Written Weeks Ago ...

I don't actually remember when this was written - but it should have been posted BEFORE 'A Question' ... 

My answer might have made more sense then.

'So I'm a bitter woman.  I sit on a beach in the South of Spain.  It's late November and I sit here in a t-shirt and jeans - it's too hot for the jacket around my waist.  I sit here as the force of the Spanish sun marks my skin and think of all that I don't have.  A family far away, friends equally removed, an aching bank account and a lonely heart.  What I wouldn't do for my mother's hug right now.  

And yet, I am not enjoying the life I have been granted.  I'm pretty damn lucky.  I can't do everything I want right now - but who can?  Instead of taking a chance - going to a church service, talking to new people, studying my verbs a little more - I sleep.  The sleep of depression.  8 or 10 hours a day - because at night I am restless.  I want more to DO - I even miss classes.  Some days I feel as though I have no purpose.  I am simply here, living, breathing.  I am afraid.  I am afraid that I will never be the person that I want to be.  That I will accomplish nothing worthwhile.  And I am afraid to live the life I have always dreamed of.  I have always wanted to have a family - a husband and children. But now I begin to wonder.  In a world so full of danger and pain and greed - do I really want to bring a child into this?  Do I really want to take the risk, the chance, the opportunity?  When you bring a child into the world, you control nothing.  It's all chance.  Or, the will of God.  

And here we have yet another question.  Faith, of the most potent kind.  It has been a long time since I have gone to church - and even longer since I have truly believed what was taught to me in my confirmation classes.  I have visited churches of all kinds - rich and poor, large and small, Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, etc, etc.  I have met people who almost seem to be angels come to Earth - and people who do far more harm than good in the name of Christianity.  I have watched people struggle, and fight, and hurt one another within the church "family".  And after knowing all that I know, and seeing all that I have seen, it ultimately comes down to a choice.  Do I choose to believe in a God who allows suffering, pain, and death?  Do I believe in him whom the world scorns?  Do I choose to follow a religion that means I give up my life as I have been living it in search of that higher fulfillment?  Do I simply accept the bad with the good in a church body, just as with the people I love?  And what about the people I love and care about who do not follow the same religion as I do?  Do I allow them the right to choose or, as so many religions insist, must I constantly be a preacher of my beliefs?  These days, the lines appear fine and infinite - and the questions go on forever.  And as of right now, I have no answers.  No suggestions.  No firm opinions.  I either continue along this path - or give it up as a lost cause.

Which would you do?'