mine alone.

Thank you, Father, that my faith is mine alone.

I'm thinking tonight about how sometimes, I feel as though I've given things up for God when really, I've been giving them up for this culture, this place, these people.

And...screw it. I want God. Not something built up around God.

There are ways in which I have changed that I wouldn't change back. You're going to have to pry my glitter pumps out of my cold, dead hands. I've come into my own. In shoes, and in faith. Then, there are changes that haven't been my attempts at greater faith, but greater assimilation. Those changes, you can have back. The part of me that thinks I'm really something, and so has to fight to keep the something.. you can have that.

I believe in one God, and in one heaven and in one hell. I believe that my faith in that God incarnate, and my acceptance of the gift He gave in death, endows me with eternity, with all the powers of timelessness.

It feels good to say. Feels good to feel the strength of faith. To forget the hurt of being misunderstood, and of having my ideas dismissed as things they are not. To buck the expectations. To throw off the appearances.

This faith doesn't belong to others, but to me. And that is so, so good.