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.
No comments:
Post a Comment