This Believer’s Life isn’t the cleanest, the surest, or the neatest. The decorating schemes for homes my Christian walk best matches Is the description of “lived in” look.

    See, that’s just it. My walk with God is where I live. I don’t have it divided into neat compartments, labeled boxes or a place for everything. What I do have is spill overs, boxes laying around waiting to be filled up or unpacked completely and if I had a place for everything most likely I couldn’t reach it from my wheelchair. Its messy folks.

    Daily my wickedness as a member of the human race shows. I know there is nothing I could not be motivated to do, good or evil, if presented with the right motivator in place. That doesn’t make me proud. Frankly, that makes me sick. But I won’t lie to God, myself or you and state anything different.

    Sometimes my walk with God resembles a crime scene investigation complete with a chalk outline of a body. I mess up. I get angry. I thirst for revenge. I act as if because I’ve convinced myself that I’ve learned to let the pain of yesterday go that makes it so. That’s not true either.

    Sometimes it looks like a playroom with all the attractions and distractions a parent can have there to keep their child entertained and quiet. And I sit there, a grown adult woman, playing with toys while the work of every Christian goes undone.

    Sometimes the pain associated with life really gets to me. It robs me of energy, appropriate or “nice” responses to everyday questions or requests from people in my life.

    I’m not one of those people who can always take the high road. I don’t always have the energy to put my best foot forward all the time. Heck, some days I don’t have the energy to put my shoes on! My prayers are not always answered in the way I want God to answer them. I get frustrated with God and myself. I get mad at Him and myself too.

    My world is filled with sharp and hard edges. It has uneven surfaces and unseen booby traps. It has physical and emotional pain from a physical disability. It is a messy, hodge-podge life at its best.

    Yes, at its best. For it is in the lives of complexingly simple women and men like me that God works. Maybe my dream of being a published Christian novelist will never come to be. My art work will never win a prize. My daughter will not have every electronic gadget or piece of clothing she wants. My husband will rarely find a healthy, hot supper waiting on the table when he pulls into the driveway from work. Already forced to give up the old dreams of a successful non-profit administrative staff career, photographer, traveler, skydiving, missionary woman have evaporated from my life despite my best efforts to hold onto them. Now none of my new dreams may come true either.

    Yes, I am a Believer in the One True and Living God. I believe He is Father, Son and Holy Ghost in one and three. I believe He hears and answers direct prayers. I have felt His arms and I have heard His heartbeat. There are not many avenues to Heaven, only one individualized journey for me, and every one of you, that starts and ends through Jesus. No other god can get you entrance. No good work you do. No matter how many high roads you take. No matter how many righteous appearing decisions you make. None of that will get you into Heaven. Only a real, personal, intimate relationship with Jesus gets you into Heaven.

    So, my life is messy. This spills into that, the pinto beans get mixed in with the Navy beans sometimes, I “rob Peter to pay Paul” and some days I let evil win a battle when he uses a barely or still unhealed wound as a point to twist the knife in a little more. Just when I think the past is behind me and can’t hurt me anymore, wham, I’m doubled over from pain and forgiveness I have to endure and do all over again.

    Does this make me weak? Okay.

    Does this make me in effective? Sadly, maybe so.

    Does this steal my faith from me? No.

    Is this how my life will always be? Probably. I believe I am going to feel the twists and pulls of life until I reach Heaven.

    Is this a true portrait of the faith of a woman? Well, it’s mine.

    Will f.v.b.f. continue after the end of June? Haven’t decided yet.

This beginning of this title is the purpose of this blog. I’ll be the first to admit lately, poetry seems to be the reason I have for writing here. I do enjoy writing poetry, trying to relay deeper messages through verse rather than “editorial” or “educational” pieces is a challenge. But I also discovered the poetry brings my site more traffic.

In thinking back to why I thought expressing the challenges and special joys of being female and a Christian in these earlier years of this century I made a discovery. I was anxious to peek into male/female gender battles that continue in churches today. The root of the beliefs and traditions. (Have you read my Letters to Paul series? Check the archives.) I know the stories are out there. Seems I’m not reaching that audience though.

I’ve always been determined to be honest with the readers. The annual anniversary of f.v.b.f. (faith view by Faye) arrives next month and I have to decide whether or not to continue blogging here.

Maybe this piece will help me with that decision.

–Donna