? Expelling it? Choosing—over and over again—not to let it win?

Maybe that’s the secret purpose. Not wealth. Not comfort. Not privilege. But transformation.

Because the people I’ve known who’ve walked through fire—who’ve stared down their own darkness—they shine differently. They carry scars, yes. But those scars glow with resilience. Their eyes carry weight, their voices carry truth. They faced their monsters, and in doing so, they found their humanity.

And maybe that’s the only way to ascend. Not by asking why God made me poor, or why He made me broken, but by realizing He made me capable of resistance. Capable of fighting back. Capable of choosing something different, even when everything in my blood pulls me toward destruction.

You made me.

And maybe You made me not to be flawless, not to be privileged, not to be safe—but to be forged in struggle. To prove that even in the worst soil, something good can grow. That a rose can bloom from concrete. That even in a world of monsters, a man can remain human.

So if there is a purpose, maybe it is this:

To find the monster within me. To face it. To cast it out—again and again—until there is nothing left but the man You intended me to be.

Maybe, that’s all there ever was when you created me.