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"Keeping the Faith"
— by Connie Habash
Someone said
to me the other day that they went through a period of time when they
lost faith in God, because so many bad things happened in their life.
Chances are good that if you've found this article, you have some sense
of a relationship to a Higher Power/Spirit/the Divine (for lack of a better
generic term) in your life. What happens when your belief or faith in
that Spiritual Presence falters, or gets challenged when you go through
hard times?
We've all experienced this to some degree
or another. We lose a job or have a breakup, we have an accident, someone
we love dies, we hit financial hard times, we get depressed - there are
many challenges in life, and these challenges can often make us question
"who" or "what" really is up there, and do they care?
Why am I suffering like this if there really is a caring, loving Divine
presence? I don't know if I believe in the Divine anymore!
It's all too easy to either blame ourselves
or blame the Divine. How many of us have the belief that if we're just
good enough, and do everything right all the time, nothing bad will happen
to us? And when something bad does happen - even as small as the bathroom
flooding, or a friend getting angry at us, we either go into self-condemnation
(some version of "I must really be terrible and awful after all!")
or shake a fist at that "Something" out there. How dare you!
Haven't you seen how hard I work at this? Doesn't it matter to you how
much I've already been through? As if we were being punished either justly
or unjustly by that greater Being who we rely on to take us through life
to some place or state of happiness and joy.
If you can relate to any of this, one of
the first things that can be helpful is to step out of the reward/punishment
perception of Spirit. For better or worse, many of us grew up with this
system deeply imbedded - if you're good, you get good things, if you're
bad, you get punished. There's certainly a place for that kind of model
- if we didn't have consequences for behavior, our world would likely
be a scary and chaotic place indeed. It makes sense that we would translate
that reward/punishment system to many areas of our lives, including our
relationship to that Higher Power. After all, it does play out quite a
bit in our workplaces, our relationships, and most of our interactions
with other humans - why wouldn't it apply to the Divine?
For me, it helps to think about children to understand
the ups and downs of life and where Spirit is when all that happens. Babies
sure do have a lot of ups and downs, don't they? They may be crying one
minute, upset because they hurt their finger, and then the next they're
in bliss from being warmly cuddled. Babies and children fall down and
hurt themselves, get themselves into trouble, break things, and have all
kinds of challenges in life. As parents, we do what we can to try to protect
them. But we recognize that not only are we limited as to how much we
can protect them from: we acknowledge that some of those things need to
happen in order for the child to learn. We don't really learn the meaning
of "hot" until we burn ourselves.
The Divine is like our great Mother or Father.
That presence loves us whether or not things are going good or bad. It's
there for us whenever we need comfort or guidance. But it can't stop everything
that hurts or upsets us from happening. We've forgotten that we're still
like children in some ways, still growing, and sometimes "life happens".
We're going to get sick occasionally, even if we hide ourselves away from
any possible germs. And we all still have a lot to learn - I know I do!
When a child stubs his toe, it may seem
like a really big deal to him or her. S/he may scream and cry, and curse
the table it was stubbed on. But did the table do it intentionally to
the child? Unless you know something about tables I don't know, it probably
didn't. The child learns important things from this experience. If she
was being reckless, she learns to be more aware and careful. If she wasn't,
she has an opportunity to learn how to care for and comfort herself when
things are painful. These are valuable lessons that we all need to experience
growing up.
The challenge for us as adults is to realize
we're not all grown up yet - and won't ever be! We'll always be learning.
And because of that, we'll occasionally still have stubbed toes and much
more difficult and upsetting situations. We can learn not to blame ourselves
or the Divine, and keep the faith that the Divine presence is there for
us during that hard time, and that somewhere in that pain is an opportunity
for growth. We may not see it at the time, but that difficulty can make
us stronger, wiser, more loving human beings - if we choose to perceive
it that way. And Spirit will be there to support us, guide us, love us,
and inspire us along the way, if we open ourselves to that.
May we all be blessed with love, joy and
health in our lives, and with the faith, trust, and strength to endure
and transform through life's challenges.
— ©2001, 2004 by Connie Habash