Soul of a Woman

Someone asked me what prompted me to write a book on faith and when did my outlook on faith shift?

It began when I realized that indoctrination (the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically) was no longer working in my life.
I had equated church attendance with a relationship with God, and I was wrong.
The indoctrination failed miserably, and I had to reassess my faith.

It took courage.
It took discipline.
It took determination.

I knew there was something there that was salvageable. I just needed to figure out what that was.

Encountering and confronting the why of your faith is complex.
And while you are on this journey, you may lose many friends along the way.
I have learned that folks often take the easy way out, and I knew that was not an option for me

because I simply loved God.

So I began to write.
In my reading and writing, I found the answer.
I recognized I was in a very personal spiritual reformation.

That little girl that followed all the rules and to-do lists was no longer finding purpose in what she thought was the way to God but instead discovering a new understanding of who God is.

My goal in the brief story of my faith is to help someone who may be struggling with their spiritual identity, even questioning God’s mere existence.

I have done my job if you read this book and understand that HE is sitting alongside you and is all around you.

Choosing a life of faith is indeed the road less traveled, for, in it, you will encounter the roadblocks that will require you to give up something that is

“self.”

I have learned that we fail at our faith when we manipulate the outcome to be

convenient, painless, only to make us “feel” and “look” good.

Faith comes at the cost of selflessness, with the great reward of hopefulness.

That’s where I chose to live…hope-filled and hopeful.

This is my why.

Do you know your why; why you believe what you believe?

I challenge you to begin the reformation.

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.” Galatians 2:21 MSG