The struggle that we choose to embrace is always an important one. It is embracing the struggle that is the most difficult part of the process.  We crucify ourselves when we choose not to do so. 

The grace of God often comes to me as I am able to see the problems I have NOT had. Through this, I can see the luxuries that are mine, even in the midst of the storms.

What I believe about God's promises is that we have been taught a shallow version of the promises and a shallow version of God. We have been taught--as heretical as this may sound--to depend too much on the external and not enough on the god or God (however a survivor needs to write that, at a particular point in the journey). As opposed to finding the god or God within us that has been there since the day we were born. This is much deeper than the God we found at some point of conversion or transformation. The institutional church has made the same mistake, so that "just leave it in the hands of the Lord" becomes the watchword as we expect God to come down and zap things into being okay.

More and more of you, dear readers, seem to be choosing to embrace the journey of struggle in order to rise above the story. A place where we find new meaning for divine promises and test the promises that may not be God's, actually, but got attributed to God by people who were themselves struggling to either write or translate. We are all writers and translators, as I see it, of what we have experienced within ourselves, what we continue to test because of a mature faith that does not need all of the answers that fundamentalism teaches us we HAVE to have.

One of the beauties of social activism, a beauty that I see as both spiritual and social, is that over time people find the means and the anger required to speak out about injustice. When our voices are loud enough and persistent, which I hope is shown in How Little We Knew, though I really had so much to learn when I wrote that (and still do)....when our voices are loud enough and persistent enough, we no longer have to see the institutional church or anyone else taking any action in order for us to be whole and more alive than we've ever been. This is the "take up thy bed and walk" part that doesn't need the church to find restoration and resurrection for us to move to higher ground. We learn to find it without the institutional church, in most instances. Or in spite of it. In outer space. Ironically, when we find the resurrection in outer space (in other words, with new eyes that act creatively because we are uniquely made in the image of God), ONLY then do we find resurrection in the inner spaces!