Book Review: A Question of Freedom

by Reginald Dwayne Betts
4.5 of 5 stars

Everyone should read this book. In particular, anyone who has anything to do with the judicial system should read this book. This is the story of an intelligent young man who spent many of his formative years for a felony he admitted to committing. (And if you don't think he is intelligent, he fought for the right to take the bar exam to become a lawyer and now has a Ph.D. from Yale Law school.) 
This book will make you uncomfortable. That's good for you. It sure made me uncomfortable. But it made me think. I've always tended to side with maximum punishment for crimes. But I read this book because of cherished memories of my students at the alternative school. And now I wonder if prison would have helped them at all or if it would just hurt them more. Mental health is important. Anger management skills are important. Teaching children a love for learning is important. These are the things that will juveniles out of prison. And if you think race issues in America are fake? Read this book. It opened my eyes to a lot that I didn't see because, yes, I have white privilege. I hope to one day meet this author. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time. Thank you Dr. Betts, for opening my eyes.

Faith

When does faith begin?

Is it some kind of indoctrination process we begin when we are young?

Why are some people more receptive of it than others?

How does faith define me? Should it define me?

I have always known that the Lord loves me. I’ve grown up knowing Him all my life. My parents made sure that I was in church every time it was open. We did all three services – Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night. They wanted to be there just as much as they wanted me to be there. My parents wanted me to know about right and wrong, but more than anything, they wanted to me to know that a higher power cared for me. This, coupled with the fact that my nature leaned towards obedience instead of defiance, meant that I was a pretty well-behaved kid who wanted to please both God and my parents. I felt the weight of sin very heavily – not because anyone made me feel that way – but because my own conscience couldn’t stand up under it. So after my first big act of insubordination two weeks before my tenth birthday, I chose to be baptized. I had been running around with a girl at a church event, gossiping and making fun of others. After about a day of this, I just couldn’t stand the crushing guilt that I was hurting people, so I accepted Jesus as the only way out. I’ve never looked back.

I grew up attending a pretty conservative branch of Protestantism called Church of Christ. The idea behind the church is to closely follow the teachings of the church in the New Testament; if it wasn’t there, then it isn’t in many Churches of Christ. Even though this particular branch of Protestantism didn’t form its own movement until the nineteenth century, the running joke is that it was founded in 33 AD. Most notable is lack of instrumental music worship – everything is acapella. The benefit I saw in growing up in a Church of Christ was a strict reliance on the Bible as a source of truth. There tends to be some extreme legalism in individual churches, but people are very passionate about delving into Scriptures for Truth. I, thankfully, grew up in a relatively progressive Church of Christ, so I missed some of the ultra-conservative legalistic drama that many have seen in relation to the Church of Christ.

But some legalism found its way into my young faith. I read the Old Testament religiously, seeking answers. I began to wonder why we were Christians when Jesus was Jewish. Why didn’t we have to follow the same laws He did? I knew that His coming fulfilled many parts of the Law, which meant that we didn’t have to practice the ritual sacrifices. But why didn’t we celebrate the Jewish feasts and holy days in remembrance of our heritage? 

I was bookish, I loved ballet, and I was religious; these three things tended to separate me from most of my peers. I had difficulty finding friends – I wasn’t cool enough for some; others didn’t measure up to my impossibly high standards. I was constantly trying to force friendships with the girls in my youth group. I couldn’t understand why they fit together so easily while every interaction of mine felt as if it was under scrutiny. I ended up crying in the corner at almost every youth group outing, partially out of frustration at myself that I didn’t fit in, partially as a manipulation tactic to get pity from the older girls. It worked most of the time, but I still never found that friendship that I was looking for, that easy friendship that always alluded me. I loved Jesus – why didn’t He show me He loved me by giving me friends?

I didn’t find an answer for that right away, even as I moved into high school. I grew up in a town with a sizeable upper class and a large lower class. I lived in a nice neighborhood, but we definitely didn’t have enough money for me to buy the clothes to fit in with the upper class. That, coupled with my unending shyness and love of Jesus and books once again made me a semi-outcast, relegated to the outer rim of the circles I so desperately wanted to be a part of. I wanted to be popular with all that was in me, yet I criticized the popular kids for every move they made – every drunken party and blunt smoked and boy banged was another sin tallied against them in my record book. I made it through high school thanks to a few girls that took pity on me in basketball, my theater circle, and extracurricular activities to fill every last hour of the day. And yet my life still wasn’t complete. Something was still missing.

Was it a man? I went to college in search of a husband. I claimed that I wasn’t trying to get my M-R-S degree, but if I was more truthful of myself, one of my favorite things about college was boys. Tall boys! Boys taller than me! At nearly six feet tall, that was hard to find in high school. I hadn’t followed any boys to school, but I sure hoped that a certain boy from my hometown would finally show me the attention that I felt I deserved.

But the Lord had other plans for me, things that He needed to teach me, things for me to learn. The first lesson was to listen.

I had a major crush on a guy named Richard. He was a junior, the leader of my small group, and most importantly, dating a wonderful girl. To be fair, I did not know that he was dating this wonderful girl at first, not that I would have ever made a move. I was far too shy. But he looked at me like I was a puzzle that he wanted to solve, sent chills up my spine with every touch, and I was desperate for someone to finally show real interest I me. My crush on him lead me to try out for a theater troupe that he led. My audition was not great; the people I was partnered with for an impromptu skit were less than imaginative. But I did my best to make it funny, playing off some of the jokes the theater troupe made in their introductory skit before tryouts.

I had never wanted something so much in my life. I liked theater, sure, but I wanted to be close to Richard, even if he did have a fantastic girlfriend. I prayed as I’ve never prayed before in my life. “Please, God, let me be in the group. I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life! I’ll enjoy the acting. And I’ll get to be around Richard. Please!”

They were supposed to post the results online at midnight, but one and two o’clock came around with nothing. I continued to pray with a strange fevered energy that I had never felt before. I paced my bedroom; my roommate was out with her boyfriend, so she wasn’t there to witness my insanity.

I had prostrated myself on my bed on my knees with my head buried in my pillow. My heart felt as if it would leap from my chest. I continued to refresh the web browser on my laptop periodically, waiting for my sign. And that’s when I heard it.

It was not an exterior audible sound. It was an internal Voice, calm and quiet but overwhelmingly powerful. And It said one word: “No.” There was no malice in this Voice, only assured love. There was no arguing with this Voice, and I knew to which it was referring. I would not be in Seekers of the Word. And it was going to be okay. I immediately got in bed and went to sleep within minutes. I woke the next morning to find that I was okay. I checked the list to confirm, but I knew hours before it was posted that I would not be in the group. I didn’t even shed a tear for what I was so desperate for only hours before.

When I talked to Richard later that week, he told me they debated on me specifically for almost an hour. That’s why it took so long for them to post the list. He had, of course, championed my cause, but in the end he had lost. I smiled and thanked him for trying, but I knew that I had something far better. I had heard the Voice of the Lord!

My crush on Richard didn’t end right away, but it certainly fizzled. He was still my small group leader, so I spent lots of time with him, but I knew deep down that he wasn’t the one for me. And once I realized that, I had some fun just being a college girl. Boys weren’t going to be the end-all. I continued through my freshman year more fully enjoying my time and my studies because I had something others didn’t. I had God’s ear.

I did end up meeting the man of my dreams that year. In April, I went to Cracker Barrel with one of my friends and her boyfriend. He had invited a lot of his friends, so I found myself one Saturday morning in a plain white t-shirt and no makeup, sitting at a table of attractive junior guys. I was way out of my league, but for some reason, I was able to break out of my shell enough to flirt a little. I recognized the one with the piercing blue eyes sitting across the table from me as the one I saw running on the campus track a lot, the one I had had my eye on since the beginning of school. And he was flirting back!

When my biscuits and gravy came to the table, I immediately began tearing up the biscuits. The guy sitting beside me asked why I was doing that. I was doing it because that’s how I always ate biscuits and gravy, but for some reason I said, “I don’t know. Because I can eat it faster.”

“How fast do you think you can eat them?” Another guy asked.

I responded without much thought. “I don’t know. Like two to three minutes?”

The blue-eyed boy who I now knew as David said, “Okay. I’ll time you,” and that’s when I knew I was in a pickle. How was I supposed to do this and still look pretty? I wasn’t one to back away from a challenge, so I did what anyone else would do in this situation: I ate as fast as I could. I ate those three biscuits smothered in gravy in one minute and fifty-seven seconds. And David was so impressed that he bought my lunch. I ran into him two more times throughout that day, and before I knew it we were talking every chance we got. He didn’t kiss me before the summer break because he knew that we would spend the summer apart, but when we got back to school after two months of falling in love over the phone, our kisses consumed me.

Nothing that I had felt before for anyone came close to the way I loved David. Many friendships that I held dear through freshman year fell away as I molded myself to fit with David. It was both healthy and harmful, but I had found the person I had been searching for all of my years. I had found the best friend I would ever have. Like me, he had struggled to connect with people when he was younger. We joked that it was because we hadn’t met each other yet.

He was the most exciting person I had ever met. He was a Messianic Jew – a “Jew for Jesus” who ate according to kosher law and celebrated Passover in honor of Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb, who I now began calling Yeshua. It is much closer to the way Jesus’ real name is pronounced, and it made me feel like I was in an exclusive group that knew the right words and handshake. I learned more about Yeshua’s Jewishness, and I felt that the questions I had asked myself as a child were finally being answered.

David taught me what it looked like to serve others. He had a stack of Sonic gift cards in his Jeep Wrangler that he handed out to the many homeless around Abilene. We spent many Saturdays volunteering together at a local non-profit in their warehouse, sorting donations to be distributed through various programs. At first, I went to spend more time with him, but the more I did, the more I realized that service is my love language. James 1:22 made sense: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”

I still didn’t have the ease of conversation that I so yearned for, but through volunteer opportunities, I began meeting people and finding myself in the middle of friendships that began long before my defenses went up. On Wednesday nights we took care of a severely autistic boy during church so that his parents could attend Bible class. On Tuesday nights, we volunteered with the international students on campus in a program called Conversation Corner. Because the college we went to is first on the list of schools in the United States alphabetically, students from all over the world chose our school when they were applying, simply out of ease. Through Conversation Corner I met students from Madagascar, Honduras, China, and Russia, all wanting to practice their English skills. This small-town Texas girl’s horizons were growing broader with every word.

David also took me to Sunday church with him at a place called The Mission. I was way out of my comfort zone at first. Shouldn’t I be attending a Church of Christ after all these years? But this church broke down those barriers too. This church was nothing like any church I had ever been to. They had a worship band and a Baptist preacher and elaborate murals on the walls. But the thing that made this church really different was that it was a real ministry. Vans went out all over Abilene to bring in congregates who could not afford vehicles. The Mission had a meal that we all served to each other after every service; it had showers and fresh towels for anyone who was living without access to clean water. You often walked in to see someone sleeping in the pews.

During the lunches, I found myself seeking those that appeared to be left out, finding those others like me that sat and watched from the outskirts of society. And for once my insecurities didn’t matter. We were all messed up in our own ways, but we were doing it together and we were supporting each other. It is still the closest embodiment of the church as the Bride of Christ that I have ever experienced.

In January of that year, 2010, Haiti was struck by an earthquake. David left college without even a word to his professors to help his dad, a trauma surgeon, provide disaster relief aid. To be honest, I wasn’t really happy that my boyfriend was cancelling a week of our plans to go to somewhere I’d barely heard of. But I reluctantly offered my support. David was going with or without it, so I just had to accept it.

When he got back a week later – that was all he could do without dropping out of school – I saw a different person. I had never seen him so physically exhausted. He hadn’t slept at all in Haiti because the stream of patients was never-ending. I selfishly wanted him to focus on me when he returned, but his exhaustion made that impossible. I made him dinner and then went back home that night feeling a bit put off. His condition didn’t matter to me – didn’t he care about how much time it took me to make that dinner? He barely even looked at me, much less groveled at my feet for spending a week away from me. Didn’t I matter as much as his work? The honest truth was that I didn’t because David had his priorities straight. He cared more about serving the Lord than serving me. He understood that lesson, but it took me a lot longer to catch on.

My faith grew so much in my first year of dating David that I, very unhealthily, attached my adoration for God too closely to him. I idolized David. That fever that consumed me in one night of praying to be in a theater group was eclipsed by the fire that burned in me for David. I was jealous of his time, zealous for his attention, and somehow still unsure of his devotion for me. David had become one of my gods, and God has long said that “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20:2) So He had to break me of worshiping my soul mate.

During our dating relationship and engagement, David and I spent far more time apart than we did together. Not for lack of trying, but I think the Lord had things for David to learn, and He had to teach me to rely on Him instead of on a human who would eventually disappoint. Don’t get me wrong – David is perfect…for me, but he is not perfect as God is perfect. So after David finished his senior year, he moved to Haiti to run medical clinics while I crammed two years into one so that I could finish college early to be with him. He proposed in November, so I had to be done with school by May if I wanted to get married that year! To finish a full year early, I had to take six hours in summer school and nineteen hours of coursework both semesters. On top of that I worked part time to pay my bills. In the rare moments I got to see David on Skype, I often had to study while we talked. The fall semester was so taxing on me that I cried to my parents about never going back. But they picked me up and sent me on my way, knowing that I was capable of far more than I could see. I made it through my spring semester, thrilled to be marrying my soul mate. We had no jobs, no prospects lined up at all, but none of that mattered. We would soon be together forever.

Thank God, David had some foresight because I did not. He was supposed to hear back from graduate school in April but by mid-May he still hadn’t heard anything. He was turned down for the job that we thought of as our fallback plan. With no way to support his soon-to-be new bride and no assurance of a future, he asked that we delay our wedding, a mere two weeks before the date. After much deliberation and flat-out argument, I accepted, completely humiliated with the circumstances. We made the decision on my graduation day. I barely held it together long enough to walk across the stage and stand for a few pictures.

I was absolutely heartbroken. Didn’t he want to marry me? Why had I worked so hard to finish in a year if he was just going to blow me off? Wasn’t I worth it? What was I supposed to do with all of our wedding gifts? People were going to think that we were going to break up!

My parents were understandably upset with the situation, but they took me in. Later that summer David found out that he was indeed accepted for graduate school at Texas A&M, so he moved from Haiti to College Station. I worked as a waitress until I got my stuff together enough to earn my teaching certificate. After a semester of hard work, I moved to Bryan-College Station to be closer to David.

And just a few short weeks after I moved to be near him, David was offered a job in Afghanistan. My first response was a flat-out no. I had suffered too much already. We were going to get married. He was not about to go halfway around the world into the teeth of the enemy and die before I ever got married. Months of arguments only more firmly entrenched my belief that he should not go. We eventually came to an impasse. He would resent me if he was prevented from going, and I would resent him for going. My student loan debt from college was the deciding factor – he would go to Afghanistan on this unique Army position so that we could be debt-free when we started our marriage.

He left in the summer. I don’t even remember much about the day he left through the blur of my tears. Even though we had spent so much of our relationship apart already, my body went through withdrawals from him. I was always cold, an ache deep inside that would not go away. The lack of physical contact was overwhelming. I constantly worried about his safety. I made myself crazy thinking about what could be happening to him. We were able to Skype almost daily, even with the time difference, but I had never felt more alone in my life.

David did not tell me about anything that happened to him that was dangerous while he was there. This was a good choice for my sanity. But one night his forward operating base (FOB) was rocketed while we were Skyping. He didn’t even say goodbye, just slammed his computer screen down after a loud BOOM echoed in my ears. I lost it. I paced frantically, knowing there was nothing I could do for him but pray. So I did, with that same fevered energy I had experienced one night years before. And again the Lord spoke.

“Psalm 91.”

I tore through my Bible searching for the passage. My eyes ate up the words, probing for any meaning. These verses stood out from the others:

“⁴He will cover you with his feathers,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
⁵ You will not fear the terror of night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day.”

The arrow that flies by day! That’s a rocket! That means that David will be okay because God will protect him! 

That may not be a conclusion that seems logical, but it was the conclusion that I knew God wanted me to reach. God had plans for David in and out of Afghanistan.

I gave David up to the Lord that night. I gave up on worrying about his safety because I knew the Lord had promised me that he would come through okay. But my surrender went much deeper. I finally gave up David as my idol. Yes, David had weapons to protect himself from enemy fire, but it wasn’t him protecting himself. David wasn’t capable of that. God was protecting him. Because God was and is sovereign.

After that, the missions David went on were more and more dangerous. He got attached to a Special Forces unit and did almost all of his assignments with them. He faced more and more combat, but I didn’t worry because I knew that the Lord would fulfill the promise He made me that night. David became my lover, no longer my god. And that was something that he could live up to.

¨¨¨

The lessons I have through God’s voice and with David have been blessings beyond measure, but God doesn’t usually speak to me that way. He teaches me by putting things on my heart for a time and having me dwell on them. “Seasons” is the churchy word for it, but I hate the lingo, so I don’t like to call it that.

One of my favorite lessons has been the importance of service. So many church-goers like to rely on the fact that we are saved by our faith because of God’s grace. And while that is absolutely true, I don’t think that was the end of his intentions. The Lord constantly reiterates through the Old Testament that He is a defender of the poor and needy. But most of us don’t know what that looks like. I didn’t know it until I attended a Bible study in Haiti led by David’s father. We were sitting on a pavilion, enjoying the breeze as we watched the sunrise. He had us open to Luke 4:18-19. At this point, I had read the Bible all the way through a few times, but I had failed to grasp the meaning in this important verse. In Luke’s account, Jesus has just come from being tempted by Satan. He goes into the temple in Nazareth, and He begins His ministry with a reading from the scroll of Isaiah:

“¹⁸The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

My father-in-law, Dr. Vanderpool, described this as Jesus reading his mission statement, his launch into His three-year ministry on earth. So that’s what Jesus was all about? “he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” Why yes, he did preach the gospel to the masses, over 5,000 in one sitting; “And recovering of sight to the blind.” He rubbed mud on the eyes of a man to restore his sight. “To set at liberty those who are oppressed.” He released several people who were oppressed by their bodies because they were lame or sick or dying. “To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” He most certainly proclaimed God’s favor!

How had I never noticed this before? Dr. Vanderpool followed this with a reading of Isaiah 58, where God speaks to those who are putting on a show of fasting. God says that relieving oppression is the fast He cares about, not some show of self-righteousness. He was getting on to people for sacrificing things needlessly without compassion on the less fortunate. That’s what He cares about.  The self-righteousness that I had long been so excellent at showing others, was in fact NOT what God called me to do. That was not motivated by compassion but vanity. 

These verses have become my mission statement. I’m not perfect as Jesus is perfect, but God promises that I will do greater works than His (John 14:12). I still fail to live up to this standard, but when I become distracted by the day-to-day, it’s a great reminder that I have a purpose to fulfill. The reason for me to exist and toil and sometimes suffer and sacrifice is to glorify the Father by serving others. What better calling is there?

My mother-in-law is an equally gifted teacher, so a few days later she spoke further about purpose. She read from Psalm 132, written by King David. He says:

“⁴I will not give sleep to my eyes
    or slumber to my eyelids,
⁵ until I find a place for the Lord,
    a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.”

Now that’s a purpose! This man refused to die until he found and purchased and prepared the mount on which the temple was to rest. He was not allowed to build the temple because of the blood on his hands, but he did everything possible to prepare it for his son Solomon who did complete the task. “For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers.” (Acts 13:36) So King David really didn’t die until he had fulfilled his goal!

I had never thought about needing a purpose in my faith walk before. But if I wanted to get somewhere, it sure made sense. These lessons, coupled with a few other verses that the Lord put on my heart sent me on a journey to find my purpose. At the time, I was teaching English as a Second Language classes in Haiti, but I was unfulfilled. I knew that I had a greater purpose, but I knew that I hadn’t found it yet. I could not write the phrase “I will not die until…” and finish it with anything that mattered to me. So I continued to think about it and search for answers, knowing that eventually it would be revealed to me.

And that’s when I happened on writing. I was blessed with a vacation to Colorado for my second wedding anniversary. I had been reading a collection of novellas by Francine Rivers called Sons of Encouragement. These five novellas were from the perspective of a man in the Bible that support the ministry of another. Aaron supporting Moses, Jonathan supporting David, etc. I came to the story of Silas. He was a missionary who supported both Paul and Timothy. He helped author some of the books of the New Testament. And it hit me that I could serve my purpose in the same way that Silas served his – as a support for those gifted with the word of the Lord.

I serve as I am able and I write what I am able because that is my calling. I will not die until…others can learn about Jesus’ love through my writing and my service. I have come a long way from the shy little girl that went under the water almost twenty years ago. My faith tells me who I am and how I fit into this world. But there have been times when my purpose was hidden, when I was walking by faith that I wasn’t doing something meaningless.

I lived for two years in Haiti before my husband and I were attacked by a street gang. We fled and were unable to return for a long time for a complication of reasons. We made our way to India for a job where healing and restoration and friendship bloomed. But the job fizzled out and we found ourselves in a small town in East Texas, with me teaching 4^th grade. I often wondered: How in the world did I end up here? How did go from Haiti to India to a chicken factory town in small-town Texas?

I did not know, but I trusted that I would have a purpose. I quickly fell into my work. If I was to be successful, I had to give it my all. And I fell in love with my fourth graders. Many of them were well cared for, but others were neglected, starving for attention. I gave them all that I could give as I learned about teaching a younger grade than I was used to. I had taught high school in Bryan before Haiti, but this was a new world, one that I found that I enjoyed more than I expected. It was still not the passion I found in writing – I wouldn’t want to do it forever – but it was enough for the time being.

Near the end of the school year our worlds were turned upside-down. I walked into the school knowing that we had a rare morning staff meeting, but no one was in my wing of the school, so I took my time, enjoying the quiet. As I made my way past the cafeteria where the students were gathered, I could tell that something was amiss. The students, usually rowdy and excited, were subdued, some crying. One of the boys in my class came up to me because he could tell I was confused.

“Do you know what happened, Miss?”

“No Ruiz. What is it?”

I could tell he was a little uncomfortable, but he found his words with the courage only a child could muster. “Um…Mrs. Gerald? Um, she died. There was an accident.”

My heart dropped. Our gym teacher. I left Ruiz as tears began to roll down my face. How could this be? I had seen her yesterday. We passed in the hallway, and she waved and smiled as she always did. She was one of the few people that made a point to be kind to me when I first came to the school. She was a beautiful person, inside and out. And in a racially divided town, she had been one of the few bridges between communities because of her overwhelming kindness to all, no matter their background. How could this happen to her?

And then reality set in more. She had children and a husband that adored her. What would become of them? I made my way to the library for the staff meeting, now aware of what this meeting was about.

Class was basically cancelled that day. Funeral plans were made. She had been driving her personal car behind a school bus full of her track team when an eighteen-wheeler collided with the bus and her car. She had no chance of survival with the injuries she sustained. My fourth graders were hit the hardest by her loss. As the oldest students, they had known her for longer than the other students. Counselors were available all day. We had ceremonies in her honor and we were given reprieve from work to attend her funeral.

The accident occurred the week before the state-mandated testing, so the Texas Board of Education gave me the option to delay the testing. But I knew that my students needed some normalcy, some semblance of structure to help them cope. So we went ahead with the normal testing schedule.

As the final days of school went by, I continued to help my students cope with the loss. We wrote letters to her and talked about her memory would live on in their hearts. More than anything, I was there to give a hug when a student needed to cry. And I realized why the Lord had put me there. It wasn’t for me, it was for them. My purpose that year was to be there for those fourth graders as they learned about loss. Yes, I got something out of it too. I gained invaluable experience teaching elementary school that I use now that I am working in Haiti again. But my purpose was not about me – it was to be an instrument of God. Even when I didn’t see it, God was helping me to fulfill my dreams. I will not die until…others can learn about Jesus’ love through my writing and my service.

Now I work for the same non-profit organization that took me to Haiti. And I get to fulfill my purpose through writing as I serve as the Director of Communications. I write about the injustices faced by my Haitian friends due to unclean water and food scarcity and illness and racial prejudice. I get to write about how Jesus’ love drives me and others who work with me to serve because we can’t stand to see people living under the oppression of poverty. I get to tell people about the worth of other people, how they matter to God. I use what I learned through Mrs. Gerald and India and Haiti and David and my unique experiences to attempt to be a positive voice for change. I fail sometimes, but the point is that I’m trying because I have a goal in mind.

Why does faith define me? Because it’s what matters to me. It’s what drives me each day. Should it define me? Absolutely. Sometimes, in moments of doubt, it’s the only thing that makes sense. I admit that I don’t always understand why some people don’t have faith or practice a different faith. But God has been faithful to me by guiding me towards paths of goodness. And that’s something that I could never bring myself to turn my back on. I would never want to. I have faith that even when it may not look like it, God has a plan for me. More importantly, I have a purpose.

(all names changed - except my husband)