help me understand 05.09.2022

You love them until they openly reject your rhetoric. 

You love them until it’s hard for you to listen to their opinion because it’s not the same as yours. 

You follow closely until it requires you to pull the plank from your eye. 

You love them with a clause. 

You love them “even though they….” 

You love her “we just can’t…”

You love her “but…”

You love her “…despite”

What you’re saying is “we love them even though they aren’t worthy of love…” and some of you think this was the message of Jesus. 

That we are to love everyone even though they aren’t worthy of it. So we use this to help us justify our hatred for people. Listen to me. I’ve heard this at dinner tables I’ve sat at:

“Well. You know. She has a girlfriend now. But. You know. We are still called to love her even though she’s gay. Ellen is gay, and we love Ellen.”

But, Jesus’ message was not this message. It wasn’t the message of “love others even though they are sinners because some sinners are cool and do good things”. 

He said…no one here on earth is worthy of love in the way that our faith has traditionally defined it (with rules and sins and hatred for defiance to the rules and laws of sin) 

And the message was that all our “sins” are weighed equally. So, we love everyone because everyone here is worth it. PERIOD. There weren’t exceptions to this love. Do you understand? The Jesus I learned about said…fuck your religion. Fuck your theology. Love one another without reservation. 

WE should LOVE People WITHout CONDITIONS. 

Unconditional. Agape love. Isn’t this the good news?

I’m so confused. Where is Jesus? Where is this Jesus you talk about? Where is the Jesus that surrounded himself with the filth of society? With people like me? 

Where is this Jesus? He’s not in your church. 

Are we supposed to isolate ourselves from the problems of this world???? 

Are we only to be friends with people who align with our own thinking? Are we only to love people who look like us? 

Where is your God? Who is all powerful and all knowing? If he is all powerful how is he contained in that book written by a man in a world we didn’t live in? How can you dare to know YOUR truth is the only truth?

How can you reject a world where the people were fully cared for?

Where is this god you spoke of to me who loves us all and befriended the unloved who bucked society’s rules? Where is this Jesus here? 

He’s not in your church. He’s not in your heart. What good are you doing by setting yourself apart from a world that’s growing and learning to love people better than you? 

Where is your Jesus? Where is your growth? Where is your heart? Why are you complicit in this bullshit? What are you fighting for? Love???

Where is your compassion and love and where are your eyes at? Where is your resistance to this….idolatry? 

Lay it down. Like really lay it down. What legacy are you leaving with compliance to this system of “love” on the basis of attendance and your tithe??? What good was ever done by following the status quo??? 

This is the idolatry he spoke of. This is the madness Jesus spoke of. Jesus was not a Christian. He was a man. A Jewish man. Who was sick of rules deciding who was taken care of and who was loved. Who was sick of a system profiting off of a perceived salvation. 

It feels like the current systems of Christian love have bastardized a man’s legacy in the name of their own comfort and salvation. If we take away your church, if we take away your idea of sin and salvation…what do you have left now? Can you still love people without this and could you go out into the world and love people like Jesus from the Bible? Because it seems like everyone else is doing it better than you. It seems like everyone else is fighting harder than you for the oppressed to be heard. For the broken and sick to be healed. For the hungry to be fed. For the lost to be found. Not the white woman to buy a new house and car in a nice neighborhood and good schools. We shouldn’t thank God for that. We should thank God our circumstances allowed for that and do our best to make sure we fill the cups of others whenever possible. Because we have the means to. 

JESUS FOUGHT FOR THE OPPRESSED. JESUS DIDNT FIGHT FOR THOSE WHO WERE REPRESENTED. He was popular because he went against the churches. The organized. The regulators. 

Lay it fucking down. This is your power. This is the power of the Pharisees. The power to control the uncontrolled. 

You feel good attending on sundays because it rids you of the guilt you feel for clinging to your possessions and your nice way of living while the underprivileged people that can’t even afford to drive to your church on Sunday suffer because they can’t find something to eat and they aren’t in a different country—THEY ARE ON YOUR CITY STREETS. 

Tell me why there are 2 MEGA CHURCHES in Kalamazoo, MI where the head pastors live in absolute luxury but there are still people LINING up for free food at the organizations that try to provide for the hungry and homeless in Kalamazoo. WHERE IS YOUR JESUS. WHERE IS HE. 

WHY is it that these churches in Kalamazoo can open multiple locations. Million dollar facilities on the same streets where I was asked for cash on Saturday night? They can endorse beautiful establishments in the most sought after real estate in the city and staff them but there are still homeless, there are still hungry, there is still gun violence, there is still racism…..HELP ME UNDERSTAND WHERE IS YOUR JESUS. 

I want your Jesus here. I want His Kingdom to come here. I want that Jesus. I want him deeply. I require that Jesus in this world. But I do not see him in the faces of you. I do not see him at your church. I do not feel him in your hearts when I hear you sit around the dinner tables and express your disgust for queer people, and your disgust for a young black mother relying on WIC for her similac, express your disgust for a pregnant woman who is pregnant with her 5th child by a different man because she was the victim of sexual abuse and neglect for most of her life and was never able to understand the meaning of love and the right to choose who touched her body. 

You want to protect your ability to feel better about your life because the current laws and systems support the safety and preservation of the life you enjoy. And heaven forbid you make sacrifices to that life. Because you earned it, damnit. You worked hard for it. And you shouldn’t have to give anything up for the lives of others! What’s that, Jesus? Oh yeah, I LOVE JESUS. He’s my hero. Long live my savior. He saved my life and I am called to be more like him! 

Where is your Jesus. Tell me. Where is your heart for more than the people in your life that look like you. That live like you. That live near you. That talk like you. Where is your love for the people in your city living in filth and poverty and hardship and your version of sin …they’re not at your church. Would Jesus be at your church? God. No. He wouldn’t. Ok?

chameleon 07.10.2021

 Shelby trying to list off brands of chewing tobacco: 

“YUKON!”

“TAHOE!”

“HUSKY!”

Everyone else, “……grizzly?”

What They Should Teach Us In School 7/10/2021

Mindfulness and meditation to quiet mind chatter (by doing art or listening to music or moving your body or breath work, etc.). We should learn more about diversity, equity & inclusion and understanding the unconscious bias. And…nutrition for health and wellness and not body mass index. And maybe teaching them how to establish essential values for themselves and how to live by them and how all facets of their life would be affected if they were or were not truly honoring those values. Maybe we stop forcing a freshmen in high school to choose a career pathway…when they are almost 10 years away from their prefrontal cortex being fully developed. So, why don’t we teach people to figure out who they are and invite them to embrace all of it and walk firmly in that before they figure out how they’re going to get a job that has good retirement benefits so they can be comfortable FIFTY years from when they are being asked to contemplate it. I don’t even know what I am gonna eat for dinner, let alone what I’ll be doing just ONE year from now. So many young adults feel like they are lacking real purpose and they’re unhappy. So, if you could teach an adolescent to periodically check in with what drives them and WHY it drives them (essential values)…they’ll feel more fulfilled in the long run because they’ll have a strong awareness of self that allows them to name their emotions, how they’re expressing them, the level of importance, and what the situation calls for in order to realize harmony within all relationships. And maybe then we would have a more capable and confident workforce because they chose a job that fit well with their inherent and known strengths.

Sick Of Dave Matthews Band 07.08.2021

 To Stefani

It has taken me so long to get the energy to write this to you. Because nothing felt right and I don’t think I was ready to process all of this. I don’t think any of us ever will be. I know I’m experiencing pain but I also know the pain I feel is just a fraction of the pain that aunt cheryl, uncle Mike, Daddy, Jer, JR, and Mack are feeling. I’m writing this to you because I miss you and I love you and you left us far too soon and I never got to tell you all the memories I cherished growing up with you. To note: saving us when our car broke down, coloring with me, asking me to make you a morning playlist because you were getting sick of Dave Matthews band, when I was 7 I remember you taking me on a ride in your convertible Spyder with the top down on Thanksgiving day in Chicago—simply because I asked you, and shooting hoops with us in the basement for hours and hours. 

But. Why I’ve finally found the strength to write this is…

I’m sitting in my backyard watching tiktoks. And it was this video of a girl just sitting there with some soft music playing. And the sound then prompts her to close her eyes and imagine the younger you running up to the current you to give you a hug. And first of all I was not at all prepared for the waterworks that I experienced…But, second of all, I just had the vision of you, Stef. Because as a kid, I remember seeing you and being so excited to hug you. I thought you were the prettiest lady in all of the land. I told everyone when I was in 1st grade that I wanted to be an eye doctor. You were the best cousin a girl could dream up. 

Because you always saw us. But, like, in a way that made us feel so special and cared for and known. 

And, I guess, as an adult, I realize I’ve been trying so hard to emulate the love that you showed me and being that to the little people in my life. i have 4 nieces that absolutely adore their “auntie shelby” when i walk in the door, lots of little hands grab mine and lead me to their next adventure at mimi and peepo’s. i wanted to be their favorite when they walked in a room because of how I felt about you when I was their age. So, I’ve succeeded and I know that now. Especially after watching that video. I’m a total mess as I write this because I am so so grateful for you and all you brought to my life and so many others. This isn’t fair. I’ll never understand it. But I love you so very much. And I will admire all that you are for the rest of my life.

Damn you, morality!!!!! 07.10.2021

 J

I’ve basically decided that arguing with anyone these days is a complete waste of energy. Everyone has their minds made up already. 

ME

Lolol. It’s so true. But then I think about me. 

ME

And I’m like

ME

Yo. I changed my mind. 

ME

Or…ACTUALLY

ME

I think of it as I’m living my authentic self. I feel like I’m the same kid I was when I was 5. Like. Before all the hurt and confusion of the world got to me. 

ME

Like wow. Humans have free will and we aren’t being moved around by a giant puppeteer?? 

J

My only qualm with the idea of living as a full authentic self is that authentic self can have problems too. Like I wanted to kill my landlord today but I know I shouldn’t. 

ME

Hahahahahaha

ME

Damn you, morality!!!!!

ME

I’m only suffering every day because I believed that if I didn’t suffer constantly and agonize over my sins that I would live in the firey pits of hell forever? 

When do you think Christians are going to realize that they’ve just been being selfish by sitting in church and sucking up weird endorphins during the fancy worship and then going home and hating everyone after? And they’ve been selfish because ultimately we (not me presently) only care about saving ourselves from Hell…instead of, I don’t know, just enjoying our lives on earth? And not simplifying the experience as just a prelude to eternity and using that line of thinking to (unsuccessfully) pacify any kind of painful emotion.  Like imagine how great the world would be if we actually just loved and helped one another like Jesus said. And not used an ancient script to help us come to terms with the fact that we are turd humans and since we are, we are going to use this magical textbook to justify why we can be turds. 

J

But we have to pluck words and read them in plain English even though the magical textbook was written for an entirely different context in an entirely different language. But it says women should be silent in church so it’s a sin if you speak up

J

But we’re cool with ignoring the weird stuff from Leviticus

ME 

I think I read a passage once that said when a woman gets her period she needs to sit outside 

ME

Ok. But can we do that like at a spa? Outdoor spa?

J

It’s real! 

J

And if a dude has a wet dream he has to go out and bury it or something

J

But we read some stuff from the New Testament as it’s supposed to be directly applied to 2021 America

J

And then hit people upside the head with it and make them feel guilt for things they might not need to feel guilty about

ME

And I also remember feeling so guilty for never getting through the lineage chapters in the Bible 

ME

And always feeling so confused when people like got excited about reading the same book every day. 

ME

I can’t even watch the same movie twice. 

J

I’m not fully deconstructing (maybe decon light) but I think it see the Bible as the story of Jesus and people who read it daily are experiencing God through it

ME

Oh I’m with you on that. 

ME

I love Jesus 

ME

Like I really do. 

ME

Because he was human. And he loved people really hard and wide out in the open. And he never changed who he was even when he got shit on over and over. 

ME

That’s the kind of love I want to emulate. 

J

Preach

J

Not the “let’s storm the capital to and push our religion on everyone else by making some weird Christian nation” type of love

Some Good Days 01.18.2019

Year 6

We walked home from school to find that mom was home early and we had a new puppy.  She told us the story about how she had to go to the grocery store after she got her, so she put her in her pocket.

Year Unknown

The house smelled like pipe tobacco and dad tied flies with the supplies in the wood chest that grandpa made.

Year 18

I walked to my Pontiac Sunfire after finishing my Biology final. It was the end of my first semester of college.

Year 15

My baby brother was 4 and we fished off the dock that afternoon. We caught one small sunfish.  At dinner, my brother said that his favorite part of the day was fishing with Shelby. Dad said his favorite part of the day was when we called the house phone from the dock so he could come get the fish off the hook for us.

Year Unknown

I walked out into the hall before the sun came up. There was a plug in nightlight. I had to walk to the living room to see if Papa and Grandma Trudy were awake yet. The tell was the sound of the chairs squeaking from the kitchen. Papa would make me oatmeal with hot water from the tap.

Year 6

On Wednesday nights, we walked across the street to the baseball diamonds together to watch dad coach little league from the dug outs. I thought all the boys were cute.

Year 15

Despite the major breach of peace that night, we played Mad Gab without keeping score until she forced a laugh out of me. But sometimes I couldn't help it and I would cry a lot so she held me and cried, too. That night our parents didn't scold us for keeping them up late.

Year 20 Something

Mom and I set off on our usual 4 mile walk and about 4 minutes in she realized all her clothes were on backward.

Year 6

We didn't pack sweatshirts so we borrowed some. They were too big. We ate tuna fish sandwiches on the beach and watched the sunset. Just the four of us.

Year 7

I practiced at the campground with my dad all weekend to learn how to ride two wheels. We got home late Sunday and my dad's friend called our house. I set down the corded phone in the hall to go pick up the cordless so that on my way upstairs to give dad the phone, I could tell dad's friend about my new skill: Two. Wheels.

Year 14

I was sitting on the couch and you were in the big red chair. To our absolute shock, he came back inside and he kissed you right in front of me and walked back out through the garage. When his car finally left the driveway we were both losing it.

Year 27

We took a Friday off in late September.  We split a sub and two bottles of wine and stayed on the water until the moon was high.

Year 12

We bought a gallon jug of water with the cash we had and hid in the playground for hours vowing to not be grumpy.

Year 10

I wanted to hold my new baby brother the longest. For the first time in my life, I recommended that the oldest go first.

Year 15

I turned 15. Dad made 40 hot dogs for all 40 girls I invited to my birthday party. My sister's friends showed up and one guy with super long hair gave me a Hawk Nelson CD as a birthday gift. He's been my brother-in-law for over 8 years now.

Keeping the Faith. 04.02.2018

Hi kids (only parts of my family will understand this joke)!

Thanks for joining me on another round of my blogging adventures. I haven't written in over a year. So, if you're wondering what I've been up to here are some things I did since January 11, 2017:

·        I ate an entire bag of crazy bread and half the crust off of a hot and ready in one night.

·        I accidentally tucked my shirt into my underwear instead of pants at work (that happened last week).

·        I was called out in a meeting for accidentally typing "ASS grippers" instead of "SAS grippers" on a machine specification.

·        I spilled a bottle of vegetable oil all over the passenger seat of my car.

·        I played in a kickball league and we lost every game.

·        I did the cupid shuffle around a police officer in a gift shop.

·        I accidentally called my boss Dad.

·        I convinced an intelligent, handsome, and friendly guy to call me his girlfriend for almost 14 months.

So...that about sums it up.

This one is difficult for me to write, but as always, this is my unfiltered and unapologetic writing style.   

I want to say, first, that I have been pissed and angry and really shook up lately. My faith has been frustrating me to all Hell. 

My faith and my walk with Jesus has been tested and flipped upside down.  It is evident that it is not what it was and it’s taking new meaning in my life.

My faith used to be all about me feeling good and experiencing things for myself. 

I prayed and I worshiped so that I could experience God for myself.  It felt good and it felt right because I felt close to God and God felt near when I needed Him to be. 

I want to pause for a minute, because I'm not trying to say that your relationship with God shouldn't make you feel good or be a source of comfort.  Because it absolutely should…

I’ve just been super frustrated by my faith because as I start to get a better glimpse of the world, I feel like there is no place for my mustard seed faith.  My faith feels insignificant and useless.

Yes, I think I’ll start with that.

Recently, I moved away from the city and I've been commuting to work. With that said, I have become a National Public Radio junkie.  I drink my black coffee and I listen to current events—God help me, I am my father.  (Just kidding, I love you dad…I love that I’m like you.) 

The other day, I listened to a story about a great number of Kosovar women who were victims of war. An alarming amount of women were brutally raped and abused as a result of the country’s war against Serbia.  This took place nearly 20 years ago.  Recently, the women activists in the country have fought hard so that many of these victims can now receive compensation and support to help them deal with the suffering they endured.  I listened to two victims tell their stories about how they would cry every time they walked past the places they were raped.  One woman talked about how she used tranquilizers just to get to sleep at night.

This blog isn't about this story of suffering. But my reaction to this story helps me  to send the message of this blog.

My heart started to break and I was overwhelmed with tears and emotion.  I mean, I was a mess.  That day, after work, I called my mom.  I told her how I felt so guilty that I had to change the channel to listen to a Sidewalk Prophets song on the local Christian radio station because I couldn't stop crying and I just wanted to feel good.  I couldn’t handle hearing about the world we live in. I didn’t want to feel so broken.  And I drove the rest of the way home feeling so confused.  And turning over all of these philosophical and faith related questions.  Why can’t I face this properly?  Why do I feel angry at myself?  Why do I feel like I just copped out of trying to understand the condition of the world I live in??

Our world is so, so broken.  I wanted to do something and I felt so helpless. And I felt so confused.  God, you are good, right?  I sing it about it all the time.  I say it on Facebook when I post pictures about my life…

But, why is our world so broken if you are so good? Why are people dying and suffering unjustly? I couldn't feel good. My faith wasn't enough to save me from what I was feeling.  I was so mad at God and felt like my faith hadn’t equipped me to handle the unjustness of the world.  My faith felt little.  I felt stupid for listening to a feel-good Christian song to ease my own pain that I felt because of tragedy and suffering I could not fathom or understand.   

It’s funny because we were never taught that walking in faith would be easy.  And if we read the Bible, we would know that it never has been easy.  So, why is it that my understanding of being a Christian is that it will just make you feel so good, even if things are bad?  Especially when the very leader of Christianity faced unimaginable affliction…why did I think this would be easy and would always make sense??

My faith hasn't been making me feel good.  In fact, when my life is a little hard and someone tells me to pray-I almost feel bitter.  It's like I want to laugh.  My problems don't seem worth a pathetic prayer to an almighty God who must be busy trying to make himself known to such a dark world.  I think to myself, “I don’t want to pray that I get along with someone better. I'd rather pray that my eyes be opened to the fact that the struggles I've endured and the pain that I've experienced pale in comparison to the state of our world”.

I see the world and the darkness and I'm scared. I see Christians getting a bad rap because we are pegged as judgmental and selfish.  I'm mad.  I feel like my relationship with God must be bad because my “feelings” are on the left and my relationship with God is on the right.  And they aren’t making sense anymore.  These two things seemed so aligned when my faith was new and it felt good.

I'm so confused. I'm frustrated by my faith. I'm frustrated with people telling me to pray when nothing in this world is changing and it's breaking me and shaking me up in ways I didn't think were possible. 

Real talk: Living as a follower of Christ right now is tiring and miserable. I read verses like “His mercies are new every morning” and “take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart” and “give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you”..... and now it just seems so out of context and unreal. 

This is your will, God? Why? I don't want to thank you for all this death and persecution. It used to seem so great reading these verses when the focus was on MY life.

Yeah, God. Money is tight right now, but thank you for my brand new bed and my new set of flannel sheets from Eddie Bauer. 

Yeah, God. Thank you for allowing me a good education, because I got a raise and that was the desire of my heart. 

UGH. Can you understand my frustration???? When there are mass shootings and terrorism and injustice happening all around me...and all I can think about is my small world...what was the point of all this church going and praying?!

These are some of the things that I’m dealing with right now and I’m not trying to offend anyone but I need to be real with you:

·        I'm ashamed to claim the name of Christ and say that I'm a Christian because I'm afraid that people will see me as selfish and small-minded and judgmental.

·        I'm afraid people will see me as "fake" and "nicey-nice". 

·        I'm afraid that if I mess up that people will say "see, that's the problem with Christians, they talk the talk but don't walk the walk". 

·        I'm afraid my liberal friends won't like me if I say I’m a Christian.

·        I'm afraid that if I'm friends with a gay person, my conservative friends won't like me. 

·        I'm afraid that if I have a beer with dinner or if I say shit, my Christian friends won't like me. 

What is my faith right now? What does it mean to be a Christian right now?

Segway.

It's Easter. Or, it was yesterday.

I posted a funny meme on my Instagram about Easter and I got some PB Reese's eggs from my boyfriend's mom (thanks, Brenda). 

But there is an element of Jesus in Easter that should help me put my faith back in order, right? I mean, Jesus is the reason for Easter??  I say it’s an element of Easter, because—let’s be honest—the Easter bunny has been stealing the show for years.

Ok. So Easter: Here we have a man (Jesus) that no matter how much he loved people, he was scrutinized.

Actually, let's really put this into perspective:

He was betrayed by one of his best friends.  Has this ever happened to you? That really sucks bad. Trusting someone and having that trust betrayed and thrown in your face. 

He was falsely accused.  Ever been blamed for something that wasn't your fault or that you didn't do? Was it by your own family? Or was it by a leader of your church?

He was abused and mocked by soldiers.  He was so tortured that he was unrecognizable. 

Jesus didn't die symbolically or metaphorically.  He actually died.  His heart stopped beating, he stopped breathing, and he suffered greatly.  He was blameless and loving and compassionate…and then he was murdered. 

Jesus. The man who was the human embodiment of real love. The 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love. The kind of love on the Dollar General artwork I have in my bathroom. 

The representation of the kind of love that could save the world. 

But Jesus wasn’t just known for how close he was with God, the Father.  Right?  We don’t remember him all these years later because he kept to himself. We remember him because he changed the world. He changed the way people loved because he himself defined what love is.  It’s merciful, it’s gracious, it’s patient, it’s compassionate, it’s kind, it’s giving…

So, I guess Easter took on a different meaning this year as I was in bed last night taking that photo and posting it to my Instagram. It reminded me why I choose to follow Christ.

Actually, no.  It didn't remind me.  It taught me something entirely new. 

I initially chose to follow Christ because it made the life that I was living easier.  It gave me hope and comfort amidst dealing with the aftermath of an imperfect life. And this is good, but this wasn't enough to keep my faith alive.  It wasn’t enough to keep me satisfied.  I couldn’t turn a blind eye to the world anymore.  

As my eyes are widened to the world outside myself, I come to a point of sink or swim. Where does my "feel-good" faith come into play now? It's still present. And I still desire to be close to God. But, for a different reason. Not to help me cope with divorce and abuse.  Not to help me see my worth after dealing with body image issues…it’s more than that now.

I want to reflect the love that I received from Christ to this broken world. It’s not about me and it has never been about me.

I grew up hearing that we shouldn't put God in a box. Bevere stated, "It’s easy to put limits on God, allowing Him to intervene in the simple moments of calming our nerves or giving us the endurance to make it through a long day. But how often do we forget He’s more than capable when the cancer spreads, a marriage is on the rocks, or mother nature plays her course and devastates an entire community?"

I agree. We shouldn't limit God.

But we all shouldn't limit our own faith, either.

If you're experiencing God and he's filling you up and his mercies are new for you every morning and you are delighting in him and he is giving you the desires of your heart...then you are being called to action. 

Faith isn't about easy living and feeling good all of the time. It isn't about taking all that God has to offer and building a great life and attributing it all to how blessed you are. We aren’t being rewarded for how good we feel. God isn’t up in Heaven keeping score.  He isn’t blessing someone with a bigger house or a better life because he loves them more than the woman who was brutally raped because of the wars in this world.  

God loves us all the same. And that is confusing and hard to understand.  We can’t earn his favor.  And he couldn’t possibly love us any more or any less than he already does… no matter what we do or say. That’s why Jesus died. So that we could stop feeling like we have to earn it and start receiving it freely. For what reason?

We get closer to God through prayer and worship so that we can reflect that to the rest of the world.  We receive the gift of God so that we can start making an impact with the love that changed the world 2000 years ago and has the potential to change the world today.  We just need to step out in faith and not keep this feeling to ourselves so that this world doesn’t have to keep experiencing the kind of pain and suffering that those Kosovar women are enduring.

2000 and some years later we celebrate this holiday that is about the death and resurrection of a man.  ONE MAN. Why???  Because he was so close to the heart of God and used that to send a ripple through the world of what love really is.  He didn't keep it for himself. In fact, he died brutally so that we could all experience the love and then be the light in a world that is riddled with pain and suffering.

Our faith doesn’t stop at the blessings poured out on us. Our faith doesn’t stop at the euphoria we feel from God being present and near in our lives.  If I choose to be a Christian, I am choosing to follow Jesus’ example of growing close to the heart of God and then allowing that level of intimacy to reflect on my own character.

I might experience trial for claiming the name of Christ.  I might be called out of my comfort zone or my God box. I might not always do it right.  But my God endured death so that I could love freely.  To Hell with me if I can’t face a little bit of backlash for showing people love that I did nothing to deserve in the first place. 

I will continue to be a Christian.  I will continue my walk.  I will probably still say shit, on occasion.