Survived another holiday and a SERIOUS religious talk...

My family got together today to celebrate Easter.  I'm sure you all know that once again this would have been Noel's first Easter.  You can't help but see the baby/kids section when you walk through Wal-Mart or Meijer and of course there were about 5 different dresses I would have loved to have dressed Noel in today.  But I don't get to do that now do I?  Why?  Because my daughter is no longer with me.  I do hope there is a heaven but to believe in heaven would mean that I would have to believe in god.  But believing in god is very hard for me.  I did not go to church today, with my beliefs up in the air I didn't want to go there and make a mockery of a holiday that people there obviously believe in.  I cannot come to terms that the god I was brought up to believe in, that I TAUGHT young children about myself as a Sunday school teacher, I cannot believe in a god that steals perfectly healthy babies from their mothers.  I have a hard time with the facts here.  I prayed so many times to that god to keep my baby safe, to have her be healthy and whole.  I guess I forgot to mention that I would like to have her alive when she was born.  I worshiped this god my entire life and when I needed that god the most, he let me down.  COMPLETELY let me down.  The god I thought I knew was not a vindictive god but a loving god who took care of his children, ALL of his children.  I guess god took a day off the day I needed him, or he forgot that I was here or something.  Is it fair of me to blame god for what happened to my daughter?  I don't have an answer but I can tell you my actions are exactly that, I do blame god for taking my baby away from me and her daddy.  I feel like all my faithfulness was completely denied in the hour that I needed that god the most.  Now I have posted a couple of other times about god and religion, I'm obviously confused and there are days that I feel like I'm on the proverbial "fence" on religion altogether.  I ask myself what would make the god I knew and loved turn his back on me so fully?  I will never say I was a good christian, that I went to church every Sunday, I am not perfect I am human, but I did believe in god the father, god the son and god the holy ghost.  I did accept jesus christ as my savior and asked him into my heart, that is what the bible tells us to do.  When we do those things we are assured a place in heaven as long as we ask for forgiveness of our sins.  I may not have prayed everyday, but when I did pray I always asked for forgiveness.  In the teachings I have been through it doesn't matter to god when you talk to him, when you pray to him, what matters is that you do.  I have lived my life as goodly as I could, I have always tried to be a good person and when I couldn't do that I asked for forgiveness for my transgressions and help that I may handle that situation differently if I ever found myself in it again.  I asked god to take my life over to tell me where to go and what to do.  God has never talked to me, if he has I didn't recognize it as god speaking directly to me or even through another person.  God has never to my knowledge gotten me out of a sticky situation.  I don't see his "hand" guiding me in my day to day life.  Despite the facts that he has never spoken to me and never done anything for me I still believed in him because that is what a good christian does, we believe blindly in a book that is well over 2,000 years old and take what that book says at face value and live our lives accordingly.  Now I know this might sound a bit off, but what if the Harry Potter series was touted as the "word of god".  Would we be scared shitless wondering if Lord Voldemort was going to come back after Harry killed him if we were told that Harry Potter was the messiah? Now I know the analogy may seem silly to you but TRY and imagine the world 2,000 years into the future.  If someone said 100 years from now that Harry was actually the messiah and this was his story would people 2,000 years in the future believe that rumor, and be worshiping Harry?   That is the problem with texts that are that old.  The story of jesus could be just that a STORY a book much like Harry Potter.  The other thing that gets me is that there are people out there that are deemed "prophets" by some, MOST of main stream christian people and everybody else think these people are crazy.  There is a LIST a mile long of people that have said "God told me this" or "God told me that."  They used to lock these people up in insane asylums, most whack jobs end up in prison or dead now adays, but COULD god actually be speaking to these people, you have David Coresh you know that creepazoid from Waco, Tx, he said GOD told him to do all the atrocities he did, this man had sex with young girls, old women you name it, was he doing what GOD told him to do?  Everybody I know would say that there is NO WAY their GOD would tell him to do those things, but what if his GOD did?  I mean think about it, all throughout history the human species had MULTIPLE gods or deities, the first RECORDED monotheistic religion was in Egypt and that pharaoh was nearly obliterated from knowledge by his people for forcing them to only worship one god.  We see over and over in history having a pagan religion was how it was up until the Jewish folks and their one god took hold, they were followed by the christians (did I mention the jews were partly responsible for the death of jesus?  they were his own people and a lot of them didn't agree with his "new" religious beliefs) and then the muslims.  We all believe in the same God the Father, Allah, whatever you want to call him.  We all split beliefs up when it comes to Jesus, the Jews flat out refuse to acknowledge Jesus as the messiah, the muslims concede that he may have been a prophet but wasn't the "Son of God".  What do the Jewish people know that we don't about Jesus, WHY wouldn't they believe?  WHAT made them not follow their brethren that DID start believing in Jesus?  I guess maybe I need to speak to someone Jewish and find out, because I'm very confused about this.  The other thing I want to bring up about the bible is that the bible you and I have read is so amended now,  so chopped up there are YEARS of the young Jesus's life that we know absolutely nothing about because those books that were written never made it into the bible if they even exist.  The translations from the original language to my language and numerous others a WRONG, words are interpreted differently from one language to another, the people that have studied any other language besides English/american (because let's face it English in ENGLAND and English in AMERICA sound like two completely different languages) KNOW that there are concepts and ideas that absolutely do not translate, they require the person learning to understand not only the word in the language but translate the whole idea into their own language and that can take up to 10x's the words in their own language to "get" the true meaning of the word in the language that is foreign to them. From what I understand the Latin bible was translated from Greek, and there are numerous books that were translated from another language.  Are we really getting the whole "story" in these botched translations, are we blindly trusting that we are "living by the bible" when ideas and concepts that were originally intended are in fact MISTRANSLATIONS?  Think about it.  I know one word that was in fact mistranslated and that was carpenter, we have the knowledge of what in OUR WORLD a carpenter does, he works with wood, metal or other materials to build things, structures or useful objects, the actual translation is a concept that Jesus was really someone that worked with his hands, the jobs he did were odd jobs, clearing fields, mending fences, working with his hands, not what we all think of as a carpenter, I don't know a carpenter that would clear fields in our world today do you?  That is only one example but you see how just one word can change the translation?  You can argue with me all you want that its FAITH and BELIEF that keep you worshiping god, that the jest is conveyed to the masses from the bible on how we are suppose to act what we are suppose to do, and I can't deny that.  But if you were brought up Buddist or Hindu or Jewish or PAGAN would you even understand all those crazy christians?  The worlds greatest known civilizations from the past were Pagan the Greeks, Romans, Celts, Indians (dots not feathers), Mayans, Chinese, Egyptians...ALL were originally Pagan for thousands of years.  Before that if you want to go back to neolithic times (hunter/gatherers) there is PROOF that they worshiped a WOMAN (HOLY COW REALLY, and speaking of COWS the Hindus love them, and NOT to eat), the woman or the "Earth Mother" but they also paid homage to the "spirits" of animals, they used animals as "totem spirits" the totem spirit was given to a child near birth and that animal spirit was their "protector."  Do you see where I'm going with this?  Yes these "other" religious practices (especially the pagan beliefs) have been abandoned in recent times, but these were practice for millennia before we were even here.  Before OUR "new" beliefs were accepted THIS is what life was.  Were they WRONG? Thousands upon THOUSANDS of years these other religions were practiced.
What makes what I was taught from the time I was a small child the "right" religion.  I KNOW that to question things makes you unpopular but I'm a mother and I don't have a baby to prove it, does that mean I'm not a mother?  I have a grave site that holds the earthly remains of my precious daughter, that is what I have to show.  I can tell people that she existed for a brief 39 weeks, that she was alive.  But I don't have a shred of proof to show someone besides a piece of paper and a grave.  Who is to say that the PROOF that Jesus is the son of God and that the bible is "God's Word" are really proof at all, isn't it completely possible that much like the Harry Potter books that the bible was meant to be a "STORY", not to be taken so seriously.  I mean we don't have a "body" for Jesus we are told that is because he rose from the dead, we don't have any real proof that Jesus really existed.  As a believer this is where your faith is suppose to kick in and my doesn't anymore, I cannot say that the God and Jesus I thought I knew that I worshiped that I taught about was really REAL or was it a figment of someone's imagination, to help us "humans" deal with life and death.  It's a great story, but some days that is what I believe it is a STORY, then I will have days (these are few and far between) that I wonder if I shouldn't have faith and just trust blindly like I'm told to in the bible and all that is in it.  Because more then anything I want to know that my daughter is in a beautiful place like heaven as its described in the bible...But is heaven like what the Jews, Muslims or do the Christians have it right?  I want my daughter to be an angel, I like the thought of her as MY guardian angel, my own flesh and blood watching over me, but then I stop and know she isn't flesh and blood anymore, by now she is a skeleton or close to it.
So we all have a personality, we have a "soul" a spirit of who we are that resides inside of us and makes us who were are the individual, but how individual are we really now a days?  I'm not much different from my peers, we think alike, do the same things like the same stuff.  How is my "soul" different from anybody else really?  Some days I feel like we are all "lemmings" who follow the leader blindly into the sea.  But then if people assert their individuality they are called weird, hippie, gay, biker whatever, they still have a label and they still have a "group" of people they belong to of like minded individuals that think on a collective level.  For instance I have a sister in law that on occasion has blue hair, she doesn't think like I do and we really don't get along well, I think she is weird, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual, she looks at me and probably thinks that I'm so ORDINARY, I'm not eccentric and I follow most of the rules of the society I live in.  I know she LIKES to be different, she LIKES to express her individuality, but frankly I've seen numerous people that have blue hair and are weird and I term them "hippies".  Enough about my sister in law I think you get my point.  Whether you think your an individual and want to express yourself there is a sect of people out there that think just like you, dress like you and do the same things you do, so how individual are you really?
I know this is an extra long post, I had a headache and took some Excedrin so I'm a little wired but full of wonder at different ideas, that if I let myself explore them in writing MAYBE I'll find someone like me. I would like to think that I'm totally different then anybody on the planet but I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only person that is having these ideas, that would be naive and silly to think that way.  I wonder what would happen if I started practicing I don't know Olympian Paganism, you know Zeus, Hera, Posiden, Hades, Athena, Artemis etc...What would happen?  Or maybe Wicca, I could be a witch.  I'm already a bitch so why not try?  But in my case, Christianity is so beat into me that I will find another religion extremely foreign and part of me wouldn't actually BELIEVE in it either.  So being that right now I'm feeling atheist does that mean my daughter is just GONE, that her spirit just extinguished in a blink of an eye?  I find that thought reprehensible, she can't just be completely GONE can she?  Then I think about it and I say with absolute certainty that she is in Heaven with her grandma Maria, her great grandma Angie and great grandpa George and Great Great Grandma Jenkins, and Great Great Grandma Kniffen and every other soul that I knew here and loved here on earth.  That she was my gift to some of the greatest men and women I knew in my life that a piece of me that they wanted so badly is in heaven with them for them to love and raise and watch over.  My GIFT to my Grandparents, my great grandparents and my mother in law who ALWAYS wanted a girl of her own and never lived long enough to see her granddaughters (she ended up so far with 2, she had 3 baby boys).  My love for my grandparents, great grandparent's and mother in law is obvious, my heart was ripped out when I lost my great grandma's even though I was younger, more recently I lost my grandparent's but none of those deaths hit me as hard as my own daughter, THAT one has destroyed the person I thought I was.
As you can see, everything about my life I now question, I question whether I have led the life I wanted to or led the life that was EXPECTED too.  I think THAT is the biggest question of all isn't it?  For ALL of us?  The society I live in expects you to work for the things you have, but is that how I want to live? I again say any other way would be completely deviant from how I was raised.  Think about HOW HARD it would be to completely change how you live, say giving up all the "comforts" of an AMERICAN life, because let's face it there aren't a lot of places in the world that live life like American's, could I give up that life to say live in Africa? Be a hunter/gatherer?  Could I even IMAGINE how hard that life would be to lead? The resounding answer is "HELL NO" I couldn't do it, I couldn't live in a tent and bathe in a river and spend every second of every day hunting and gathering food and water to just survive. I love to camp but could I manage to LIVE in a tent or cave if I was lucky enough to have one of those things either.  I have horrible anxiety when we lose electricity for gods sake.  COULD I live with absolutely nothing like I have now?  Again NO NO NO!  Even changing geography, I went from Michigan to Arizona, my lifestyle there was COMPLETELY different there then it was here.  And that is only 2,000 miles from where I grew up, still in the same country.  Then I think about maybe moving to another country completely, but know that I would be miserable.  My move to Arizona was good for me, it taught me how to be "on my own" and not relying on anybody, but I still was able to talk to family and friends here, I was able to come and visit as often as I could afford.  But what would I do if I lived in a new country?  I have a feeling I would be miserable without the people I love close by.  Because really how horribly expensive is it to fly these days? If I moved to AZ now I would NEVER be able to afford to come home as often as I did back then.  Hell I barely made it when I did come and I nearly ALWAYS had help doing if from my parent's.  See when I have time to think about different things my true ADD comes out.
There are few people and things that I can trust in my life. I trust and love my husband, he is the one thing that makes everything else in life better.  My husband's heart belongs to me, he loves me as much as I love him.  He is my best friend has been for 12 years now, he has been a constant in my life, a rock that I cling too.  I can tell him anything and nearly always he will accept it, if he doesn't he will argue his point and why.  He thinks a lot of my ideas are nuts but that is what makes things fun. He means the world to my small little world and that is what matters most to me. He makes me laugh at myself and keeps me from going off the deep end that more often lately than previously in my life has been so close.  He pulls me off the ceiling and holds me close and I know he will never let me go, he will never lie, never cheat and he will never leave me until he dies.  THAT is LOVE.  My Parent's have stood behind me, carried me, held me and comforted me throughout my life.  I am and always will be a Daddy's Girl and I'm proud of that.  My Dad is the best Dad in the world, I got so lucky to get him when I was created.  He might not have much to say most of the time but when he does talk you better listen.  My Dad has been through HELL, and I truly mean that, he served in Vietnam, he is my hero.  I love my Daddy, I try so hard to please him, to make him see that I'm a "big girl" now and can take care of myself and my small family (my kitties are my children now), that I am the woman he always'd hoped I would be.  I know that there have been times that I didn't live up to expectations, that I made NUMEROUS mistakes, but you know what there was always a lesson that I learned from those mistakes, or at least I've TRIED to learn the appropriate lessons.  My Mom is also the best Mom in the world and one day I hope that my daughter can look up to me and tell me the same things that I'm about to tell my Mom.  Even though I was a teenage girl, that I'm sure once in my life I have said that I wanted a new Mom, I know I couldn't have picked a better Mom for myself.  My Mom after all my childish tantrums, my teenage angst, my twenty-something hardheadedness and my thirty-something whoa's my Mommy has been rock solid, never wavering in her love and support of me.  Never giving up on me when other's might have done so, and always being a sounding board, a confidant a friend now that I'm older but she was always a Mom, the BEST Mom.  I wanted more than anything to follow in my Mom's footprints, I wanted to be just like her, but I know that will never happen.  I am not like her, I look like her, I find myself saying things she does, but my personality is completely different as is I'm sure with every other woman on the planet, we always say we are SO NOT OUR MOTHER, in my case, I wish I was more like my Mom.  I wish I had her patience, I wish I had her grace under pressure, I wish I had her nerve.  I don't, but one day MAYBE I'll pick up those traits in her.  She means so much to me, and the lists of why that is grows longer everyday.  I guess its something to aspire to.  Lastly but certainly not least is my brother.  Thom is a wonderful man, he keeps me grounded I think more then anybody.  He reminds me of who I am and who I hope to become.  Because let's face it as humans we grow until we die, our personality or "spirit" whatever you want to call it.  I love my baby brother, he is gentle and loving and strong.  He is another of my anchors that keeps me here helps me to learn and grow every day.
I'm finally yawning and think I'm ready to go and lay down, if you have made it here to the bottom and you don't hate me or think I'm nuts thanks.  Sweet dreams...