I was thinking today about what we believe about our loved ones. There’s a story about a woman whose son murdered her husband and attempted to murder her. When she recovered from her injuries, she attended her son’s trial and she let him live with her while her was out on bail. When he was convicted, she continued to have a relationship with him speaking to him on the phone and visiting him in prison regularly. She just couldn’t believe that her son did what he did.
I can’t judge her. For the longest time, I believed without a doubt that I had the most amazing family. I thought that they were supportive and would do anything for me. I also believe the absolute worst about myself. Then, everything in my world fell apart. I went through a period of mourning. There were several years that I was crying almost every day. I cried whenever I thought about my family or at least the family that I thought I had because I had learned that they were an illusion. Even today, when I think about my childhood, it’s really hard because I miss the family I grew up with. They never really existed.
I think about how this idea relates to faith. The beautiful, amazing, wonderful thing about God is that He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is everything and nothing all at the same time. He is constantly changing and never changing. He is a paradox that is incomprehensible to my feeble human mind. Yet, I know without a doubt that whatever He is, He will be there. When I pray and as I live, I change and grow, I become a different person, but God is always God. In this world that is constantly changing, with nothing that I can really know for certain, I can know that whatever God is, He is because faith tells me so. It is the one true thing I have known all my life from my first memory. It is the one thing I hope to know until my dying day.
I don’t want to be like the woman who can’t believe the truth about her son. I don’t want to be someone who believes in an illusion instead of seeing my family for what they really are. I realize that God is so much more than I could possibly understand, but I want to at least know that He is. I want to experience the life He gave me. No matter what happens, I want to live in truth. I don’t know, but because of faith I don’t need to know, I just need to trust in God and be thankful for this amazing life.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
