Was I Before I Was

What was I before I was here?
Before my mother’s body knew me,
before my father’s voice could call me into being?
Was I nothing;
not a shadow, not a whisper,
not even the faintest flicker of thought?
Or was I something smaller than memory,
smaller than dust on the breath of God?

The idea gnaws at me:
that there was a time when the world turned,
and I was not here to see it.
But placed in a spot where I am forced to
believe the people before me did.
The sun rose and fell,
oceans swelled and pulled away,
hearts beat and broke,
and I was no one.

How can there be nothing
before something as the soul?
If I believe I will go on,
eternal, unending,
then how could I not have always been?
How could there be a time when I was absent
from existence itself?

He says that He knew me before the womb.
He says that I was not hidden before being made
in the secret place.
He says that He chose us before the earth.
He says that He has many rooms.
He says I will not perish if I believe.

Then where was I?
And where will I go back to?

Is there a place where all things wait?
A quiet before the spark,
a pause before the breath?
Or was I truly nowhere,
not even the thought of a thought,
until God’s hands shaped me from void?

What does it mean to have never been?
To imagine a life not lived,
a name not spoken,
a body never formed?
And yet, here I am,
a meaningless thread, sewn
into a world as if I was always meant to be.
As if, just maybe, I always was.

Does that mean I was known?
That somewhere, before time,
my soul was waiting—
whole, complete,
just unseen?
Or was I with Him already? Why do I have no memory of it?
Or does it mean I am a miracle of divine intent,
created from nothing,
and yet destined to endure forever?

Faith tells me there is a plan,
that I was made for something eternal.
And if there is eternity ahead,
how could I not have existed before?
If I will go on,
unchanged by the turning of years,
how could I have begun in silence?

I do not know.
I cannot grasp the vastness of the truth.
But here I am,
caught between the mystery of what was
and the promise of what will be.
And in this moment,
I marvel at the strange, impossible gift—
that I could have never been,
but now,
I always will be.