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Tell us about the role that faith plays in your life — or doesn’t.

Faith is a small word that carries huge weight. For some of us, there may be little if any faith. For others, including myself, faith is something we can not live without. I was brought up in a church setting. I went to church and Sunday school each week. I was part of the junior choir, being the director, and then a part of the adult choir.

I used to have a pretty good voice until I picked up the nasty habit of smoking. It lowered my voice and I have not been able to quit as of yet, but could kick myself in the rear with my own dirty boot for starting.

I fell a way from the church on a surface level. Friends I had did not go to church, and I was not going to ruin that crappy friendship by showing my true colors. Talk about being a hypocrite. Not only was I lying to myself, I was being dishonest with God and the so-called friends I had as a teen.

I slid by my skin through several years. Rebelling God, and life. Wanting and needing something, but what I really needed was staring me in the face, but I broke every mirror so I would not have to see it.

After marrying, I became a military wife in a new country. Church was practiced once a month with a different denomination each time. Whatever I had done prior to this new life, had been laid by the way side. After all, how could I fit God in my life, or even have faith when I had everything I could possibly want in a new marriage. Right? Wrong.

I hate to admit it to myself, but it is even worse to admit it to all of you, but I thought I knew it all. Not so much about worldly things, but enough to carry myself through life. I could cook, clean house, and wipe runny noses and change diapers. What else was there?

Time ticked, hours flew, and I was still skating on thin ice. Then one day I got a rude awakening. Life was also moving quickly along with mine. My mother passed away. Talk about a mind-blowing wake-up call.

Although my faith and God were never under the Hypo-dermis of skin, I didn’t work very hard to keep it on the Epidermis either. When mom passed away, I quickly came back. I rededicated my life. I promised to listen to God more. I made all kinds of promises.

Guess what? I fell on my butt. The ice was not very thick on the pond and down I went. I became cocky and bitter. Losing my mom brought a roughness around my heart. I became thick-skinned. Now that I look back I was protecting myself. I hurt bad, my heart had a void. No one was going to hurt me like that again.

Luckily for me, because we all know that we are the ones who turn our back on God. He doesn’t sway from us. I never got in any trouble with the law. I never took up drinking or drugs. I just walked around empty, letting love, faith and hope fall from my pockets. I would see them falling and then turn around and stomp on them making sure they were buried deep beneath the dirt.

God is amazing though. I stomped and he revived. He was always my shadow. He followed me everywhere I went. The only thing I needed to do was to acknowledge him. Is that all there is to it? Just let God know we are here? Can carrying faith in him be that darn easy? What do I have to give up in order to have this word called faith? Nothing. I could have had an easier path in life. I was the one who chose the bumpy path.

When my dad got ill, and I watched him slip from me for that year, I got on my knees and begged God to keep my daddy here. I prayed heavily, don’t take him, heal him. I cried, I threw temper tantrums. What I didn’t know was that without me realizing it, I was turning back to God. Sure I was calling out from pain for my daddy’s sake, but God lifted me up and kept me safe as I walked the valley of death path with my father.

He died, and I let God lift me higher on his lap. I laid my head on his shoulder and I wept. I could feel him patting me on my back and I could feel his arms holding me tightly, comforting me.

I have never let go since. It has been six years. I have lost both of my parents, and lost all familiarity of the life I had always known. Grandparents, uncles and aunts passed on. I was left standing here. I was in the tiny circle looking out in all directions. The only familiar face I ever truly saw was God.

I love God. He is my best friend, my joy, my comforter. He guides me each moment of the day and he forgives me for all of my mistakes. I was standing down in the valley for so long. I would be as a skate boarder. Up and down gliding back and forth. Coming so close to the edge of living, and then back down I would go. I saw God stretching his hand to me. I grabbed on and I have never let go Faith, God, life and love, and hope are what I will be carrying until I go home to heaven.

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