Faith of a Child, Or Just a Kid?

One of my favorite bible stories is the one of the woman who touched Jesus' robe as he passed, knowing that if she just touched him, he would heal her. She did, and He healed her. Yet there are those like my Grandmother, who has always recieved answers to her prayers, who suffer from severe sickness that contiue to grow and get stronger. Why does Jesus not heal her when asked? Is her faith insufficient? Why is she any different than that women in the bible? Just because she does not see Jesus face to face? But she knows Him, maybe more than that woman in the bible.



Which makes me question, Is God so giving and just? Or does he just pick and choose who he wants to save? What is the point of having the faith of a mustard seed, when the mountain you want to move, doesn't move? There is always a catch in religous logic. They say all you have to do is believe and anything is possible, but then when you do and nothing does happen, they can say, God wants you to go through this. Belief does not get you anything. You still have to rely on God choosing you to actually give you what it is you want.

"We will never know God's mind"
or my favorite,
"Just because you think you need it, doesn't mean you do. There is a difference between want and need"

All of these seem more like excuses when things don't turn out the way you said. You can pray as hard as you want, and believe, or even know, and it all comes down to God and his whim. Call it what you want, but it is his decision, not a higher purpose for pain.

The Voice in the Rain

I remember when I was growing up, the thing I wanted most was to feel God's presence. Every month I heard people bear witness that God was in their lives and that they could feel Him with them. I wanted that more than anything. I knew that if I believed hard enough it would come true. My favorite story in the Bible was the one about the women in the crowd that caused Jesus to stop and say "Someone has touched me". Her faith was so strong that not only could Jesus feel it, he could feel some power come out of him into her. He stopped and looked for the source of that draw. She said that she knew that if she could just touch him she would be cured. You know, the best part of that story is that she was right! All she had to do was touch him, then she was cured!

I knew that, that would be my fate too. Because I knew that all I had to do was wait and Jesus would make me whole again. He would answer my prayers, he would save me. I KNEW. So I waited. And I grew up. And no answers, no peace, no help. I was still unbelievably broken, and getting worse. Yet still I believed, still I prayed. 

"God tests us" 

"We are rough and He makes us like diamonds with heat and pressure"

"That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger"

"It is through our trials that God knows us"

"God does not give us trials that we cannot bear"

I repeated every nonsensical mantra in my head as I waited for his deliverance. Didn't the Jews have to wait patiently year after year for Moses to come. And then even longer to find a home. I could wait to find my home.....couldn't I?

My pain was only growing. Like a cancer it began to attack every decent thought, every decent memory, until all I was, was a decaying, broken shell. Still I was alone. Still I had no answer.

The end nearly came many times. I was a wreck. I could hardly function, and I definitely could not hold onto any type of relationship. I was even more alone, by my own doing! And still God would not deliver me. 

I escaped to the mountains. I drove and drove, looking for somewhere to hide away forever, or at least till I could breathe again. Soon I couldn't see, my tears were too much, so I had to pull over. I cried out for God again and again! "Where are you!" He was not there, He would not save me. 

Then I heard something so real, that to this day I still do not know if I made it up, or if it was true. A voice. A simple voice, from my head or from His mouth, His voice.

"I will weep with you"

Then, out of the bright, blue Idaho sky, came rain. It rained for the next hour as I sat in my car crying and screaming and tearing at my skin. The sky poured out my pain on the mountainside even as my tears down my face. 

Finally when I had control of myself, I wiped my eyes, took a deep breath, and started my car. 

And the rain stopped too.

My Peace I give unto you

I grew up in a church that preached about "the burning in the bossom" and the closeness of God and how much he answers prayers. Well I prayed all the time and never got the answer to the one question I wanted an answer to. My biggest problem was that I wanted to answer so bad, and I believed so much, no I knew that I would get an answer, that I looked for that answer in everything. I found it in everything. Any little thing in my life was tied to that one question, because I wanted that answer and I knew that God would eventually give me that peace.

I've been told that you must love God before others, and others before your self. Well if that's true, then why do people say you have to love yourself before you are able to love anyone else? I don't know if I love God more than anyone else, I thought I knew when I was younger, than I had a daughter and I know I would do anything for that little girl. I also know that I do not do anything for God. I don't live for him, nor do I even think about him as much as I do my daughter. So does that make me a bad Christian? Or am I "just human" and subject to failure? 

I think I know now that it is not that you must love yourself, it is that you must find peace with yourself. I don't know if that's harder or not, but I know I am not anywhere close. How do you find peace with an imperfect object? How do you find peace with someone who hurts others? Who offends people everyday, who glares and grumbles and has anger in their heart? Or is that the very nature of peace, that you know something is imperfect, and you can find the beauty in that anyway, and be ok with the imperfections. 

That does not mean complacent, it just means that you can look at yourself in the mirror every night before you go to bed and say, "good try today". Maybe you weren't perfect, maybe you didn't everything right, but you can find peace with what you actually were that day, not what you wish you were. Getting to that peace is very trying also. That helps, the trying. It is easier to find peace with a work in progress, than a finished label. 

I cannot find peace with myself though. I can tell others all about it. I can give them hope, but it is only false hope, because even though I believe it, I cannot live it. I am a horrible religious hypocrite. I love religion and I can't live it. I love God, and I can barely speak to him. I cannot find peace with Him, or with myself. Does that mean I am doomed to a failed relationship? Or will Jesus come save me and give me peace?

I am still searching for the answer to my question. I am trying to not find it in every little thing I pass. I am trying not to live with my question daily. Maybe that will be my peace someday, that I won't be living with the search for my answer. That letting go of my question will give me peace and I won't have this aching hole left by the silent answer. Or maybe God will finally hear me crying in the dark and give me his peace, and wipe my tears away with the answer I so desperately search for. 

Jesus gave his peace to all, by saving them. Am I selfish for wanting more?

Fight for Faith

     The thing I have learned about faith, is when you are praying and really trying to be in tune, you find miracles and proof of your faith in everything and everyone. Then, when faith is not on your mind, your life goes on as normal without God's intervening hand ever being known or recognized. So my question is, do we see God because we want to, because we are looking for him, or are we so fanatic in our need for him that we force miracles where none occur.

     I have a good friend, let's call her Sarah, she is a women of great character and faith. I have had many wonderful discussions on faith with her despite the fact that we both belong to very different religions. Sarah was getting married. So she went to an OB to start on birth control. She was a virgin still, so her doctor didn't feel the need to do a thorough exam, and just prescribed her birth control and sent her on her way. A simple thing, most people would never even think twice about. After a few weeks of procrastinating because she just didn't feel good about it, she finally decided to just get it over with and start taking the pills. Her father came down just then with tears in his eyes. He hugged Sarah before he could speak. Then he told her about a dream he had just woken up from. The kind that seems so vivid, that when you wake up you can't tell if it was real or not. He had dreamed of Sarah in the hospital, her future husband crying at her bedside because she was dying. At first he didn't understand why, then he knew it was because of something in her birth control. And he stood there, unable to do anything as his beloved daughter slowly died. Sarah looked at the pills on the counter and thought of her reluctance to take them. She immediately flushed them down the drain and has never taken any form of birth control since then. Nor does she ever plan to. She never knew if her father's dream would have come true and if her reluctance saved her life, but she has great faith and trusts that God protected her from something horrible.

     Is this true? Did God send a miracle in the form of something so human as procrastination? Or "just a feeling" that she didn't want to take birth control? It seems a little far-fetched for something that we will never be sure really was a miracle at all. Was she just reading more into a fear then was actually there? 

     This same friend though, has been blessed by many miracles. Every sunday Sarah and her older brother would drive to 7-11 for the slushes. They got in one of those silly sibling fights one week, it didn't seem to mean much later, but at the time seemed to pull apart their normally close relationship. By Sunday morning Sarah's brother was already over it, and wanted to call Sarah to forgive and forget. He decided to wait a few hours though, what was a couple hours in the grand scheme of things? So he went to get the slushes by himself. On the way back he got into a bad wreck, spinning out of control and smashing the front passenger side of his truck. Completely crushing the place where Sarah's legs would have been.

     It is not often that we see such a blatant show of the effects our decisions make. The religious child in me thinks she must have an amazing purpose in this life that God is so publicly protective of her. He has saved her life twice at least that I know of, maybe more! The realistic adult that has been hardened against such things, thinks what a lucky break she had. What happened to my childlike innocence and brave, blind faith? Where I could once see the wonder of God's simple hand in our lives, now I question everything and see our own human weakness of stumbling on dumb luck instead of miracles.

     I want to fight my way back to faith again. Yet even as I say that, my body feels at war. Can I survive a need to believe God is in everything, while at the same time feeling God is ignoring my pain and suffering? How can I force my head around a presence I am told I must love, yet cannot feel?

     I think I love God. I know I love the idea of God, but I don't know if I have the strength for the battle ahead. It is a most important war, this war of souls. So I will chose to believe the miracles that have saved my friends life. Because miracles are not all bright lights, voices from Heaven or Angels. They are the small things we so easily brush off and ignore. That is what faith is; trusting and believing that those little things and feelings that we may miss more often than not are miracles. I had a feeling I shouldn't. We may never know the cost of our decisions when we follow our feelings. Whether they save us or not, they are our miracles.  Our faith may depend on the effect of a decision that we never know the result of, but it is in that moment, when we chose to believe that God has a hand in our lives as small as feelings, that we truly understand what faith is.