I was a very outspoken atheist myself for many years, an officer in my college's chapter of the secular student alliance back in the early 2010's. I was raised

I was a very outspoken atheist myself for many years, an officer in my college's chapter of the secular student alliance back in the early 2010's. I was raised going to a mainline church sometimes, but it didn't do anything for me. I never had a grudge against Christianity or anything, but I grouped Jesus and God in with Santa at some point as a teenager and never really thought further about it. So I didn't think I could be converted either. I thought "Good without God" was how I could live, and things would eventually work out if I could just tune my environment or my brain chemistry accordingly. But I eventually found myself backed into a corner when I realized I had no way to reconcile meaning, joy, or goodness with myself or life as I could understand it. I wasn't good at all, if I was honest with myself. I felt exactly as you described, without value in a world that had no value. There's a lot to be said to tell the whole story, but to be anticlimactic, my solution was indeed Jesus. Considering his words, his claims, his promises, and daring to believe they applied to me, that's how I found hope, and a reason to live life as though I do have some value. How I got to that point from atheist, that required a long process of addressing a number of assumptions and biases before choosing to believe. The whole "church" part came after, and was more of the icing on the cake. BTW, if you're curious at all, here's what I was reading tonight that actually got me thinking on the topic of "poverty of spirit" and what it means to Christianity in particular (starts at section I.1 - https://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/sermons.v.xxi.html https://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/sermons.v.xxi.html ) I gotta go to bed, but if you wanna chat more or hear the whole story sometime let me know. I can email that address you posted in the other comment. Wishing you the best.