Diary of an Underachieving Churchgirl

Focused. For approximately 18 hours I remained focused on these two truths: I am nothing, and God is everything. And I walked in blissful freedom, a carefree, twirling child holding tightly to my Father’s hand as we strolled together. I’m not sure the exact moment I let go of His hand, but I did. Finding my way back to Him again now makes me realize that this is the life of faith. We walk with God, and we wander. We come running back to Him, and then forget He even exists. The sin I am trying to pinpoint here is a sort of “putting on” of myself for others, a turning on of the charm, in an effort to get that eye contact from them, to get that smile that says, “I like you,” or “You are o.k. in my book.”   The Spirit nudges me to recall just to what extent my mind’s primary preoccupation is constantly assessing what others are thinking of me, are feeling about me, if they like me, if they feel respect for me, or if they don’t like me at all and are only being polite. ...

I got the wind knocked out of me this week. I question whether I truly do believe in the God I say I believe in, or the Jesus I profess to know… because at any moment my husband might not have a job to support us. I hurt because I can’t reach my husband in his despair over his possible job loss. I hear him whisper in the dark night as he lies there sleepless, “I wish I was dead.” And I pretend to be asleep but all day long I carry around, heavy in my heart, this thought. He wishes he was dead. The burden is too much for him to bear alone. When I pray, I find myself speechless before an invisible King that just days ago I knew I knew and I knew He knew me. My trust is a single, fraying thread and I am so tired I think I might just let that thread snap, and spiral down into the pit of hopelessness that pulls on us like gravity. Because I can’t be strong now. The ground beneath my feet shifts and shakes. I am sinking. So again I tell God I’ve got another tangled ball ...

As a Christian American, my beliefs and perspective are shaped by the Word of God as experienced in the American Christian tradition in the latter third of the last century. My view of the world is also deeply influenced by the exceptional history of the beginnings of this nation not so very long ago. Our uniquely American nation, borne by necessity from a peoples’ faith firmly rooted in the God of the Bible—and a natural desire to practice that faith in freedom—was and is a great place to call home. I cherish it, and I cherish its remarkable history. I love the way the founders thought about God and wrote about His position and providence in regards to the fledgling States. It matters not to me that they were white men of privilege. The very idea that their ideas should be dismissed due to their skin color and station in life is a grossly un-American, modern-day notion that I reject wholeheartedly. The fact is, they were men of faith, some more so than others, and men who und...