Figuring Out Faith

I know of a lot of faith building experiences. Everyone does--- hearing stories about trials people faced and overcame, and the miracles others have experienced. It would be easy to write about one of those, but I think I'm meant to write an experience I went through myself.

Man. I often don’t know what to believe. I am easily swayed, always wondering and shifting like a chameleon on how I’ve decided to try and believe things. I wish a lot of things are true, but often wonder if they are or not.

I wasn’t always like this, long ago in the days of growing up til high school, I knew what I

knew and that was that. Once I hit 8th grade, pain was something I realized was very real. My

sister had her femur broken in an accident, and every other night I could hear her moaning and screaming as a machine pulled her leg out, then bent it back to a angled position. Why would this happen to her? I wondered. Yeah, we didn’t get along very well on good days, but she didn’t deserve that. This wondering crept into my head. Most days it stayed in the back of my head, and all was calm-- until Junior year.

This year of my life was like being pulled along behind a speeding car, screaming and holding onto the cardboard separating you from extreme emotional road rash. I got through the cardiac arrest of my brother, and the passing of my grandfather for the most part OK. However, the whiplash of switching classes is what ended up undoing me. The teacher in charge of the different classes berated me in front of my parents. She pointed out every flaw in my reasoning, and proceeded to tell me how hard it would be to ever succeed without the same level of education. She inserted daggers as she tried to drive her point home, telling me I would never get into any art shows, or into any art schools due to my decision. (Which were two of my biggest dreams at the time.) Friends I had carefully, cautiously come close to were now impervious to the majority of my shy attempts to reach them. I would sit there in the library, after lunch and watch them walk away laughing after a stilted conversation with me, and slowly they would fade off in their direction, as I turned towards my new one. I had nightmares about one of them, stopping me in the hall and yelling at me, telling me how stupid I was.

My new classes were fine academically, but socially, the friends I didn’t know after so

long were hesitant to reach out to me. I sunk into myself, and tried to smile, just dreaming of any possible end to the loneliness.

That summer, the emotional pain numbed into apathy, and I wasn’t sure what to believe

anymore. That was the most unsure I was of my belief system than I have ever been in my life. I wanted to be rid of religion. I felt like a hypocrite, going every week to church meetings, listening to other people talk about faith that I couldn’t find inside myself. I decided I was going to find out if it was true, and started going with the intent of deciding whether or not anything FELT true to me.

It was like that for a few months, and I started to recognize happiness in little things

around me touching my heart. I started to believe maybe there was some heavenly person out beyond who cared for me as his daughter. Slowly, I felt like I understood what other people where saying when they told their stories about faith.

I wish I could say that since that summer, I haven’t had any doubt since, but that would

be a lie. Faith for me is a struggle, a battle that needs to be fought everyday. Somedays I win, and come out full of hope. Other days, I lose a bit of my faith and need to find it again.

That’s the thing about faith though, is that as long as you even want to have faith-even if

all you can do is desire to believe, that is enough.

In the bible, there is a story I think of a lot- a man came to Christ and asked him to heal his son. Christ asked the man if he had enough faith for his son to be healed, and the man replied, “Lord I believe, but help thou mine unbelief.”

There are times that everyone faces where faith is hard. Belief is close to gone. Even

though those times may last months, days, years, I can tell you that if you even just want to

desire faith, and push in the ways you know gain that faith, you will find help. Comfort can come in the smallest of things. The trick is noticing those small things, and thinking about how those small things came to be in your life.

No matter where you are at in life, one thing that I am sure of, beyond a doubt, is that

God loves each and everyone of his children. He will help you if you turn to him. I know that

through Christ we can find peace and forgiveness for others and ourselves.

So hey, you are loved. And if you don’t have faith in that now I hope someday you will.

Sincerely, Makayla Lynn

#anditcametopass #change #friends #faith #future #struggle #conquer #seekeroftruth #godsnotdead