Footings and forms to come

A good Christian that has faith is living their life under God. Everything you do should be under God because He is sovereign. He knows what is best for you and He has a plan for you even if there are bumps in the way. You can accomplish anything through Christ; you cannot do anything alone, you need him in your life.

As we march, pardon the pun, through spring festoons and balloons and banners celebrating Prom and Graduation appear everywhere. And Confirmation, the finish of a set-year program of instruction in the basics of the Christian faith. Yesterday at Bethany Lutheran Church where I'm a member, we honored eleven ninth-graders (fourteen, fifteen year-olds) and received these excerpts from their faith statements I'll be reprinting over this week, something my readers might find edifying as well as evaluate where their faith is. Where mine is. Pastor Janet told us yesterday one goal of sharing these -- without telling you who said what, of course -- is to encourage us to make our own statements of faith if we have not already done so. (Sarah will have to write hers at the end of her Confirmation in six years and Jeffrey in seven.)

My faith means waking up every day knowing you're not alone. Waking up every day knowing you are going to make mistakes but God will help you through. Waking up knowing God is watching over all my loved ones up in heaven. Waking up knowing that God is performing miracles for someone every day around the world. Knowing your friends, girlfriends, boyfriends might leave, but God never will.

As for me? I'd say at forty-three years old my own faith statements differs from some of these in style especially but ... ok, maybe a little bit of substance. One thing you learn before graduating high school (if you don't before then) is that your faith is unique to you. We may have a lot of the same building blocks, but how we use them depends on ourselves, our own choices (as opposed to our own decisions -- if we're honest we will admit we do not weigh the options and select the most beneficial or least hurtful course of action, otherwise psychiatrists and psychologists would be out of jobs), and our willingness to accept consequences. This whole weekend was an adventure, and to be quite honest a bit of a blur! Outside of church Sunday morning I remember the kids being off school Friday for a teacher in-service so their aunt Margaret was watching them as my in-laws were out of town for a DAV convention.

Jesus has transformed the lives of many, including me. To some people, he is a story, just a legend. But to me, he is a King, a Savior. One thing he has taught me is that you don't have to waste time sweating over the small stuff. No matter how big the problem or the situation may seem, when you place it in God's hands, it's all small stuff.

Saturday I got to Breakfast With the Boys at Bethany before working at Marketplace for the day and I came home and found Martha and the kids had really cleaned the main floor! Our dining room table we can now eat off of for it doesn't have piles of stuff on it, the dishes are done, the RAH reading was read (and I got to return the favor last night, after we'd bought a new reclining couch because our longer, leather one was ripped up and couldn't be salvaged. And this was serendipitous; Martha went to our local Boys and Girls Ranch thrift store after church and saw the one that would fit perfectly in our house and we were about to load it into the van to get home when we saw our family friend Donovan who has a flatbed pickup and when we asked him had some time to get it up to the house for us to help him unload it! I commented that he's our Macedonian call -- a reference to a vision Paul received in the New Testament book of Acts that turned him around to where God wanted him to go!

My faith means I am accepted. I am a Child of God. It means I have a purpose and a reason to exist. Whenever I am having troubles, I just remember we are all God's children. The way we live shows our faith. We should live in our faith and always try to follow God's word. If we make mistakes, we will be forgiven if we ask for it.

Or perhaps we are his, David