Where Art Thou Faith?

“Faith isn’t believing without proof, it’s trusting without reservation.” William Sloane Coffin

Faith what a small word for such a huge obstacle. We all have faith every day. We have faith that we will wake up tomorrow, the car will start for work, our job will be safe once there, and our house will still be standing upon arrival at the end of the day. These are things I have never had much doubt about.
My struggles with faith have been due to a mix of emotions over life’s trials as well as going through a slew of religious change. As a young woman I was baptized as a Pentecostal. I was told to pray that I would go to heaven and the way to righteousness was to dress in skirts clear to the floor, wear my long hair up always, and never wear makeup or jewelry. I had a hard time believing that this lack of beauty would be my path and as I got older my mother had decided so too.
Onto our next journey my mother decided that becoming a Jehovah Witness would be the answer. I had to learn to give weekly “talks” about our literature and my new goal was to grow up and go to Bethel, NY to work at the headquarters and become a pioneer for the assembly of members. I was to not salute our national flag, I was to not attend social functions such as dances and holidays were no longer practiced, even our own birthday. If I was lucky I would become one of the 144,000 anointed people who would get to go to heaven when Armageddon occurred on earth and the 7 seals were opened. Thankfully by the time I turned 14 I wavered on my own and become pregnant, I obviously was done with the congregation.
As an adult I decided to give religion another shot and become a Baptist. This church was actually quite nice. I loved the pastor and I liked the preaching right from the bible. Unfortunately I found the members were quite set in their ways and I felt as if snobbish personalities cast a shadow over the Sunday services.
My next adult adventure came in the way of The Church of Jesus Christ I decided to become a Mormon. I enjoyed the way the beliefs circled around family and that family was the most important thing you could have, I quickly learned though that they taught of false prophets and that they were very comparable to some very radical religious sects.
After feeling as if there was no god or at least a loving god I decided to read the Satanic Bible. Anton LeVey told of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I liked the idea of that and decided I would simply paint god as an uncaring person who allowed bad things to happen to good people. This would be my motto for a few years.
It was not until my life was virtually saved from disease that I decided god could not be a man without love, and I decided to see my own answers.
I came to the conclusion about a year ago that one has to have faith to maintain a good life. I decided on my own accord that if I die tomorrow and was a non-believer I may suffer in the depths of hell and not go onto whatever realm or heaven that may exist, but if I do believe I may have a chance to be one of the lucky ones that goes onto a paradise. But let’s say I die tomorrow and we just simply die…would my life had been any worse living righteously and holding onto faith? I decided no, my life on earth as a god fearing woman would make me a better person and in the end if all I return to is the earth beneath our feet I will be glad to have had a joyous ride along the way.