My husband calls me The Ostrich.

For two decades now he has said it like it was a bad thing. And I reluctantly agreed.

You can’t go through life with your head buried in the sand.

That mentality was part of the old me, the one who needed SOMETHING to alter my reality in order to function.

I still find that a little crazy. I love life with such abandon now that it’s hard to even remember that girl. But I know one thing- she never wanted to face her problems.

It wasn’t wise; it wasn’t mature; and it was not the way to live.

So I grew up. I dealt with problems instead of running from them. I admitted my mistakes and I confronted others when necessary.

I saw the world for what it was and I spoke truth.

In short, I pulled my head out of the sand.

Lately, though, I’ve wanted to find a dark hole to burrow into. Maybe one that goes all the way to China. Or, better yet, the 70’s.

The 70’s aren’t likely going to represent innocence for the generations born before me. But for those who also spent that decade bicycling on streetlamp-lined sidewalks and selling lemonade for a quarter on card tables adorned with poster boards, you know what I’m talking about.

The biggest neighborhood fights were over tree limb encroachment but that wouldn’t stop either party from sharing a burger at the neighborhood barbecue.

Now we have neighbors with hatred for anyone who doesn’t share their beliefs, families who can’t spend holidays together because of their political discord, and friendships irrevocably broken over societal issues.

Our nation is not only NOT indivisible, the chasm is so great that future generations have already disappeared into its recesses and nobody has even realized it yet.

We are destroying this nation, one conflict at a time.

The left pushes an agenda. The right pushes their own agenda back. Most people go all in with one or the other.

The problem is, neither tells the truth. It’s yellow journalism at its worst. And people read sensational headlines without fact-checking and rumors and half-truths circulate and grow. And the chasm grows even wider.

I hate this nation I’m living in now. I hate what’s happening, particularly to Christian beliefs. I have not wavered from speaking the gospel truth, nor have I lost faith in Jesus. He said these days would come and I’m afraid this is only the tip of the iceberg.

I don’t want this to be the world I live in. I wish I could will it away, back to a simpler time. I want my grandkids to have the childhood I did. I want my great-grandkids to know a life without such hatred.

I don’t want to hear anything else. I don’t want to know the wicked things happening around me and I don’t want to know how evil man can be. I want to live in a world filled with sunshine and roses and if it can’t be like that, I just don’t want to know about it.

Not very mature, is it?

But, I know that no matter how the battle looks right now, in the end Christ wins the war.

And I don’t have to line up with the left or the right to be on that winning team. I just have to line up with Jesus.