The Journey Begins!
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| My Grandfather – Grafton King (this is my favorite picture of us 🙂 |
Let me start by saying I am a sinner, plain and simple I have made a lot of mistakes, more than most. I was told once when I was a young girl that “those that have the most to be forgiven for, love God the most” I guess that could be said of me. My journey begins long ago, a child of two Christian parents, raised in a church going at two or three times a week. Our church life & community was a large part of our lives. I was raised in rural community and church was honestly the “social” outlet, the center of the community. I was always drawn to God, maybe my parents or maybe it was sitting at the table on long summer mornings, watching my grandmother read her morning scriptures, as she let me sip on a little coffee (with lots of sugar and cream). I remember a time when I told my grandfather pictured above that he and my grandmother MUST be the children of GOD! He chuckled, that’s just who they were. Children of GOD. I have been Pentecostal, and Baptist and Methodist and non-denominational, and I have been agnostic, and almost lost all my faith. I have searched high and low for what I believe is right. I have questioned all the teachings of my childhood.. Were they right? Or were they just what I knew? Just what I have been taught? What do I believe? Those are the questions that haunted me after entering a christian college and finding out that I was lost on the huge “stages” of mega churches. It was there that my favorite piano professor at Samford University caused me to try something different. Something that I found to be the place I belonged…
I found the Episcopal Church, and a place I could call home. http://adventbirmingham.org/ Oh It’s not perfect she has her flaws as well as any denomination, but it fit for me. It allowed me to accept the shades of grey in a world I had thought was only black and white. That liberty gave me back something I could believe in. ❤
I have found so much joy in the journey. I found my belief was: Love One Another. That’s my core belief, when I boil it all down, there is love; nothing more nothing less…just LOVE. With that all the other trivial things no longer matter. I am passionate about my church, my faith and convincing the people around me to just Love.
I recently have been studying Buddhism and the Tao of Inner Peace, so similar to the faith I already know and love –I hope this will be a place I can marry those two together. Prayer and meditation have both been good for my soul and there is a peace that comes with studying to be happy within yourself no matter what the circumstances are around you.
I hope you will come on this journey with me, be challenged, and be encouraged as one woman, a sinner, passionately shares her journey of faith, struggles, challenges and hope for a world of love and peace.
May The Lord Bless and keep you always – ❤
Episcopal Lotus Flower in Bloom 