Life After Atheism: The Author Winning Children Back To Christ.

Stories Are The Vehicles Into Children’s Hearts

Meet Izabela Ciesienska, the award-winning children’s book illustrator-turned-author whose inspiring journey back to Christ is fuelling her desire to teach children biblical principles through the stories she tells.

Izabela grew up in a Catholic household but didn’t feel connected to her faith. It didn’t feel relatable. So when she came across the New Atheist movement, a whole new world opened up for her. She’d always been a lover of knowledge so she was attracted to the confident rationalism that atheism presented her - for it was the holy grail of knowledge, at least that’s what Izabela thought. However, this bottomless depth of novelty soon felt more like a black hole to Izabela and something within her refused to let go of the idea that God existed.

This tension between her beliefs and her soul came to a head when she was driving past Arizona. Its raw, natural and simple beauty called to the deepest parts of her. Lost in the intentional yet creative wonder that is nature - Izabela knew for sure that God existed.

She left New Atheism for New Age and didn’t look back. In New Age, she found God - or at least a version her formerly-atheist self could accept. It wasn't long though before she realized that New Age’s insistence that ‘we are the gods’ would not bring her true fulfillment either. So she left.

Now, having come back to the faith of her childhood - Izabela is using her love of stories to help save children from going down the path that she walked.

What does freedom in Christ mean to you?

I: Freedom from vice because Jesus encourages us to cultivate virtue, which, is the thing that gives us the strength to be liberated from vice. It’s not responsibility that puts us in shackles - it’s the lack of responsibility. It’s the lack of temperance that is going to make us a prisoner to whatever vice takes hold of us - that’s what freedom in Christ means to me. He only wants the best for us.

So are you saying there are boundaries to freedom?

I: Oh yes. You can put it that way. Freedom without limitation - when it’s not tempered by wisdom is quite often going to end up in self-destruction. What good is it to me if I exploit the freedom to do every narcotic under the sun? What good is it to me to sleep with every person who is available? It’s only going to end in disease - spiritual, physical, and mental? But how much fruit do we have when we exercise limitations of what we put into our bodies, right? That only benefits us - it creates healthier bodies and healthier minds. So yes, I think He must have designed it this way because He doesn’t want mindless automatons. He wants intelligent creatures who can say no - who can gauge options and pick the one that is best for them, and consequently their community.

When you were in the New Age movement and the Atheist movement, did you find that they preached the freedom to do anything or was there a sense of boundaries?

I: I think they did have some limitations. From what I’ve seen, the people in the New Age movement and these other movements are genuine seekers- they want to find God, like I did. So they are not satanic or luciferian in the sense of “do whatever you want” - I mean there are some extremists like that - charlatans that will encourage their followers to do that. For the most part, they strive for limitations but I found their limitations were not limiting enough. There is still too much…I think maybe a lack of caution because we don’t ever want to get to a point where we take away people’s freedom, what we want to do is encourage people to temper themselves. That is what I found was lacking in the New Age movement; they were like “yeah, you can try a whole bunch of things and see what works for you as long as you don’t harm other people.” But there is very little talk about harm to the self.

What about these movements attracted you to them?

I: Well it was a segue. I was born in a Christian family but I was always a seeker of knowledge and I really loved rational thinking. I came across a New Atheist movement and they are very rational. In the beginning, it sounded very, very rational and that is what I needed and maybe that ended up being a black hole for me. At first, it’s inviting then there comes desperation because if there is nothing - no God, no Creator and no free will - then what is there? Just desperation and it sucks you in deeper and deeper and it’s very hard to get out of it. The New Age movement is abstract enough to allow you to segue out of atheism - “oh, there’s energies out there. There doesn’t need to be a personal God - just a creative force or source or whatever.” That is fathomable enough for an atheist mind to consider because when you are an atheist, a personal God is too big a leap. I think that is what attracted me to the New Age movement - it wasn’t so much the freedom (“oh I can do anything I want”) - it was more that it gave me a little bit of hope in the atheist brick wall that I hit. But as I went deeper into New Ageism, I realized “oh man, the entire thing is more interested in making themselves the god.” I realized that’s just not good - we’re humans, we’re fallible - it’s best that most of us don’t accomplish what we want because when we do we end up destroying the planet and each other. That’s how I started moving away from [the movements] and realized God’s will is best.

In comparison to Atheism and the New Age movement, what was lacking in Christianity’s message for you?

I: Christianity lacked nothing; I was the one who was lacking. I lacked the effort and discipline to understand the message better. This is why I decided I need to create Christian content for children because as a child, my school, my church - I would say they did everything right. They taught me the things they were supposed to teach me - they taught me virtue… we had to wear school uniforms. They taught me all the right things but I didn’t understand the reasons for their teachings - “why? why can’t I wear what I want?” Only as an adult, do I understand that what Christianity teaches - all the virtues and the values - there is a very good reason for it: the way you dress - you communicate to the world who you are, and what you want - sometimes that invites great opportunities. When you are not mindful of how you dress, sometimes it can attract very unsavoury characters in your direction and that’s something that people don’t want to talk about. But there’s a very good reason for these values that I, as a youngster, did not understand the ‘why’’. They taught me the ‘what’ but they didn’t really make the connection for the ‘why’, which is why I think we need to restructure children’s education. I think one of the best ways to do that is to implement stories. Stories, books, animations, and games that will take those values and really sink them into the hearts of children so they understand ‘why’. Once they understand ‘why’, once they understand why God’s laws are what they are then they will come to know God. You know the Creator through His creations. So the missing ‘why’ is the reason why I didn’t understand it. You cannot value what you cannot understand.

I’m getting the sense that you’re saying that stories are a wonderful vehicle to teach value.

I: 100% percent. Look at the best-selling book, the Holy Book. This is my first time reading the Bible, believe it or not. I read it here and there before, but now I’m going page by page, and I can appreciate it more, especially now that I am going to church, and listening to a lot of Christian podcasts, and much smarter people are helping me understand the context of some of the things in the Bible. Even if someone is an atheist, they will not be able to deny the value of these myths, stories, and parables. They cannot deny the value they gave to human civilization. Our entire criminal justice system is rooted there - our entire moral code is rooted in the Bible. So yes, stories are so important, which is why there is so much interest in telling stories that are degenerating the human mind because the other side knows this as well.

You said it before and I completely agree that this is why we need Christian creatives to tell their stories, to tell biblical stories, to put biblical principles in their stories. So that we can go into the marketplace and be lights that win over darkness.

I: 100% percent. When you look at anything beautiful… beauty has a balance to it. It has laws in it. Components that some are more identifiable to us and some are not. We know it when we see it. We can feel it when we see it - whether it is in nature, in music, a beautiful movie or whatever… we feel these divine virtues and values when they are manifest in the form of art. When we see them, they far surpass anything from the other side. True beauty requires no gimmick to get your attention. Its pure essence, like a God-given voice, is enough to capture your attention and appreciation. A beautiful voice is recognized unanimously; even people of different countries who speak different languages will acknowledge such a voice as beautiful. The beauty of the voice in itself is a universal language. That is the power of beauty and God’s values - they are universal and undeniable. I don’t know what happened to Christian creators in the twentieth century - it’s actually a very interesting question for historians to cover because we went from creating the Notre Dame and all these incredible works of art - [laughs] to disappearing in the twentieth century! So I would be interested to know what happened. But I think it’s time for a renaissance.

The Bible talks about us being cities on a hill and lights on a lampstand just by being ourselves. For me, we’ve talked about stories being the vehicle to teach children that, right? But how do you think we can communicate to children the difference between light and darkness because they are so used to darkness that they might not appreciate beauty when they see it?

I: You’re very right. When a child is surrounded by darkness - let’s say in the modern music industry - when that is all a child knows, they don’t even know that much better music exists. It’s true. It’s the responsibility of adults in a way to shelter children from the things they need to be sheltered from. Of course you don’t want to overdo it because eventually, you will have to teach your kid how to make the right choices. But in the beginning, you have to expose them to truth, beauty and goodness because for them to make the right choice, they need to have that comparison. I would suggest that in order for them to be able to make the comparison, you first introduce them to goodness so it sinks in. Sometimes, we hear people [tell pregnant] mothers to listen to beautiful classical music. Imagine she listened to music with a lot of swear words. That could impact the development and the emotional state of the kid (the anxiety and all that), which is why I recommend exposing the kid to the good stuff first. Show them when the time is appropriate, not just the other side, but the consequences of the other side. You have to teach kids the other side. To really sink it in that one of the most fundamental laws in the universe is the law of cause and effect: God gave us free will but if we don’t make the right choice, there will be an effect that we will be unhappy with and won’t be able to reverse so easily. It’s best to avoid negative consequences altogether.

You have a very unique perspective when it comes to this because you’ve seen what happens when your religious stance has no light and you’ve seen what happens when [your religious stance] is all about you. You’ve seen that Jesus is the One who brings light and the One who brings freedom when our focus is on Him. What are some ideas/phrases that a Christian parent who has been Christian their entire life should be aware of to protect their children from going down those paths (especially in the social media age)?

I: I would say two things: Number 1. idolatry (but that’s for older children) - is the artist trying to turn themselves into an idol or are they creating work (whether its art or something else) that is giving glory to God? We are idolizing too many people right now… anyone who is trying to turn themselves into an idol is already pathological, whether spiritually or mentally, so it’s best not to idolize them - ever. Teach children not to idolize human beings - they will let you down.

Number two, I don’t know how parents are going to have this conversation but teaching children to communicate to their parents when an adult in their life inverts fundamental realities. This is a line that is very recognizable - if parents teach their children certain words and behaviours as inappropriate (even when they come from adults in positions of authority), and to prime their children to tell mommy and daddy about encountering those words and behaviours, then that will allow parents to address the problem by asking “what exactly are you teaching my kid here?” … we always want open dialogue, and the freedom to disagree. We cannot shelter bad ideas - we must put them out in the open subject to scrutiny, and we must teach our children that that is the proper way for society to regulate itself. Children should not keep secrets from their parents - that’s how terrible ideas multiply.

Firstly, for idol worship, how do you discern it? Especially since some musicians are not explicitly glorifying themselves but they are not actively glorifying God either.

I: A musician doesn’t have to necessarily always create about God, but their focus ought to be on higher values and virtues, such as creating greater beauty. When you look at an orchestra, these are some of the best musicians on the planet, but do you know any of their names? No. Because their focus is not on making themselves famous - it’s bringing beauty to you. In some cases they have dedicated decades to mastering their craft, so that the two hours you paid to see them you are taken to a level of beauty that brings you closer to the divine. The experience is different in pop music, for example. In pop music, the artist is not focused on creating higher beauty; they are focused on making themselves into a brand, and consequently, an idol. That already for me is cautionary. When someone turns themselves into an idol and relies on public worship, they will always give the public what it wants, not what it needs. That is a very dangerous relationship for human civilization to have with an artist, because it creates a feedback loop of shallow values and rewards, and consequently leads to cultural degradation.

This ties into one of your earlier questions - what can parents do? Remind your kids that God’s plan and purpose is the ultimate one. There are certain things you cannot, and more importantly, should not be. There are so many important jobs that God needs us to do. Not everyone can be what the world glorifies. And frankly, the world is glorifying some of the most destructive jobs. So if parents can remind their children that we have dreams but God has plans, and His plans are infinitely better than ours, children the world at large will be better off. Walk with Him and He will take you down a path that is best for you and for those around you.

Izabela’s new book, The Little Donkey And God’s Big Plan, is out now on Amazon and Ascension Press. It is about a little donkey with big plans and no way to achieve them. However, with his friend's encouragement, he starts preparing for it where he is. Only to find out along the way that God had a bigger purpose for him all along.