Time is not the enemy .. it just feels that way sometimes.

In 2010 my best friend set out to destroy me with a lie that cost me 15 years of professional momentum. Yes, I have forgiven. All of them, actually .. it turned out to become a rather nasty coup years in the making involving the University at which I was employed and my supervisor .. as well as best friend who we could say I shared a Romantic friendship.

Two years later I ended up fired and a casualty of that coup/war. Taking the high road of faith, surprising to naive yet bold me, only made me seem a deluded villain .. cast as some kind of perverted stalker.

Yet, I'd learned to let them do their worst .. even with my unemployment benefits were blocks and EDD also cast me as the devil. Surely nobody has integrity or lives by principle these days .. I had to be a liar .. and a control freak. So much for self discipline.

Yes, it cost me dearly. The years since have seen me spent my retirement savings. Moved three times. Still seeking work. And yet .. here is the faith story nobody wants to hear much less live.

I was saved. Didn't fight to keep that job because, frankly, I was dying it in anyway. My soul and spirit had been pierced, stabbed and punctured. I was steadily losing life force and hanging on just for the sake of it and because I really didn't know what else to do.  Faith delivered me by seeing me lose it all so I could rebuild. Not exactly what I wanted.

However, three years later, I see the changes that otherwise would not have transformed me back into my natural state. I see now that this life I'm living, were it cut off tomorrow, is better than 50 more years of the life I was living. I see pictures from then .. for all the "status" the only thing I could see was a very unhappy man.

I see someone who has joy now and a renewed spirit. I have confidence for the future because I am at peace in the present. I didn't find ways to stay bitter or seek revenge. I thought more of myself and kept the faith that life gets better one way or another .. and that even if it didn't, I lived by my faith and principle and integrity and didn't let anyone, even a group of them closest to me, take that away from me.

No, the road of faith isn't all glamour. It can really bite for quite some time. It is a wonderful, inspiring fantasy to read about but a bitch to live. Nevertheless, there is no ride quite like it. Faith means seeing your victory as the life you worked so hard to build is burning down around you as you fall into a hole that you aren't sure how to get out of to be honest.

But there are some things some of us just know. My faith tells me there Is something better than the worst and that the best is always going to eventually find me so long as I keep a good thought and always find beauty and love in my day. Everyday.