Journey on a Winding Road: You Gotta Have Faith.

And now that you all have George Michael going in your heads I'll just ramble for a minute. You're welcome.

I am an imperfect Christian. I'm not a preachy Christian. I learned long ago from my father that a quiet live faith leads to just as many witnessing and sharing opportunities as the largest pulpit. So I try to simply live my faith and honor God through my actions, sharing my faith when a door opens.

But what does this have to do with the journey? I learned that I have to use my faith. I don't think it matters what you believe in or what your faith base is. Believe in the teachings of Buddah, the Koran. Be an agnostic or an atheist. It doesn't matter really. But you have to have faith in something. Even if it's just yourself.

Without faith there is no point. In my reflections I think I can kind of see where my journey started. When I was first out of college, I abandoned my faith entirely. I was living a life that was not in line with my faith and I didn't want to give up my life. So I gave up my faith. It was just easier. But was it really?

I wasn't believing in anything. I was just being. I didn't have confidence in my career choice. I didn't have faith in my relationship surviving. I even went so far as to cut myself off from my family because that was just a reminder of what I had abandoned. It was not a happy life. It was a sad and dark life.

Then Beloved and Mo came along and suddenly I HAD to have faith. In me. In my ability to be a mom and a wife. I had to start to believe in my marriage. Slowly that grew. I started to believe that I could be a good friend, a reliable employee, a good daughter again. After three years of growing that faith in self I decided it was time to go back to my Christian faith.

Was it painful? Sure. It was very hard to go back into a church and ask for forgiveness and accept love again. But when I finally let my faith come back, I was relieved. Is my life perfect? No. Do I still have dark days? Sure. But when I pray, meditate and let the Still Small Voice speak, the dark days are bearable.

I guess my point is that depression feeds on hopelessness. When you don't believe that you can come out on the other side, the depression has won. When you can't bring yourself to believe that there are better things out there, it's another point for the big D. I chose God and Christianity for my faith. Others may chose other teachings and some may just chose to believe in themselves.

I think as long as you believe and have faith, you are on your way.