What life is not . . .

I've begun to realize life is not a string of succeed/fail situations -- although most people perceive it as one. If you do what you set out to do, and what you set out to do is morally and legally just, then there's nothing wrong with doing it. I'm pretty sure everyone dies in the end of this story we're living out, but I imagine if you live your life according to your faith, values, and convictions, there's no wrong way to get to your happy ending -- which in my case, happens to be Heaven.

I had a really difficult experience recently, and am still not quite clear on how to handle it. I saw the ugly side of a woman I know and highly respect. It scares me, actually, to have this knowledge that these qualities exist in her.

I battle with the observed behaviors of the quote Christian masses frequently. I struggle with Christianity because of the behaviors I observe from people who claim to be wholehearted, Bible study attending Christian people. People who bury their noses in their Bibles and who absorb and blindly follow the preachings of a man no different from your or I?

What is the value of ordainment? Well, that depends on if you want the normal or the fancy certificate.

I prefer not to delve too deeply into the church circle. From what I have seen, the more involved Christians get in their churches, the more corrupt their behaviors seem to be (as general masses). It's as if these people think their contributions to the church organizations right all the nasty things they say or questionable behaviors they exhibit the other six days and 23 hours a week.

Rather, what I do prefer to do is spend my free time enriching the lives of people who need and deserve it. I build houses with Habitat for Humanity. I sweat, I've cried, and I've definitely bled over a house for a woman and her children right here in Ocala.

I don't need a preacher to tell me to do good and believe in God. I'm a genuinely good person, who was given an enormous heart (by God) and a conscience to go with it, and (thank God) I developed the skills to fix lives that have been devastated.

But beyond that, there's this. Apparently I grew up in an environment not acceptable to some people. With a father that was forced, and I mean had no other choice, to work away from his family to ensure his daughter received the medical treatment she needed and deserved, my brother, my sister, and I were forced into a childhood spent knowing our father over the summers, holidays, and letters and the telephone. It's not a childhood I wished I had; it's a childhood I needed to have in order for my sister to survive past infancy.

I'm eternally grateful for the decision my parents made; I don't regret a single moment of it and I'm damn sure they don't either. Thanks to the logic and resoluteness of my mom and dad, my brother and I have a sister and my parents were able to raise a beautiful girl. I'm thankful to God for not taking my dad from me much earlier than any of us deserved. And I'm ashamed of any person that would judge my family and our decisions without ever having been put in our situation for themselves.

With that being said, I would never, ever wish what our family went through on anyone -- even if they did criticize my family and our decisions. And this is yet one more reason I can't wrap my mind around the ugly side of the woman I know.