I am to be most pitied among men, for God has seen fit to give me the gift of faith then take it away.
Now hope and love remain, but what happened to faith?
My faith had been a tightly wound ball of light hidden deep within my chest until God reached in and placed the light upon my open hand.
From there I had two choices.
Watch the light slowly untangle, spattering light in all directions out upon the world, my palm steadily growing dimmer. Or close my fingers around the light, obscuring the view, fighting against losing what has for so long been mine. The temptation to close my hand has been great, but one does not light a lamp and hide it under a basket. It is no longer mine to obscure.
I feel my chest relax as I let my gaze gently rest upon the diminishing light on my outstretched hand. My face softens, my shoulders rest, the knot within my stomach momentarily breathes a sigh of relief. I watch the light fade and feel at peace.
What now?
The wind has taken my light and spread it all around the world and my eyes fall upon my empty open palm. I hear the wind blow, the leaves falling like rain upon my front lawn.
What is faithfulness now that faith has departed?
Decades of faith has left an imprint upon my soul. I love deeper. I release the past more easily. I am free to show up in the world, to bring a touch of healing, speak a word of encouragement, share the weight of a burden. To love with reckless abandon, holding both the sorrow and the gift of an unknown tomorrow. Life is precious, and I am here.
Without the balled up light in my chest, I will go out into the world as the hands and feet of grace. Loving and hurting with all I have.
I cannot say with certainty “Jesus is Lord” but I can offer a cool cup of water to the one who thirsts.
I cannot be certain of that for which I hope, but I can offer my most genuine self to those who will receive the gift.
I can love sacrificially, even without eternal assurance. Releasing out upon the world a light which is no longer mine to hold. Faithfully showing up each day, offering my life as a living sacrifice.
Hope, beauty, joy, love, peace, fire, sorrow, despair and friendship – it is what I have left. It is what remains. I do not know what happened to faith. She kept me safe for so many years, but the time has come to let her go. Perhaps one day she will return to me – that is not mine to determine.
People may say "keep the faith," but how does one will herself to keep what can only be given by the Divine?
My whole life I have feared I am not one of the elect. That there was somehow deep within me a flaw which could not be overcome. As a child, I believed I was marked for destruction. For awhile I forgot this fear, but it had not forgotten me. I tried so hard to fight it. I was hard on myself. So very hard on myself.
Everything within me tried to be worthy of the calling “elect.”
I went to church faithfully. I gave financially. I sponsored impoverished children. I lived and worked with high risk teens. I studied the Bible, receiving both bachelor’s and master’s in spiritual fields of study. I looked for every opportunity to do good, to live sacrificially. I was relentless with myself when I fell short. I emptied myself for the sake of others. I learned all the good Evangelical answers. I sought to put love and mercy above all else. I passionately hated myself when my emotionally reactive actions brought harm or pain to another. I sat with the children, fought for the children. I stood up for what I believed was just. I pushed myself with very few limits. I welcomed the outsiders, befriended the lonely. I offered my life as a living sacrifice.
Turns out it was not enough. Not enough to overturn what I lacked.
Perhaps this brief faith was mercy, perhaps it was a cruel trick, or perhaps it was my own mind protecting me from the inevitable. Sometime early on in my spiritual journey, I believed in my core I held the status “elect,” “saved,” “redeemed.” I believed I knew nothing with more certainty than that God was real, the only way, the whole answer, and my closest friend.
For a while, that nagging inner void shifted from calling me “damned” to calling me “imperfect sinner.” In every practical sense, I believed I was saved, covered by the blood of Christ, even while my life continued imperfectly. Life hurt here, but I thought I knew there was an eternity coming when all the pain would dissipate.
In all these years since my childhood fears of damnation, I never really doubted my legitimacy as a Christian. I never imagined my inner turmoil indicated perhaps I was not actually one of the chosen elects of God after all - at least this thought did not visit me in words.
If faith is a gift given to the elect, and if faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the certainty of things unseen, then I am without faith and without hope of redemption. I cannot will myself to be the recipient of what can only be given as a gift.
Could God have given me the gift of faith, then taken it away?
Perhaps He loved me so much and regretted His decision not to mark me as one of His elects and therefore gifted me with three decades of eternal assurance. Perhaps He then came to His senses, realizing I cannot have what is not my right to hold, stripped me of my illusion of faith and turned His face away from me.
Could this really be? Yes, God's ways are not ours, but could such cruelty really reflect the God of love?
Perhaps faith, in fact, is not the assurance of things hoped for and the certainty of things not seen. Perhaps faith is something else, something rooted in hope and love. Perhaps there are none who are elect, none who are damned. Perhaps God took away my assurance of Him to create space for me to finally learn to love myself. Perhaps unity with God is unity and peace within myself.
I have been so cruel to myself in the name of being good enough to belong to the legitimate community of faith. Perhaps God saw my pain and cried on my behalf “enough is enough!”
Perhaps God is gently whispering to me “enough pretending for the sake of dogma. Enough pretending for the sake of the church. Enough with the self-flagellation.”
Perhaps.
And what of those who find it necessary to rebuke me? Job’s friends who insist I did something to deserve such treatment from God.
If my faith is now invalid because of my uncertainty, what did I do to deserve such a fate? What did I do to have decades of faith ripped from my chest?
If indeed the Lord saw fit to tear away my faith, once given as a gift, removing all sense of certainty and allowing the dread of a godless world to visit me in the quiet of the night, is it impermissible for me to lament?
Perhaps the rebukers fear such an occurrence will befall them too, and thus seek to discredit my experience? Or perhaps, in the dark recesses of their own life lie experiences of resonance, an elephant in the room which is kept covered by a blanket, obscuring the sight while the weight of the magnificent beast cannot be ignored by the soul.
If my spiritual journey is alarming to you, perhaps it is time you let me go.
It is far easier to write off those who threaten to shed the light of darkness on hidden places. Cast me out as an “other” rather than allowing space for me in the worshipping community. If I cannot speak the words “Jesus is Lord” with the confidence needed, then perhaps it is time I be set free. If my hope is not enough, then please just let me go.
You can sit with me in my grief, or you can cast your shards of blame, thinking you know so much more than me. You understand the ways of this world and the next with flawless precision. You can spot a threat a mile away, and you know how to bully and abuse the one who openly bleeds. Who is the clearer reflection of Christ, the one who bleeds or the one who shoots the arrows from his safe abode?
Write me off as an unbeliever, see me as a threat, let your anger be lit ablaze when you see I have written another word. I love you nevertheless. For your sake and mine, maybe just let me go.
I do not know what will become of me, but I will not go quietly. I will not go back to silence. This is so much deeper than logic, so much more than an issue of good or poor teaching; this is my heart, bleeding and on fire. The solution will not be found in reason or apologetics.
I am either lost or I have come home, but there is no path to where I was before. There is only the way forward. I may have lost my faith, but I have found myself, and perhaps this finding will turn out to be the very mercy of God Himself.
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