Why I'm not a homeschooled Amish Catholic.

I may have mentioned this in a previous post, but I believe it's worth a second look... and a second laugh.  I have been through three identity crises in my childhood.  During the first, I decided to become Amish.  This was as a result of a book I read by a woman named Beverly Lewis, considered to be one of the "top authors of Amish fiction."  Laugh if you must.  After some research, my passion for the Amish lifestyle began to fade.

It wasn't but a few years later, though, that I decided I wanted to quit middle school and be homeschooled instead.  I volunteered with two girls who were very kind and clearly it must have been because of their good, Christian up-bringing which couldn't be created without the crucial element of homeschooling.  My mom shut this idea down quickly.

Finally, my freshman year of high school, my love of reading took me on a final whim during which I decided I was going to be a Catholic.  I can thank the book "Arms of Love" for teaching me that only Catholics get good husbands.  (Note: That was not the moral of the book.  My honors English teacher at the time would have been horrified to know how sorely I misinterpreted it.)

If you know me well, you know I am a "plain," public-schooled girl who attends a United Methodist Church.  So, what is my point in divulging my childhood fantasies to you?  Would you ever have believed that I would actually leave behind my lifestyle for the Amish, my school for homeschooling, or my church home for Catholicism?  Probably not, unless I actually did those things.

You see, as a child, I put my faith in everything that was offered to me.  I was like the person described in Ephesians 4:14, the one who is "tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine."  Yet, in my innocence, I did everything whole-heartedly.  I honestly believed that each of these desires was the key to being fulfilled.  I did not lack faith.

I lacked action.  You see, these things seem ridiculous partly because I never did them and partly because they were far-fetched attempts to fulfill myself.  I simply threw all my faith behind one thing and hoped it would happen.  One would think that if I truly believed it was the solution for me, I would go out and do things to make my dreams happen.

I had faith, but it was without works.  And faith without works doesn't... work.  So I ask you, where do you put your faith?  Before you say in God, though, I challenge you to take a second look: Where do your actions say your faith is?  Now there's the tougher question.