It's easy to talk about how strong your faith is when life is simple. Life is simple when all you have to worry about are the bills to be paid, maintaining relationships, and going to work everyday. It is during these times when you can say that your faith is strong, and it may be, but will it continue to stay strong when life isn't so simple?
A month ago I sat in my cozy little bed in my own home, surrounded by my husband and children, and thought to myself that my faith was strong and secure. I understood things, I saw the reasons for things going on my life, and with understanding came faith and complacency. I look back now and realize that saying your faith is strong when life is simple is like saying the wind is nothing BEFORE the storm has actually hit. Is the wind still nothing when you're standing in the middle of a category 5 hurricane? Is your faith still strong when you're having to stand by and watch someone you love dearly die of a horrible disease while you stand by helpless to do anything but offer comfort?
That is the situation I'm in right now. I'm standing in the middle of the hurricane with the wind about to blow me over. Time and time again, the gusts have come at me and tried to knock me down. As my mother's cancer spreads and her condition worsens I can hear the wind whipping around me. I remember fondly, longingly, my simple life before and realize that it is going to be a long time before I return to that calm pre-storm condition, and when I do it will be without the woman that brought me into this world and made me the person I am today. I think about my faith.....and realize that for the first time I understand what faith really is.
Faith is more than just trusting that God is there in your simple day to day life. Faith means trusting that God is there when day to day life falls apart. Faith means being willing to stand in the storm with no shelter other than God's love while the wind and rain of life try to pummel you into submission. Faith means being willing to walk blindfolded through life without knowing where you're going, how you're going to get there, or why you need to be there in the first place. And that's what I'm doing now...walking blindfolded into the very heart of the storm.
For the first time in my life I understand what it means to have to fully rely on God. I have to rely on Him for shelter from the storm, for the balance to stay upright in the wind, for the strength to remain standing when I'm weighted down with the rain, and for the guidance to see me safely through to the calm on the other side of the storm. It reminds me all over again of the night I gave myself to God.
The night that I was saved, that I officially gave my heart and soul to God, I remember very clearly the story the preacher told that moved me to hand my life over to a greater power. He read from the Bible, Matthew 14:22-31, the story of Jesus walking on the stormy Sea of Galilee and calling out to Peter to join Him on the water. Peter walked to Him on the water, but began to sink when he took his eyes off the Lord. Peter cried out to the Lord to save him, and the Lord took hold of Peter and said, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” The preacher asked who among us that night had the faith to step out of the safety of the boat, onto the stormy water....and I stood up.
That was a long time ago, but I find myself over the last few days stepping out of the boat again, as though for the first time. Each time I kiss mom good night, not knowing if it's for the last time, I take another step across the water. Each time I hold her as she cries from the pain of the cancer, or from the realization that she's dying, I take another step across the water. And I will continue to take these steps without fear and without understanding, because I know that should I falter the Lord is there to catch me. His hands will be there to raise me up. And that, my friend, is faith.
Faith is not sitting on the shore watching the storm rage across the water and thinking that you could weather it if you had to. Faith is being in the middle of the hurricane, on the stormy sea, and stepping out of the boat.........and KNOWING, not thinking, but KNOWING that you won't sink.
Faith is not governed by reason or understanding. Actually, it's quite the opposite. Faith is trusting in the absence of reason and understanding. I don't understand why my family suffers tragedy after tragedy, not even recovering from one loss before we get hit by another. I don't understand why in less than a ten year span I should have to lose my dad, my grandmother, and my mother. I don't understand why my children have to grow up without their grandmother and lose the opportunity to learn from her experiences as I did with my grandmothers. I don't understand why my step-dad, a man as wonderful and deserving as anyone could be, should finally find his soul mate in my mother only to lose her just three short years later. It's not fair and I don't understand why it has to be this way, but you know what? I'm okay with not understanding. I'm okay with it not being fair. Even as the blindfold is tied behind my head, as I feel the winds of the storm approaching, even as I step out onto the stormy sea, I. HAVE. FAITH.
I'm standing in the storm feeling the shelter of God's love. I'm walking on the stormy water and I know I'm not going to sink. I'm walking blindfolded with no knowledge of where the next step is going to take me or why I need to be there. And I know deep down inside that it's going to be okay. After the fear, and the worry, and the pain, I know that it's all going to be okay.
That, my friend, is faith.
