Last night I was browsing the blog and noticed that the word "God" in my topics section on the right hand side of my blog was tiny. That section categorizes all of the labels for each of the blog posts this year, and places a heavier emphasis on topics that are talked about more. I felt humbled and a little sad that God was in teeny tiny print. I realized that for the most part, I don't share my faith, and I keep that area of my life very private - almost by design.
Growing up in a very strict church environment, I felt that God and religion were always shoved at me. And a lot of the messages about God and religion seemed to be somewhat negatively focused. And a lot of the positive messages were lost on me once I saw real Christians not living those messages. As an adult, it has been a difficult transition to decide what I believe and still continues to be a bit of a journey for me. I find that the more I learn about God, the more I find out that I can say that I know very little beyond the basics.
I guess that brings me to what I do know, interpreted through faith of course. And I can tell you that although these key themes don't change drastically from day to day, these are the things that I feel about God right now in my life...
- God is amazingly patient and has been so kind to indulge me in my spiritual journey where I question everything on a continual basis.
- God's kindness and love for us is immeasurable. He communicates his warmth to me daily and affirms my faith in little ways that can't be mistaken by me.
- God doesn't prevent really terrible things from happening. And to view him as a protector of things that are evil will lead you to a difficult quandary once those things actually do occur in your life. I spent a good deal of my life blaming God for standing by as things that shouldn't have happened did in fact happen, despite my childhood prayers. What I have discovered is that no matter what happens, he is there and supplies you with what you need to deal with all situations that occur in your life. And I have heard many people explain that it is God's "will" that these terrible things happen. That explanation doesn't comfort me. But what has always really comforted me is the real feeling of warmth and love that I've had during some of the hardest times in my life. I know he was there, and he was supplying me with what I needed. And whether or not he could have stopped it, or it was part of his plan, I choose to file that under 'things to ask God one day'. But until then, I trust that based on the goodness that I've experienced first hand, combined with faith, he is there and amazingly present at the moments when you need him most.
- I believe more than anything else that I'll get to see him one day and he will indulge me in all of the questions I have today that I can't answer. All of the questions that religion has attempted to answer, but always falls a little too short. And I can't wait for that day!
In the meantime, I have to say that I am incredibly blessed. I have an overwhelming feeling of contentment and joy. And when I say content, I don't mean like when you've had 2 slices of pizza, desperately wanting a third and you say that you are "content" to console yourself from having the third. I mean that I am happy and have a feeling of calmness that has come over my life. I like where we are at right now. I have a good solid peace going on right now. Everything appears very calm, like in the picture of the lake. No ripples right now, nothing that has me concerned. I'm living day to day, with no major weights on my shoulders.
We have some friends who are going through Micron layoffs which will completely rearrange their lives. My heart is really heavy thinking about the situation they are in and I send them my best. I can't tell you how grateful, blessed, and thankful I am that CJ dodged this stressful time by coming to work with me months before talk of these layoffs even began. It was a bit of a stretch for him to leave a good job, with a "good company" that he had been working at for over 7 years, but it was the best decision we could have made. And at the time, we had a peace about the decision. And today, as we are sitting in a nice calm time of our lives, I can't help but think that God's position on my blog should be a little more prominent. And that perhaps in my quest to not blame God for the bad things that occur, I forget to thank him for the blessings.
Happy Halloween! We are hanging out around the house, handing out candies to the kiddies and just enjoying our evening. It is a nice relaxing evening at home, but it feels like it should be Friday. Why can't Halloween be like Thanksgiving and occur the last Thursday of October? I've been wondering for years.
Bachelor is HATING Halloween. Why you ask?
This year we had planned on carving pumpkins but never got around to it. We've got two un-carved pumpkins sitting on our front porch. So this little ceramic jack-o-lantern will just have to do for the evening festivities.
