The Unknown

This morning, this day, every day, really, I find myself facing so many unknowns and uncertainties. Like so many others, I want answers, I want the churning and yearning to ease up, to be settled and to find the purpose to my being. I want God to reveal to me, in no uncertain terms, just what I am supposed to be doing with all of this knowledge, understanding, awareness, experience, heart-felt empathy, and even the empty hollow of my heart. I need to know, I want to know, but again and again, I must rely on faith to get me through, to help me make some form of movement, to trust that there is clear and distinct purpose to His plan for me. I pause to think about what faith really is and I am blessed, as so many have expressed to me, with a faith that knows no boundaries, really. A trust in God the Father, that He is going to work it all out for good. But the faith doesn't just come, it arrives with a price and it is not easy. I have learned that the test comes when I must lend credence to the lip service, to know and carry it with me, to the depths of my soul, to the outward life I live. Faith cannot be faked, it is real and solid and good and nourishing. It is there when nothing else is, when no one else is, when the trench is so deep that you literally feel like you are climbing out, inch by inch, bit by bit. Faith is the glimmer, the speck of hope and light and love, and the knowledge that it cannot be seen, held, or touched. It is the knowledge in the inner sanctum of your soul, that God is holding you up and using your life for His own design. Still, I am human and I want to know, God, what do you want from me? Am I where you want me at this moment in time? Do you really want me to know what I know, feel what I feel...and just then, the answer comes. It comes in the form of a phone call from a newly grieving mother on a Saturday morning, who needs to hear, from another grieving mother, that she is going to be okay, she needs to know that her breathless moments will ease up, in time, yes, to surge again, but that this is all part of it. She needs to know that the loss of a child is different for each of us, yet, we carry the same bond, as we carried the children under our hearts in our physical bodies. She needs to know that the fatigue of early grief, the all consuming pattern of life, will someday change, and she will taste, hear, see again, albeit differently, never to be the same, but she will live. She will dance, she will sing, she will smile, she will breathe. And it is then that I know, God does define my purpose, He has provided an opportunity and a privilege to me, a way of opening my heart to those who walk in my shoes, and I, in theirs. He is setting the path as we speak, for the next person, and the next, and the next. There will be more and more who need me and who I need, and He is seeing to it that the circle of life tightens and bonds more significantly.

There are so many unanswered questions as we journey together. It is our nature to want the answers, but in many cases, they are not coming. They never will. So, we rely on that power greater than ourselves, and for me, that is God above. And we rely on faith. It seems a risk at times to extend our sense of trust into an unknown realm or world, but the risk is worth taking. With the risk comes peace and contentment and knowledge, and in faith, beauty and newness is revealed.

"Faith is the centerpiece of a connected life. It allows us to live by the grace of invisible strands. It is a belief in a wisdom superior to our own. Faith becomes a teacher in the absence of fact." ...a quote by Terry Tempest Williams, found in a daily meditation book, given to me, by yet another new connection, a newly grieving mother, who is searching, too.