The Fire Circle – The Night He Said, “God Must Hate Me”
The fire had burned low by then, nothing left but embers cracking softly against the cool night. A circle of tired boots surrounded it, dust still clinging to the laces from the trail we had hiked earlier. Some leaned back against logs, some sprawled out on blankets, others hugged their knees, staring into the orange glow as if it might answer questions too heavy for words.
That’s the thing about the hikes we do. It’s never really about the miles. The trail does something to people—wears away the edges they carry, makes them more open when the sun sets and the fire crackles. Out here, the walls fall away, and what’s left is the truth.
That night, his truth came quietly.
“God must hate me.”
He didn’t throw the words. He didn’t even look up. They just slipped out, almost like an accident, but once they were spoken, you could feel them circle the fire like a shadow. The group grew still. Not in judgment. In recognition.
Because even if they had never said those words themselves, everyone in that circle had felt something close. The silence after a prayer. The crushing guilt of being alive when you feel like a burden. The thought that maybe the pain is evidence of some cosmic punishment.
I remember watching him poke at the embers with a stick. He said the prayers had stopped working years ago, and all he heard was silence. And silence, he said, feels a lot like hate when you’re drowning in depression.
He told us about nights lying in bed, replaying every mistake he’d ever made, every person he’d hurt, every way he’d fallen short. And in the dark, with no answer from heaven, he was sure the verdict was in: “God must hate me.”
The fire popped. A log collapsed in on itself, sending sparks upward like tiny stars. No one rushed to argue. That’s not what wolves do. We don’t dismiss pain. We don’t patch it over with easy answers. We let it breathe.
When I finally spoke, I told him the truth I’ve seen too many times: depression is a liar.
It doesn’t whisper—it roars. It grabs the silence of the heavens and twists it until it feels like condemnation. It takes guilt and shame and paints them with God’s name so you can’t tell the difference.
But hatred doesn’t create life. Hatred doesn’t give you the breath that kept him walking the trail earlier that day, or the heart still beating in his chest. Hatred doesn’t give you people to sit beside a fire, to hear your words and not flinch.
What he felt wasn’t God’s judgment. It was depression, trauma, loneliness—all of them dressed up like divinity.
Others spoke then, voices breaking the night. One woman admitted she used to believe her childhood abuse was proof that God had cursed her. Another man said every failed relationship felt like a holy decree that he was unlovable. And slowly, the fire became confession, each ember carrying a story of silence, guilt, and the false belief that God had turned His face away.
But then came something else. Not a sermon. Not a lecture. Just presence. Wolves sitting shoulder to shoulder, breathing the same air, letting one another know they weren’t alone in the dark.
And weeks later, when I saw him again on another hike, he told me something I’ll never forget.
“I realized that if God really hated me, He wouldn’t have left me here with all of you. He wouldn’t have given me a fire and a pack and the chance to speak it out loud without being abandoned.”
He was right. Sometimes the proof that we are not hated isn’t in thunderbolts or miracles. It’s in survival. It’s in the people who refuse to leave when you share the thoughts that scare you most. It’s in the firelight that burns against the night, reminding you that hate doesn’t win as long as you’re still breathing.
So if you’ve ever thought those words—“God must hate me”—let me tell you what we told him that night:
God does not hate you. Depression hates you. Trauma hates you. Loneliness hates you. But not God.
And when you forget that, you sit with the pack. Because the pack remembers for you.
- Adam Scott
Original Publish 08/25/2025
