A Hard Road with distant destination

It is funny the things that run through your mind at 4am when you can't sleep because your creative juices are flowing so strongly that no matter how tired you are, sleep is impossible.  You ponder things that usually never make it out of the back of your mind.  You wonder things that you never even realized you thought about.

So I sit here working on my latest book, listening to classic country Gospel on Pandora Radio and I come to a "stunning" conclusion.  I am not a man of great faith.  I know and have known people who believed in God (In all His Myriad Name't pres) with a strength and passion that would truly stun most people.   My Mother and my Brother in all but blood Benjamin are only two of these amazing people.  They walk through life with an absolute and unwavering faith in God.

Of course, on the flip side of that I have known people who pay lip service to their particular "faith" and put very little meaning into it.  You know the type.  Attend services on Sunday (Or Saturday), sing a few hymns and say a prayer or two then rush home to watch the game.   About the only time they pray with any real feeling is when they buy a lottery ticket or get pulled over for speeding.

Now, I probably fall somewhere in the middle of all that.  I only recently rediscovered my faith and it is still a little shaky at time.  You should have heard the nasty things I had to say about God when I realized that I had contracted diabetes.  Trust me, it wasn't pretty.

I believe that there is a God who is gentle and kind who watches over us every day of our lives...most days.  I truly believe that there is a wonderful place of peace and love waiting for those who live the way God wants us to life...usually.   Other days, when times are hard or I am afraid, I doubt.  I wonder if the teachings of a simple Carpenter over two thousand years ago is truly the way life should be lived.  I see people in positions of power using Faith as a weapon of hate and anger and it shakes me to my core.

It would be very easy to believe that there are no rules to life and no "right" way to live.  It would be so easy to let doubts cloud my path and my heart and simply live like so many others do.  My Daddy told me a long time ago, "Bobby, if doing the right thing was easy, everybody would do it" and I guess that covers faith.  It is not easy and will never be easy, but it is the path that I walk.  If I stumble on that path a few times, then I just have to have Faith that He will help me up again.

My Mother helped put me on the right path although God knows I have lost it more than a few times over the decades.  People like Benjamin help me every day to stay on it with their devotion and steadfast support.  So I guess, in the end it is okay that my Faith is not great.  It is getting me to where I need to go.