Living in Search of Faith

If I'm honest, and I try to be, faith is quite a struggle at times. I have an underlying faith that Jesus shows us the way to live even if we sometimes need to clear away the weeds of prejudice and misconception and the message is not always as clear as we would wish it to be. However, my faith that there is a God who is interested in me or anyone else and who is somehow working for good in this World, is not as strong as it could be. I certainly have my cynical moments and they can last some while.

Perhaps the struggles in my own life and the cries that seem to have gone unheard at times have contributed to my doubts, so it shouldn't be too surprising that now that something has happened, which I thought was impossible, I find my faith is a little stronger and God seems a little more real. Perhaps it is only a precariously flickering flame of faith, but one that is not in quite so much danger of becoming extinguished as it was.

So maybe this blog should be called 'Living in Search of Faith' or 'Living while desperately trying to cling on to faith'. I don't know, but I do know that at last my husband has been helped to really open up as well as to question his beliefs and values, and I find I am now living with someone whom I can relate to as a real flesh and blood human being and we are communicating on a level we have never done before. Not that this means all our problems are now solved. We still have a lot to sort out and the future remains uncertain, but it is so much easier to live with this situation. I also know that my own needs and weaknesses, many of which stem from childhood, haven't helped the situation. Who knows how all this has affected our children, it can't have been entirely good. However, we are only human at the end of the day and so can't expect to be perfect.

The joy of being a Christian is to know that we are each a Work in Progress and if we choose to work with our Maker, 'the God who sometimes can't be found', yet the One who is always 'with us even to the end of the age', whether we realise it or not, he will gently chip away at our flaws and tend our wounds and help us to become the person he has given us the potential to become. Sometimes he puts people in our way who help us to do this, but other people are flawed and fragile, too, so we cannot rely on someone who helps us in one way to help us in other ways and we need to be aware that they may not always be as strong or dependable as they may seem. When we are going through really difficult times it can be difficult to know quite who to turn to. A good counsellor can be invaluable, but at the end of the day nothing beats having good friends to talk to. (I have had experience of a bad counsellor in the past and that was certainly unhelpful and she may well have contributed to some of our problems. I am told that counselling is an unregulated field and anyone can put letters after their name, so you do need to choose carefully and a 'Christian' counsellor can mean all manner of things, not necessarily what you think it might.)

However painful to go through, once we come out the other side, our trials and tribulations can make us stronger and also better able to minister to others going through troubled times, too, so while they may seem like negative experiences and may be as a result of other people's actions that should not be condoned, there can be a positive side to them, although I have no intention of being glib or minimising the pain. There are experiences I would rather have not gone through as far as the pain is concerned, but having come out the other side, I am glad for the insights they have given me and would not wish to be without them. As a result I am less frightened of painful situations than I was, but I'm still as likely as the next person to be an emotional wreck while they are happening, I just realise now that they are rich learning experiences as well as devastating and disturbing ones while they last.

I am very much reminded that a few months ago I said I needed to hold onto this quote:

"It always seems impossible until its done" - Nelson Mandela

I had no idea how true that was at the time.