Tuesday, October 28, 2008

What is faith

My faith is being tested in a huge way lately. It isn't due to an incident in particular, I just find myself once again questioning my faith. With the heartache that we have endured it has become increasingly difficult lately for me to beleive that a fair, just god exists. I am struggling to understand why such a God allows the things to happen that have happened to us, to those around us, and to the many people we don't even know who walk the same path of torturous grief we have and do. I struggle to understand how the God the bible tells us about can sit back and allow the things that go on in the world to occur, day after day.

I grew up in church learning about God as a peaceful protector who accepts us and our faults and guides us as we travel through this life. But to be honest, I don't feel I've seen a whole lot of that God. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for my family, for my home, and the things we DON'T struggle for, but so many others do... and that I can't comprehend. I guess I'm just finding it increasingly difficult to put blind faith into a God who it seems has abandoned me when I've needed him the most.

I don't expect that life will always grant me what I ask for. I know it doesn't work that way. I understand that life's lessons are just that, and without struggle a person can't fully learn and accept.

I use to consider myself Pagan. Not Wiccan, Pagan. No voodoo or spells or any of that but a wonderful appreciation for the world around us and what it provides us. I have always beleived in reincarnation and evolution, beliefs that have left me confused with what I was taught about God and Christianity.

I just don't know if I'm cut out to blindly beleive that there is a man in the sky making all the decisions for my life and the lives around us. I know, free will and all that jazz but in the end, really if Christianity is correct, at least the way I've been taught it.... we don't have much free will at all.

I also have trouble with the ideal that the mistakes we make in life's lessons ultimately dictate whether we spend eternity in a place of wonderful enlightenment, or in a place of dispair. I have trouble with the notion that there's some terrifying ex-angel who lives on misery in a place of fire and terror. I have trouble with not being able to truly learn from my experience for fear of whether or not the guy aloft will deem me unfit for heaven and cast me into the depths of hell.

You know what I have trouble with the most? I have trouble understanding why this all powerful wonderful being would take my child and the children of others and keep them in heaven away from us by choice. Face it, God can do anything God wants. The other day the kids and I were watching Pet Sematary (I know, bad mother of the year award!) and the part came on where the little girl asks "Daddy? God could bring Gage back if he WANTED to, can I have faith in THAT"? And it made me think. Yes, by all accounts God could do that. This just and fair and loving God that we devote our lives to COULD, for all accounts end much of the suffering here on earth should he choose to. But he doesn't. He doesn't EVER do that. Even when we do everything we can to follow him and have faith in him and love him. He doesn't take what would be such simple steps for him and stop our misery.

He doesn't. And I'm not sure he can, because I'm not sure he exists. Maybe we beleive because we are afraid that if we have nothing to beleive in we will have to face that death might really be the end. We have to face the thought that there may not be a heaven with streets paved in gold waiting for us at the end of all of this. We might have to face the fact that WE are the only people who decide where our lives go and what turns we will take.

And maybe that's just too much responsibility for us to take.

1 comment:

Heather said...

I'm not really sure where to begin or even what to say. I truley understand how your faith can be waivered at this point...I've honestly been there done that, just probably not at the magnitude you have with losing a precious life. We're in the process of something HUGE in our lives right now, something that I had to give up fighting with God about to even begin to achieve. I have wonderful Christian friends that surround me daily with fervent prayer and a magnitude of trust and security I could never even find with my own family. Our God is an awesome God, and yes he COULD do everything you mentioned and more but he chooses to see what WE would do...he gave us the freedom of choice with the hope that we would choose the choice that HE chose for us. Sometimes it takes us sitting down and going over something for the millionth and one time to really get what it is He has been trying to tell us. I am in no way saying that my faith also isn't pushed to the limit when I see people like us suffering financially, emotionally, physically all while non-Christians seem to have it so easy. But even as I waiver I am also reminded that Christians are tested daily to see if they REALLY are trusting and believing God...to see if God is the one in control and not the co-pilot in our lives. The eternal rewards far outweigh the earthly rewards...at least that's what I have to believe to make it daily. When I surrender my battles for Him to take care of it really does all fall into place. Take for instance...we are 4 months behind in nearly every one of our bills, maybe 2 months behind in our utilities hence the reason they're not off yet, BUT what has taken us 4 months to do is working out to be undone in just 4 WEEKS. I've prayed, I've surrendered, I've listened, and I've followed the path the HE brought my way and I'm obeying and guess what...IT'S WORKING!!! These things are so very hard to explain to people that have never been in a place with our faith like you and I have been in, but you and I both know He's there...it's just up to us now.

I'll be praying for you and your family, and I do hope that you find that peace you so desperately have been searching for lately. I love you Kat.