10.12.09
A Question Of Faith
трапезни масиRecently someone said to me, “you are a real Christian women.” I can’t imagine myself as that especially in view of the events in my life during the past year and a half that have caused me to question my faith. Recently I was watching an episode of Numbers and one of the characters said, “in the past, one door closed and another has always opened but now I feel I’m in the vestibule of uncertainty.” I thought to myself, that’s exactly where I feel I am and have been for so long.
Where is God? A question I have asked myself many times of late and yet I know God is here and everywhere. I see him in a child’s smile, in the autumn hues, in the simple pleasures of life, friendship and love, a meal shared with good friends old and new. But when I see the suffering in the world, sick children, old people being neglected, children being hurt at the hands of those who are supposed to protect them and I wonder, where is God? Did he look away for a moment? Does he not care? If he is an all seeing all loving and forgiving God, then how can he allow these things to happen and what do you do when bad things happen to good people.
I don’t have the answers and as I struggle with my faith. These things and my own troubles have caused med to question God. As a Christian and a Catholic I’m not suppose to question God but just accept that he has a greater plan for me than I have for myself; but even Peter lost his faith for awhile. There are those who say that God doesn’t allow these things, man does. Then how do you explain a baby born with cancer, or floods that take the lives of hundreds, tsunamis, hurricanes, famine, and why must any child suffer from unbearable and often incurable illnesses? Did man create these things? I don’t think so. Questions with no answers.
People have told me that I’m a strong person but I don’t feel strong. What is strength anyway. If it’s just moving forward when all you really want to do is crawl into bed and pull the covers over you and shut the world out, then I guess I’m strong. If you keep putting one foot in front of the other and move through life, going through the motions like some robot than I guess I’m strong; but what about those who have suffered great loss and sorrow and do shut down, are they any less strong? Somehow I don’t think so.
Maybe my faith was never that strong to begin with therefor I haven’t really lost it. I know that I will keep praying as I have done. I know my prayers have been answered in the past. Maybe not always as I would have had them answered but nonetheless they have been. I still believe in God and always will. I still believe that I will be united with those whom I love that have passed and I must believe that there is a purpose to all things but I’m not meant to know why. If I didn’t believe in these things than I couldn’t go on and life is a gift and I’m meant to make the most.
Seems like we look for God in all the wrong places and the one place we should be looking is in our hearts.
As for A Question Of Faith, well maybe this quote sums it up, with my apologies to God and Baroness Orczy:
“They seek him here. They seek him there. Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in Heaven? Or is he in Hell? That damned, illusive, pimpernel.”