in defense of Christianity

After recently ranting against extremism in Christianity, I'm now going to take up the cause of Christianity because, well, I have things to say. And this is my blog, so I'm going to say them.
I am so deeply grateful to be a Christian, to know the love of Jesus Christ. With tears in my eyes writing this, I can sincerely say that I'm constantly overwhelmed by joy from the blessings in my life directly from His hand. After years of living in a truly awful marriage (and covering up that fact to the outside world), I was delivered from it with clear finality and was surrounded by angels in human form who bore me up with such grace and love, I could feel through them the strength of Jesus. My parents, my sisters, my best girlfriends, all joined my huddle and the fight to build my life again. With a shattered heart and a confused faith, I approached the throne of God with a simple plea, Help me through this, help me make it to the other side, wherever that is, and help me know who You really are. In fact, I even tried for awhile to completely throw off my faith, to see if it was another illusion with which I'd been living for so long. And you know what? It didn't work. I couldn't fling it away. Because you see, my faith is part of me. It's my identity and it's my very soul. My whole life I have felt the beautiful presence of God, and I've always known Him from the way my parents lived their lives and brought Him to every dinner table and every bedtime prayer. God's blessing was solicited for traveling, for healing, for peace at family functions, and even for math tests. And in the midst of the worst crisis of my life, God made His presence known to me, again and again. He was there with love and forgiveness and understanding and help and hope. God saved my eternal soul a long time ago, but He saved my earthly life, too. He was there as I picked up each little piece of Becky and glued her back together. And He was there when I met my husband. Some might say that Marty and I met by chance, but we both know differently. It was a connection guided by the most loving hands, the hands of our Creator and Redeemer. Marty and I give God all the credit for bringing us to each other and bestowing upon us the greatest human blessing of all, the gift of a soulmate.
I say all of this for a reason. My faith in Christ is the best thing I have to offer to this world, because the love of Christ inspires love in me. Without Him, I could very well be a bitter, angry, useless shell of a person right now, and this is no exaggeration, because I was tempted toward that path several times. Because Jesus loves me, I am proud to bear the title of Christian. And I am proud to be all the things that define Christians, and further, that define conservatism. I believe in the sanctity of life and the holiness of marriage. Of course that means I believe abortion to be murder and marriage to be between a man and a woman only. I believe what the Bible teaches me about these things. And you know what? This makes me incredibly uncool. Oh the pitying looks and the withering remarks I've had. And not just uncool...it makes me dumb, ill-informed, and worse, stupid. I consider myself to be a very bright, well-educated woman with a love for learning and knowledge. I can speak with a certain confidence on many, many subjects because I'm self-taught in many, many areas. But none of this matters when you also happen to be a Christian and a conservative. All of your education and hard-earned life wisdom fly out the window if you express adherence to the Christian faith. For some reason, this boils me down to a mere simpleton in the eyes of others who have it "really" figured out. To some people, being a Christian doesn't make you someone of another opinion, it makes you stupid.
I've never felt this more keenly than in the last few hours, with the result of this election. I watched a few minutes of The View this morning, and when Elizabeth Hasselbeck, the die-hard Christian conservative, spoke, her words brought me to tears. She accepted the defeat of her team with grace and beauty, and she said, "I'm going to get behind the new president, because that's what Americans do." Of course, the ladies surrounding her looked at her with the same brand of pity I've seen in the eyes of people I know, like "oh poor thing, she didn't know any better to vote for the RIGHT guy."
So I've realized something. Christians will always be uncool. We'll always be labeled anti-progressive, hateful, and ignorant. Why? Because we believe in certain black-and-whites, like the truth of sin. We believe in a different kind of love, the kind that doesn't say, Anything goes, but the kind that says, You're a sinner but I love you anyway, and I came to give you freedom from your sin.
So I'll never fit in with the cool kids. I can accept that. Because Jesus told me I wouldn't fit in, that I shouldn't fit in. He told me not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of my mind to a higher love that humans can't attain outside of His power. He told me I'm just a traveler, passing through this place on my way to my heavenly home. He told me I might even be persecuted for taking His name and identifying myself with Him.
But you know what? I'd rather be on His side, because of all the beautiful things He's done for me. I've seen His hand so clearly in my life, and really, standing up for Him and for the truth is the least I can do in return. There are people who might read this and write me off as ridiculous, and I can't do anything about that. Because I have to be true to my soul, which belongs to Jesus.