Limber up for some exercises in faith, y'all.

I was in Times Square in NYC on election night and will never, ever forget the experience.  The gravity of the situation and the up and down emotions from so many people from all walks of life was  really something to behold.

So what do I do?  Vote for the "lesser" of two evils, as so many have done before?  I figure evil is still evil at the end of the day, so I went with a third party candidate that I knew had no shot to win.  But I voted my conscience at least.

2016 was the first presidential election where I did not vote for one of the two major party candidates.   I just could not do it.  And I really, really tried to do so.  Hillary Clinton is a career politician with possibly a mountain of skeletons in her closet, along with a ton of confusing innuendo that I suspect is a lot of spin and much ado about nearly nothing. She is likely a continuation of the policies and mindset of the Obama administration, which has not been the disaster that I expected it would have been originally.  But I chose not to vote for her, mainly due to her stance regarding abortion.  I watched the DNC closely and was reminded that there are still some core values of the party that I simply cannot be a part of.  I refuse to have figurative blood on my hands as I press the vote button.

I have watched Donald Trump assume the head position in the Republican party in a very short period of time in a impressive display of sheer willpower and alpha male type of aggressiveness.  The GOP has shown me that there is a real dearth of leadership and backbone in the party that would allow an outsider with zero experience to come in and push aside the other candidates, some of whom seemed to be reasonable options initially.  This whole new iteration of the GOP has left me pretty cold in my trust of the party and I'm now questioning if they are who they say they are. This is no time for cowards or hypocrites. (I guess there's never really a GOOD time for that...)

I don't know much about Donald Trump other than that he's a rich guy who does reality TV.  I've never seen any of his shows and I really don't know much about him, other than what I hear and read.  And that's what disturbs me the most.  He's a wild card.  I don't trust him to do the right thing.  I have no idea if the man who argues with beauty pageant contestants on Twitter can pick wise Supreme Court justices, for example.  He seems to be an incredibly vain and petty person who doesn't appear to be humble, even tempered, or intelligent enough to be an effective leader of the free world.  There has been no sign of compassion or patience that comes from this man, and that frightens me.

But then, he's just a man.  Just as I have always done with prior presidents, I'll pray for him.  I'll pray for him specifically.  And not that he'll do the things that I want done or feel strongly about.  I'll pray for wisdom, courage, foresight, and most of all, love and compassion for the entire world as he begins the biggest journey of his life.  I don't put my faith in this man, and nor should you. But God has a plan for us all, even the most narcissistic of us. So I get to stretch my faith here, because for a long period of time now, God has shown a tendency to use the least of us to get things done.  Heck, he even uses me sometimes.

So no, I have no faith in Donald Trump right now.  But God does believe in him, and I'm learning how to do that one day at a time now.