I recognize, even as I type, how churchy this blog is starting out. Bear with me, because although it sorta is, it's no less genuine. Some stuff is getting really real in me now as things I've always known in my head, make the long, arduous journey the full 12 inches to my heart...
Being a hater of churchy bumper-stickers like I am, I've recently been repulsed by the five letter recipe that makes up the word F-A-I-T-H. People sling the word around in every situation, mostly (in my mind, at least) referring to some mystical, unicorn riding, fairy loving la-la land dweller. "Just have faith, Collene, everything will be great." "Life is beautiful if you just have faith." Nonsense. Life is messy and ugly mixed with moments of beauty and pleasure, for EVERYONE. The faith-full do not get a free pass. Furthermore, faith for the faith's sake is stupid, empty, a waste of time and breath. Faith in what is my problem. The "promises" that I always thought were true, didn't work out so well for me, even with a fairy-dusting of "faith".
So, since I'm still thinking, pretty much daily, about these false internal narratives that started this whole blog thing, I've been re-reading my earliest writing. It turns out "faith" was a roaming word in November too, with my new friend "trust". As a side note: HOW COOL IS THIS? I am a whole different girl than I was in November!! Yay, but I'm still working it out....so back to the "F" word...
Okay, so I Googled the Hebrews verse and decided to read the whole chapter. There's obviously lots of stuff there. It's a fire-hose of information about people in history who had faith...I'll get back to this, because what I did next was Google the word "hope". The first link that brought me to some excerpts of something C.S. Lewis wrote about "Hope, Desire and Longing". The guy is deep, and I'm a hairstylist, (read petri-dish-deep) so I've left the tab open all week and spent the week re-reading his stuff. The thing that sticks in my head is:
"Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise.."
"The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.' A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world..."
"If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only... to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, echo, or mirage."
Go Mr. Lewis!! Okay, mixed in with his words on that particular website were a few other verses, so I looked 'em up: 1 Peter 1:3- nevermind, just read 1 Peter when you get time, most of it applies... Also, Lamentations 3:25 "The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him"
What "good" means here is yet to be understood by me. However, for the first time ever, I'm blind to the plan, uncomfortable in the emotions, unsure of my ability, and completely confident that I can trust that He will be good to me in the end- because of the desert I find myself in... Here's why:
All of these things I read, coupled with some pretty insightful conversations with my fake big sister this week, brought me back to the faith of Moses. He was resolute in his belief that God is trustworthy, faithful. He placed his hope in God's promise of freedom, so much so, that he led an entire race of people out of slavery in Egypt (impressively, I might add) to one-day-at-a-time living in the desert. The people were pumped and trusting of the situation, briefly. Then stuff got unclear, uncomfortable, ugly... they got sick of the bread that was provided every single day, just enough, with no inkling of provision for tomorrow, and started longing for the predictable and known days of slavery in Egypt. Hindsight and history tells us it all worked out in the end: God kept His promise, He was trustworthy...
I spent the week identifying, in myself, the knee jerk reaction to some uncomfortable stuff in my desert. The dysfunctional prison of lying thoughts, unhealthy relationships and waste of time coping mechanisms have actually appealed to me recently, even as my daily needs are being met emotionally, physically, financially... Thank God for weeks like this, and friends like mine, and hope that won't disappoint!
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