The Question of Faith

Where is your faith? This is a question I've asked myself so often in the months since my dad passed away. It's a tough one for me. Looking back, before he passed, I think I used to kind of pride myself on how strong my faith was. I have been believing for things and seeing the goodness and faithfulness of God as long as I can remember. It's how my parents raised me. They have always had the strongest faith in God and His promises and saw amazing things come out of that faith throughout our entire upbringing. My experience had been no different. We have always lived our lives by such verses as Psalm 91, Matthew 7:7, Mark 11:24, Isaiah 54:17, Matthew 17:20, and the list goes on and on. These verses have shaped my existence and have almost never failed me. I could tell stories for days where miracles happened in my life simply through faith. And even when my dad got sick, we didn't falter. (Well, maybe for a day here and there. Nobody's perfect). If anything, it made us even stronger in our faith and resolve that this would not beat us, would not beat him. We believed so hard and so strongly for his healing and absolutely believed we would see it, like we'd seen it so many times before. Then our world came crashing down around us on July 29th. My amazing, loving, hilarious dad went to be with Jesus, which is still so hard to fathom. It still doesn't feel real. Sometimes the grief is so strong, I think it's a wonder anyone gets through it. It really is a day (or hour, or minute)-at-a-time journey.

So where is my faith? To be completely honest (because otherwise, what's the point?), it's somewhere between "I still trust you, God" and "But why didn't you heal my dad?". I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Probably many people walking through grief have felt at times completely deserted by God. I know all the stages of grief; I've read about them and continue to experience them daily. In that, I also know that asking "why" doesn't solve anything, and it's a question that I won't have an answer to in this life.

My faith is shaken; there's no doubt about that. And how could it not be? I'm learning that rebuilding it is a journey that's going to take time. Yet even with all of that said, I'm determined to continue to have faith and believe God is going to show up in my life and prove that His promises are true. Walking away from truths that I've known my entire life because of one situation - no matter how enormous or painful or life-shattering the disappointment is - is not honoring to everything my dad has always taught me. I know for a fact that he would not want us to give up on our faith because of this. I often imagine he's up there continuing to cheer us on, encouraging us to keep believing, keep moving forward. Because now he has a front row seat to all that God is doing behind the scenes. I honestly don't have a good answer on how exactly to move forward with my faith, except that it's one step at a time, one day at a time. And I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord. (Psalm 27:13)