It's been over a year since I looked at this, yet I feel as though it is time to return, if only once.

I don't know if a year ago I thought I would be where I am now. Sure, I realized that at this point I'd be a college graduate and married, but did I think that my entire view of life and God would change so much? What happened to thinking? When did it become barely getting by, accepting what happened rather than trying to improve? When did I stop learning and start sitting?

Maybe I have dumbed down my life, or maybe I just realize now that being an intellectual doesn't get you food on the table in the real world. School is a fantasy, a land where what goes on in your head produces tangible results. Now it's just about performing tasks in time and decently well enough so that you end up with a check. I've stopped being a child; I'm now an adult. And I hate it.

Adults have always been boring to me. I always thought it was because they didn't "have any fun". I suppose that's a part, but I think the real reason adults seem to have no passion is because they've ignored the fact that stopping the constant, forced, learning process that everyone hopes to complete actually just takes the life fire right out of you. With no employment or hope of worthwhile, challenging employment on the horizon, I can see how the cubicle turns you into a zombie. Everything I thought would be good about being done with school is in reality what has made me currently disappointed with myself. I'm lazy. I don't think for myself or form any ambitions. My dreams are dead...or were there any to begin with? Where do I go now? Applying for grad school with our empty pocketbook seems the best way to earn money and escape the disappointment of not earning my keep in our marriage. Sure I can clean house and do laundry, but that isn't enough. I was never meant to be a housewife, so this isn't satisfying. And increasingly more, I can't say I was meant to be a mother either, since at the moment the thought of being pregnant is the stuff of literal nightmares.

This may be the stupidest thing I say here (or not), but we are more happily married than I have ever seen a couple in my entire life. It's so normal for us to never fight and think the same thoughts that when I hear of our neighbors arguing about grocery expenditures or fighting about wanting children, I have to count my blessings. This isn't to say that we never exchange harsh words, but everything is so quickly and easily resolved with apologies and a bit of cuddling. It's amazing how physical touch can solve so many issues with us. I wonder sometimes if this is something that would have been equally as helpful had we been dating in the same city the whole time. Maybe not. Either way, it doesn't matter much. We don't ever have to try hard to get along, and with me being unemployed, we're around each other a whole lot. That's a blessing, but also a curse.

Did I ever think I would become Lutheran? If you'd asked me that when I was about 11, I would have told you that there was no way. Today, it seems to fit. After experiencing and reading about the problems with conservative Evangelical Protestantism, I'd rather take the problems with the ELCA. Everything is so different still; I find myself realizing that as a new Lutheran, I'm so lost. After spending years serving the church based on age instead of gifts, I don't know what God has equipped me with. In a church where Austin and I are the only young adults, I am forced to find something new to do. There is no college, no singles, no young-marrieds group. Everyone is together, and most are at least 30 years older than me. But the thing most striking to me is that people are HONEST. As an evangelical it seemed that being truly honest about yourself and your faith was taboo. That it wasn't ok to admit that you have doubts about your faith and questions about God's existence. In my first adult Sunday School class at St. Philip, I realized that the Christian facade I had been forced to put up wasn't necessary here. I didn't have to be afraid of admitting that I've read all the Twilight books and liked them or that I think most Christian music is poorly written. I can talk with the pastors like they're real people, not that they are up on a pedestal and highly revered. They have lives and problems and aren't scared to admit that.

This process has also taught me that I really am not the kind of person who can benefit from a large church. Our mid-week advent service only had about 20 people this week. We sat in the sanctuary in a few chairs in a circle with candles lit and acoustic music. And some people thought it was boring and admitted that. Wow. I've learned that it is more noble to come to God as you are, even if you don't give a hoot about anything He says, than to lie and pretend that you really do believe the words to popular Christian songs and follow them every day.

God's taught me that a private "quiet time" is dangerous. I am more likely to think God is out to get me when I'm sitting and praying alone than when I'm discussing theology with others. I have to be in communication with others in order to communicate with God. When left alone I will fail and I will get frustrated, lost in my own imperfect thoughts and unreliable emotions. When I took the false emotionality out of my faith as I left evangelical protestantism and became a mainliner, I found myself freer as a believer than ever before. No more pretending. No more lying. No more beating myself up. Only God and the me who hadn't ever seen the sun, barren of the clown disguise I hid myself behind. God can take me as I am, with all of my imperfections laid out on the ground like a yard sale.

I may be wrong. Someday I may change my mind. But as I've always hoped and prayed for, even before this transformation, I want to be genuine. Not the false sense now, but truly. Purely. And without fear.