A few Sunday's ago, Pastor Michelle played a song at church that absolutely captivated me, and moved me to tears. It's the cry of my heart, the perfect description of how I feel each and every day.

It's so easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of life, to fight and fight and fight, only to feel like you've lost the battle before you even began. It's amazing how much your perspective can change when you really learn that you cannot survive without total dependancy on God. Without Him strengthening me each day, I would not be okay right now, I would not be able to wake up each morning with a smile on my face and joy on my heart, and I certainly wouldn't be able to put more than my all into my job and relationships.

I'm sure I scared some of you with my last entry, and I apologize. While it was quite true, it wasn't quite as devastating as it probably sounded without the accompanying explanation. Have you ever had those moments where you are just so weak, so destroyed, that you simply cannot muster any strength to move forward? That was the point I was at last weekend. I felt as if I could not do anything beyond curl into a ball and cry.

God, thankfully, is so merciful that He grants me strength when I am weak. No matter how far down I've fallen, His strength revitalizes me when I am faithful. I don't think I'd ever experienced pushing forward to totally pursue His will when I had no strength left even to get up that day. It was the most amazing feeling, and I am even happier that God chose to bless me with amazing conversations later that night with friends to carry me through. There's something to be said about a relationship where two friends can always be completely honest with one another, even if they know the truth is going to sting a little bit. I am so much more grateful to friends who point out the bitter truth, rather than friends who try to make me feel better with sugar-coated words.



Savior, please take my hand
I work so hard, I live so fast
This life begins, and then it ends
And I do the best that I can, but I don't know how long I'll last


I try to be so tough
But I'm just not strong enough
I can't do this alone, God I need You to hold on to me
I try to be good enough
But I'm nothing without Your love
Savior, please keep saving me

Savior, please help me stand
I fall so hard, I fade so fast
Will You begin right where I end
And be the God of all I am because You're all I have

Hallelujah
Everything You are to me
Is everything I'll ever need
And I am learning to believe
That I don't have to prove a thing
'Cause You're the one who's saving me
 - Saviour Please, Josh Wilson

In a world of over 6 Billion people, a good chunk of which proclaim to be Christian, I have often felt very alone in my beliefs on Christianity and faith. Which in itself is rather surprising, because even if only 0.1% of the world's population claims to be Christian, that's still over 60 million people. 

That's not to say I've always felt that way. There was a time, closer to the beginning of my faith, where I believed that what the Church said was law, that there could be no wrong in the church because it was the temple of God. It was the holiest of holies, the place to carry out God's will. I'm sure there was a time in the history of the church where this was accurate, or at least, close to accurate. 

Since becoming a Christian when I was eleven years old, I have only once questionned God's existance. The same cannot be said about my faith in the Christian 'religion'. Anyone who has known me a long time has seen me struggle with my faith and my Christianity most of the time I have been a Christian, and has probably witnessed me reach a point where I was ready to walk away from it at least a couple of times.

In trying to figure out why I find it so hard to walk in my faith, I've had many people give me lists upon lists of reasons why I must be stumbling. My faith isn't really that strong, I'm still too much of a sinner, I haven't really made the change in my heart, and on and on and on. It wasn't until a couple of years ago, near the end of my first year of college, that I discovered the real reason why I struggle so much. Having been raised that the church is the centre building point for the body of Christ, I was finding that the church was not the perfect place I was led to believe it was. And because of being taught that it was the centre, I have discovered that I find it difficult to associate myself with a place I have become so disillusioned by. 

And this is where I felt I was quite alone. I found myself looking at the church, and looking at God's word, and wondering how they could be the same thing. Not that everything about the church is bad -- a lot of good does come from the church. I found however, that a lot of that good has become reserved solely for believers, and for people who fit the ideals of what the church deems is 'truly a Christian'. 

Over the holidays my brother lent me a book that, much to my delight, touches on everything I have been struggling with when it comes to Christianity and today's church. The book, entitled 'Dear Church: Letters from a disillusioned generation', examines the phenomon studies are showing, that this generation of twentysomethings is the biggest one to turn and walk away from the church. 

The biggest reason for this disillusionment? We're a generation of truth seekers. Many of us are looking at who Christ was, and who the church is telling us to be, and going 'Huh? Somethings not right here.' While Jesus loved and befriended everyone, no matter what their sexual orientation, life profession, history, sins or bad habits were, the church excludes everyone who isn't like them. They use the bible to back up their reasoning, ignoring the continuation of what is said. My biggest argument to prove that has always been, and probably will continue to be the great 'homosexual' debate. The church will argue that homosexuality is wrong, it is a sin, and that originally homosexuals were to be killed because of their sin. They will argue that homosexuals have no place in our church, or even in our social groups. But what they like to conveniently 'forget' is that those were the laws of the old testament. And while what happened in the Old testament is equally as important as what happened in the New Testament, a lot of things were changed because of the coming of Christ. Homosexuals and other sinners were judged and killed because sins that terrible were impossible to redeem yourself from. There was no forgiveness that could be achieved by such a terrible sin. BUT, all that changed when Christ came along. Christ taught us that all sins are equal, and that because of his sacrifice, all sins can be forgiven. And because all sins are equal, and ALL of us are sinners, until we are perfect (which is impossible, since we are human, and thus born sinners), we have no right to judge. Instead, He taught us to love everyone, to treat them with respect, and to teach them who He was by how we treat them. 

I don't blame the world for turning their backs on Christians and labelling us hypocrytes and closed-minded. I know I've been on both sides of the spectrum. I've been one of the hypocritcal Christians who preach God's word, try to convert everyone, and believed that because I was a Christian, I was somehow better than everyone else. I'll tell you, I will forever be grateful for the people who snapped me out of that. Believing in something doesn't make anyone any better than everyone else in the world. It simply makes you a believer in something that drives you. I look at myself and I see a terrible sinner. I see someone whose stubborn ways continue to cause me to stumble, and fall. I have a terrible temper, a big mouth, and I get caught up in distractions far too easily for my own good. But despite that all, I know Jesus still loves me and welcomes me with open arms. And if He does that for me, someone who certainly isn't anywhere near landing the 'Christian of the Year Award', that should be teaching something. Christ's love is not restrictive of who you are, how good or bad you are, or what your interests and lifestyle are. Christ's love is unending. It has no boundaries, and it doesn't change just because you screw up or fall flat on your face. If the Church is supposed to be Christ's body on earth, then isn't this what we should be doing? 

When I've brought up this point in the past, I've had many Christians try to counter me by saying 'well, I don't think God wanted us to go around and just have a laisez-faire attitude about everything everyone does'. But that's when the point is missed. Loving someone without boundaries doesn't mean you agree with what they do, or decisions they make. It simply means you love them. 

The book, Dear Church, brings with it for me, a deep sense of relief, and a rather large amount of excitement. Because it means that it's not just me who sees this, and its not just a select few of us fighting to make a difference without any hopes of achieving our goals. Seeing this book showed me that there are more of us than we thought, and that maybe, just maybe, we might one day be able to show the world what the word Christian really means.