Faith and Truth

As I see the clouds parting, I spent some time yesterday discussing Truth with a friend.  When I get all blue, I tend to forget a few basic things, and think I've spent all this time and energy and have gotten nowhere when I could have taken that same period of time and investment of resources and explored all the varieties of chocolate available in the world.

There are times I feel that Nothing Significant Has Changed.

It has been over two years since I wrote my own personal manifesto, and then almost two years since I made the actual commitment to myself to learn how to take loving care of myself.  This past year has been pretty tough.  Life got turned on its head at least 3 times.

The blessing in all that pain was that Truth floated to the surface, and I realized part of my commitment to learning how to love myself was about Seizing the Truth (hence the name of this newer blog.)

There is a sort of grief that comes from embracing Truth -it means that you have to acknowledge that some of the dreams you had simply won't come true, that not every choice is yours to make, that your life will in fact look much, much different than you ever imagined.

What makes Truth at all palatable for me is Faith.  Sometimes (like last night) God will put someone in front of me who will remind me that Faith has an active role to play in my life.  It isn't just for those rock-solid times when no matter how bad things look, you still know in your bones that there is a Plan and a Purpose and you are totally okay with not getting a floodlight into the future.

Faith is also for the times when you are confused and distressed and have no energy left for the fight.  Faith is also for those desert places when God seems very far away and darkness beckons seductively because all you want is to feel anything but sad, even just for a few minutes, even if that feeling can only be pain or anger or simple numbness.  Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

You can't really have Faith without Hope, because without Hope, the darkness will take over, because sometimes even the memory of sunshine is erased, or develops a weird dreamlike quality.  Hope reminds you to have Faith.  Faith exposes and helps you survive the Truth, and, as Jesus says, the Truth sets you free.

In exactly one month, I will be celebrating an anniversary of sorts, a milestone personally significant to me.  That alone is a quiet reminder that there has been a sea change.

Thank you, dear Lord, thank you.