I don’t adhere to womanly stereotypes very well. It took me until the last 15 minutes of the day to realize that it is March 30th – the day I met Joshua and the day I (thought I) truly found God.

I won’t lie – meeting Joshua seems, in some ways, more important to me. He’s my husband, my best friend, the father of my child and tangible. Very, very tangible. I can hold him, see him, love him and I know he’s real. He exists. He’s my world and my heart and my soulmate. I look across a room and my entire body tingles because I’ve found him. The hair on the back of my neck raises up whenever he’s close to me – whether I know it or not. Meeting Joshua has been amazing in so many incredible, unbelievable ways and I genuinely believe that the day we met, 5 years ago, is the day we really got together (even if we did have “partners” at the time). We were destined for each other: permanently or not, we were meant to be in each others’ lives in some way.

So for that I say, Happy Anniversary Joshua. I love you, I need you, I want you. I am better for knowing you. <3

But...that's amazingly not the point of this entry. I have had a very hard time with "my" faith lately. My belief in God has wavered to the point that I am somewhere between agnostic and pagan but still floating around Christian because my heart won't let me do anything else. I believe in karma and science and I can't get a grasp on organized religion, even if I call myself Baptist. It just doesn't work for me right now.

I feel like God is trying to woo me back. You see, 5 years ago, I had just read Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series, mostly because I thought they were interesting and well written enjoyable. I had never heard of salvation like this before….opening my heart to God? Asking forgiveness and I would receive it? What? I was raised Catholic and while I think this might have been touched on, Heaven seemed like an unattainable destination. With that kind of upbringing, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to believe in God or if I could, but Atheism just wasn’t working for me. Even now, when I look at the stars in the sky, I see more than just us. More than our tiny little galaxy or universe. More than one sentient race, looking up into space. There just has to be more…but then that means something had to create us…didn’t it?

That’s not something I want to debate right now, not even in my own mind. Like I said, I’m really not sure what I believe right now. However, when I read the Left Behind series, something spoke to me. Not the books, but the Scripture in them. I hopped online to do research and one fateful night, a night that changed my life for better or for worse (pun intended), I met Joshua in a Yahoo chat room. He explained what was meant by John 3:16. He jumped from verse to verse and loaded me with articles and websites that I absorbed like a sponge. I felt, right then, that God had led me to that point and that I needed to face it head on.

That night, before I went to bed, I got down on my knees (Catholic, remember?) and prayed to God. I prayed for him to be real. I prayed for forgiveness, for salvation, for love. I prayed for my life to be complete…and it was. Oh it was, for so long, but like everything in my life, I went so far in one direction that I think I burned out. Once the honeymoon of my salvation was over, the world started to look a little more grim…a little harsher. That’s hard to come to terms with when you’re supposed to be feeling elated over God’s love.

And yet, lately, I feel like something is happening. There is a girl on my Livejournal friends list that is getting married. We’ve known each other online for years and years…probably 6, now. Anyway, she has always seemed to me to be very secure in her love for God. She praises him and writes about how he is taking care of her in her life and I start to wonder…what if I trusted God? What if I put my life completely in his hands, control freak that I am, and let it go from there? Would I fall or would I stand strong? So what, if I look a little silly listening to bands singing his praise? So what, if I seem a little silly talking about him all the time? So what?

But it’s hard for me. For my pride and for my excessive need for control. It just seems that now, five years after I decided to accept him into my life, he’s telling me to trust him. To believe in him.

I just don’t want to be wrong, you know?