my spiritual journey...

i had mentioned a while back that i wanted to share a bit about my spirituality. so this will be a start and i'll try not to get too deep. i am a christian, though not likely a traditional christian. my parents and daughters are active participants in the lutheran church (LCMS). mr. h and i are not. mr. h and i are also not really on the same page in our beliefs, but then again sometimes we are. church, i've found, is not quite for me. or at least i haven't found the right church for me. that being said, i still very much have a relationship with God. i pray daily, most often, several times a day. still, i have many questions and often doubts. as a whole though, i try to follow the path that resonates within me.

my journey started when i was a young teenager. then it sort of hit the back burner for a decade or so. as an adult i picked up where i left off trying to learn and grow in my faith. when i had the opportunity to stare death in the face three years ago-i really started to search deeper. a lot of my searching was driven by what felt right and made sense to me. there are some who disagree with that direction and will tell me that it's not at all about how i feel or what i think. that it is only about God's way and more or less my feelings don't matter. but i haven't been able to just accept this as the complete and whole truth. so i continue on. in my studies i have found some of the answers that i've been searching for. here i will admit that not all of the information i've found has come from the Bible. in fact the Bible is a whole topic unto itself that i won't address here and now.

spiritually i feel very open and accepting of all faiths. the one thing that does bother me, or really i should say-kind of "hurts" me from christians is that as monotheistic believers some refuse to believe that our one God with whom *anything* is possible could choose different routes to reach people. this is God we're talking about...how could that not be possible? especially when i consider that we are all God's children, divine sparks of a great entity that i can not even begin to fathom. that is the one thing that will really end a conversation on my part with anyone pretty quickly. you see, if they can't believe that with God all things are possible, then my little words aren't going to reach them at all. so when it comes to that i see intolerance. intolerance is one thing that i am absolutely intolerant of myself-which is yet another whole topic alone.

i certainly don't know it all, never will and probably won't even know a significant amount of the greatness of our Lord. but i am a big believer in "coexisting", it goes way beyond a slogan on a t-shirt. i have to go with what feels right in my heart, my mind and my spirit and also what makes sense out of the little bit i can actually grasp. i think of "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world", we ARE ALL those children of the world. and i definitely feel that goes beyond whatever religion we claim.

to summarize how i feel and so far what i have found to be the correct path, i again turn to Jesus who stated "A new commandment I give unto you; that you love God with all your heart and soul and mind, and you love your neighbor as yourself". this is how i try to live every day. as words it seems so simple but as actions, i do mess it up often. it disappoints me, but all i can do is recognize my mistake, attempt to correct it, ask for forgiveness and try again.