Ugh, I really hate discussing politics, but I guess it is time to layout my personal feelings on the subject and give some background.  Over on my husband’s blog, he has been talking a little bit about how we are going to be voting.  I will start with my political background, then the line, I believe, should be where faith and politics collide, and finally how I feel about this election.

Political Background:  I guess I would best describe myself as a conservative with a stong libertarian  slant.  Basically, the meat of my political plate is conservative, but the potatoes are definitely libertarian.  I have socially conservative views, as well as fiscally conservative views.  However, I believe most of the law making should come from the state and that the government, should stay out of people’s personal lives (and pockets) as much as possible and within reason (obviously).  I also believe in the right to let people totally screw up their own lives, but be held accountable for screwing up others lives.

Compassion and Charity?  Yes, I do believe in helping out my fellow man, but I do not believe it is the governments responsibility.  That is a perfect job for the church.  The beauty about the church is that they are right there in the town, they see the need, they know what is going on and can help those in need.  Many years ago at my child hood church, a woman’s husband died in a machine accident.  They had many young children and a huge farm.  The church immediately came running to the rescue.  The offered her a job as the church secretary to help get her back on her feet, the men pitched in at the farm until she was able to rent out a portion of it and hire some help for the rest.  She was able to bring her young children with her to the church, while she worked, and her older boys were working with the men at the farm, learning how to help take it over.

Today, she is married to a farmer, who had lost his wife years ago, and they have the farm back under control and they have tons of children and she doesn’t need help from the church.  That is church in action.  The government cannot just hand out money blindly, but that is what it does.  There are so many moochers and greedy people taking advantage of the government, which results in the common man, who is working, having to work harder and ultimately make less.I could go on about morality, abortion, and all of that until I turned blue, but I don’t have that much time, so I will go on to the next thing.

Voting?  This may sound crazy to some, but I would give up my right to vote if every other woman would give it up as well.  I feel like voting rights for women has been… well… a disaster.  But, as long as women are allowed to vote, you bet I will, because someone has to try to counter-balance the stupidity of female voting.  I admit, I tend to vote for the lesser of two evils in most elections, but in the primaries, I vote for the ideal candidate.  I also realized there would never be such a thing as the perfect candidate.  Everyone has issues, and man is imperfect.  I also thought about how it would be if I ran, yes, even I would do things that weren’t the best things ever, I know it is bound to happen.  So, here I am, who do I vote for in the election?  Ugh.  It is more often than not a catch 22.  Well, maybe more of a paradox.Where do I feel Faith and Politics Collide?  Sit tight and don’t get angry until you have read the whole thing.  ;-)  One of my favorite quotes of all time is from George Washington’s farewell address:

“…reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” - George Washington

Yes, I do believe that as Thomas Jefferson said, that the Bible is the corner stone, but we also must be careful (my Anabaptist background is coming out in full force here).  Religious freedom was one of the reasons this country was founded.  A state-run/state-controlled church is dangerous.  “Religion” cannot control government.  The result is the middle ages under the Catholic church.  Absolution was a way of life, and people lived their lives out of fear.  The grip the Catholic church had on people was terrifying.  The church had its opinion on everything, if you disagreed, you were automatically a heretic.

With that said, I don’t believe that the level to which separation of church and state (which is NOT in the constitution - it was in a letter - esh) is carried out today is a good thing - it is horrible.  The concept only meant that there would not be a state church, not that you couldn’t say a prayer or have the ten commandments posted.  People are insane.

Who am I voting for in the election?  Well, as my husband said, it will be McCain.  Why?  Well, it’s a long story.  Who did I vote for in the primary?  Ron Paul and dang proud of it.  I wanted to go, but was in the middle of a hair raising project at work and thought that I wasn’t going to make it to the primary.  I had to convince my boss that I should leave, that was fun.  Mike promised me that he would vote for a reasonable candidate of my choice in November - and that is the story.  I did like Ron Paul, and do support most of his ideals.

Why McCain?  Quite frankly, I am afraid for this country, especially that will not bounce back from the stances and views of the other party.  Yes, I realize that McCain has his serious issues, but the chasm between the two candidates leave no straddling the line for me this round.  I must vote my conscience, and ultimately, I leave it in God’s hands.What are my feelings about Palin?  Well, usually I will be the first to stand up and say a woman?  Are you kidding?  However, with this woman, I will make an exception.  So far, everything I have seen about her and I have heard from her, thrills me.  She use to hunt moose?  How can you not love a woman like that?!  :-)  I am excited, she seems like she could be a great role model for young girls instead of all the other frightening women seen in the media today.

As many problems as we have in the country, I still think it is the best one out there, and I am still proud to be an American, even though I do get embarrassed every now and then - it is still my country.

I will do my part, as I believe I am called to do, but I put the rest in God’s hands.  If we are going to survive the next few years with the gross instability in the world, it will have to be by God’s hands.So… Now you know.  I usually like to add a verse from the Bible, but I am running very short on time, so I leave you a link to Romans 13.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. - Ephesians 6:12

There are times when people do you wrong. You didn’t have to do anything, but they are there attacking and trying to tear you down. This happened to me recently, and at first I was hurt, but then it didn’t stop and I became pissed off and extremely hateful of this person when no one could see. Or I thought no one could see. By anyone’s standards what this person did and said was inexcusable and I had a right to be angry.

God saw my heart and my attitude. Tonight, God showed me where I was wrong, as He so often does. I can sit in the corner and pout or yell about the wrongs done to me, or I can choose to do what is right and what God expects from me. I didn’t want to at first, but God told me I had to forgive them. I started to pray, next thing I know, a short prayer turned into me pouring my heart out and praying about things I didn’t realize I needed to be said.

Sometimes I just don’t understand why things happen the way they do, and I sometimes let things bother me and rip me apart, but God showed me something again tonight that He unfortunately has had to show me over and over again. How can I be an example for Christ when I am playing right into Satan’s hand? That is what Satan wants, to tear me down and keep me full of anger, instead of keeping my focus on God.I maybe a little bruised and bloody from the incident, but I can’t let that keep me from being a light for Christ. Being angry and hateful is not going to show Christ in me, and I would be a sorry excuse for a believer if I let what they did to me consume me.

I also realized something else, people do things without even understanding why they are doing what they are doing. This person isn’t a believer and what they did hit below the belt, and I don’t think they even fully realized what they was doing. Darkness hates the light for reasons it doesn’t understand. This incident was definitely a spiritual attack. I don’t want to go into what it was about, but there was something going on in my personal life and they couldn’t have known about it without a Satanic influence. When they brought it up, they claimed to have a vision about it, and then proceeded to go after me full force. There is no doubt this was an all out spiritual attack. Which is also the reason I cannot remain angry and hurt by what happened. The past few days, I have felt so burned out and consumed by it. I felt almost like throwing my hands up and giving up, but that is when God showed me what I needed to do to keep going. I needed to let it go, forgive them, and put my focus back on Christ.

Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we may boldly say: “The LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” - Hebrews 13:5-6

God, sometimes I just don’t understand why You put up with me. I am a mess. I am stubborn. I usually want to do everything on my own. And yet, somehow You love me anyway. And You sent Your Son to die for my sins. I don’t understand, I can’t comprehend the never ending love You have for me, but thank You. I wouldn’t have made it this far without You, thank You for never failing me and for never giving up on me.

Wow, it has been awhile.  Between moving, working, vacationing, and tennising, the time has been going by too quickly.  A lot of stuff has been going on recently.

We are now moved into our townhome.  Not everything has been unpacked or organized, but we are living there.  I think the thing I love most is the multiple stories of a town home.  Our old place was completely on one floor.  I really disliked that.  Too much clutter seemed to build up easily since it was one giant living space almost.  Now, things go upstairs, things go downstairs.  I enjoy it very much!  Everything room is clearly divided, which I also like.  I am so glad we moved here, it has already been such a blessing.  Cable TV and cable internet are part of the rent, so that has been neat.  I haven’t had cable since I was a kid, so there are so many shows that I am finding interest in watching.  I love the History channel.  I think it is my favorite.  I also love any shows where they show you how things work or how things are made.  Sometimes it is nice while working to put the TV on in the background, which I have never really done in the past, usually there is music playing - so now I can mix it up.

The past couple of weeks a good friend, who was also my bridesmaid, and I have been playing tennis about 3 times a week!  She and I have gotten addicted, and we are having a blast!  We signed up for some classes twice a week, and we love our instructor and our classmates.  A week ago Sunday, I hurt my wrist playing tennis with my friend (and it wasn’t her fault, even if I like to joke that it was), so I have been learning to play left handed, while my right wrist is healing.  She and I went to class Monday night and we played King of the Mountain with the other students, and she and I (with my left hand only) we on a team for doubles and kicked serious butt!  One of the other students commented after class that my friend and I played well together, which we really do.  We do both have our weaknesses, but we are having a blast.  I am so glad we are doing this together.

In marriage news, Mike and I had our one year anniversary last week!  We had a great day.  We got up and drove out to Skyline and we had a great day driving around and we went cave exploring!  :-)  I was worried that Mike wouldn’t enjoy spending our anniversary stomping around in a cavern, but he loved it - and me anything remotely sciency or anything like that, I love.  We had a great time and Mike took some awesome pictures.  We had a nice (very late) lunch.  It was so nice to just spend some down time together.

I was off all last week and Mike was off for a few days for a vacation at home (the best kind there is) and just relaxed and got recharged.  We saw “Dark Knight” and I thought it was great up until the very end.  I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it, but the moral of the story was kind of disturbing, in fact, it was way more disturbing than the Joker’s character.  I think the Joker’s character was pretty good, but there were a few things that I was hoping for that I just didn’t get.  Like near the end, when he asks Batman if he knew how he got the scars on his face (if you had seen the movie you would get this) and then the Joker didn’t tell him, I was dying for a story, and there wasn’t one.  Oh well, maybe I am just picky.

Thursday and Friday, I spent some time down in my home town, where I grew up, while Mike was at work.  My mom and I ran some errands, got some breakfast/lunch (or dinner not lunch, depending on where you’re from - for me, it’s dinner) out and did some shopping for the things Mike and I needed for our new place.  She and I had a good time, on Friday we went to get our hair cut.  This was a big deal for me because I have almost always had short hair, except for the last few years, when I was growing long for weddings and such.  I got it cut short and everyone, most importantly Mike, loves it.  When I say short, it is still very feminine - I wouldn’t have it any other way.  After getting the hairs (inside joke with Mike) cut, I had supper with my mom and dad and just enjoyed some time talking and being with them.  Their house will always seem like home, I think.  Maybe it is because Mike and I live in NoVA, which neither of us is a fan, and it is just too crowded and crazy to seem like home.  Whenever I hit the county border, things change, you can feel it.  It is different.  Pickup trucks, horse farms, trees everywhere, country roads, a stillness/peacefulness as you drive/walk, old town, it all feels…  it just feels right.  Things are slower there, more comfortable, and everyone is friendly.  It is the place where you can belong.  It draws you in, and you don’t want to leave.  Maybe it’s because I am a country girl and a southerner, I don’t know, but that town is a part of me.  More so than any other place I have ever lived, and that is more than I can count.  I miss that place, I wish it was closer to work, I would move there in a heartbeat.

The best man in our wedding just moved away.  Off to get his PHD in Nuclear engineering.  I miss hanging out with him already.  I always looked forward to meeting him for supper after church and just spending endless hours talking about anything he, Mike and I find interesting.  We all had kind of a sick sense of humor, which just made everything so much more fun.  I am going to miss those conversations.

Well, it is almost time for my tennis class.  Cheers!