How Do you Know God Exists?

This was the question presented to me by my oldest a week or so ago? I was a little shocked to say the least. We talk about God and Jesus on a regular daily basis in this house. We surround our children with godly people, we have taken them to church and the extra classes that she attends as part of our homeschool curriculum are taught by godly women who talk about God in class and attended by churchgoing Christian children. So where did this question come from, but more importantly how do I answer in such a way that she will believe wholeheartedly what I am saying. What I say or don't say right now will make a huge impact on her faith or lack of faith. Nothing like being put on the spot. Since this is not a question that I ever had myself I had to think, say a very quick prayer and this is what I told her. When I was a small child one Sunday morning my Grandaddy took me to a special spot on the creek deep in the woods while my Grandmother faithfully went to church. As we were sitting on huge boulders overlooking the running water waiting to see if a deer would come to drink I asked my Grandaddy why he didn't go to church. He told me that God was with us on that creek bank more than He was in that church building. I won't go into the goings on that he was talking about at the church because he didn't at the time. He said be still and quiet and you will hear the workings of God and see the workings of God and know that He is here. I did, as still and quiet as a 6 year old could be. He then said when you hear the birds sing it is God who has given them song. When you see the water rushing it is God who put the water there to begin with. When you hear and feel the wind rustling through the leaves on the trees it is the breath of God surrounding you. None of this is possible without Him and it exists so that you know He is always here wherever you are whether or not you think you need Him. When I was much older, I went through some tough times. I thought my family had abandoned me and essentially part of them had. I changed colleges and the college that I was going to was close to my grandparents and so in order to save money I lived with them. My grandmother was not a nice woman and didn't approve of my work schedule and so she threw me out of the house. Without going into details I wound up living in my car and sleeping many nights in an empty horse stall on a horse blanket at the barn that I worked at. I stopped all contact with everyone because I was angry and hurt. I became a ghost for a little while at least. For 7 months I spent my days simply trying to survive. I got paid by the barn basically on commission so I made very little. My grandmother had called my real job so many times that I had lost that job. I couldn't afford school so I stopped going once the quarter ended. The other trainer at the barn was stealing from me and since I would lose my job if the owner found out I was sleeping there I could say nothing. I didn't want to go on like that but I didn't know what to do. But God knew what to do. He forced the connection back with my family. To make a long story short I was arrested and when I called a friend to help me, he called my Dad who just happened to be in town (trying to find me). My Dad came and got me and after my court date (all charges dismissed) took me home to my Mama. My life got back on track and I realized that the whole time I was in the wind they were trying to find me. I realized how many people were worried about me and trying to find me. Some people I had only met one time, but God made them remember and they prayed for my well being. Had God not intervened and forced me to stay put where someone could come and get me I don't know what would have happened to me. There have been many times that God has been there between now and then but remember last summer when we were low on meat and I was worried because we were low on money too. I kept saying everytime I opened the freezer that we weren't going to make it to deer season. But everytime I opened the freezer there was meat. Each time I would count the packages and we would have maybe 6 or 7 meals left, but the meat was always there. Someway, somehow we never completely ran out. We didn't have an abundance but it was there and after months of this deer season came and the rabbits started producing again and the pigs were ready to process. We made it with meat to sustain us only by the grace of God because I don't know how those 6 or 7 packages lasted us for months on end. But I do know the meat was always there and it never ran completely out. Then there was the time that you were little and remember when I went crazy. I was sick and the doctors were telling me I wasn't. I wanted to die. I couldn't function anymore and everything in my life was draining because I was drained to begin with. I thought about ending my life several times during that period. But each and every day God gave me the courage to keep going and then to change things so that I could get well again. I didn't have that courage. I wanted to die, but each time I was going to do something to stop all the pain and exhaustion something stopped me. I can only say that something was God because no one else knew the struggle that I was going through. Even now, I struggle with pain and exhaustion but I run a farm. I do more than many able bodied men are able to do, but I am never crippled by my infirmities. Each and every day God gives me the strength to do what I need to do and as a result we are blessed with an abundance of food. I never thought I would be able to homeschool, it just isn't in my personality but here we are. We have a close tight and loving family in a world that doesn't see family as important and most parents are divorced. I can only say all of this is because of God's blessings because I have been in the world and it is not a friendly place. I have been abandoned, turned on and hated by friends and family members many times. But each and every time I knew that God had to be with me because I managed to get through it and overcome it. I never could have done that on my own, I simply don't have that sort of courage. Whenever things is my life are just completely impossible, God makes something possible. It might not be exactly the way that I envisioned it or even wanted it but God makes things possible in an impossible world. In fact this has happened so many times in my life that I simply don't question anymore because I don't have the foresight that He has. I know in the end it will work out no matter how impossible it may seem. We live on this farm even though our move here was impossible. It seemed impossible when Daddy was out of work for us to keep going, or even to keep living here. But we did and we had the courage to simply have faith and face each and every day as it came. The impossible worked out to be possible and that only happens because of the grace and goodness of God. Humans simply don't have that kind of power. And so that is what I told her. I couldn't have made it this far in life without the grace of God so He has to exist because I couldn't and can't do it alone. Many blessings to you all, Kat