At least my faith doesn’t look brave.
My faith looks like me being terrified.
“It will all work out.”
“Don’t worry.”
“It’s going to be okay.”
“Look for the good!”
These are things people say to help you have faith. At least that’s the idea.
I think most of the time people say these things because they’re uncomfortable with the raw, broken, messy, rough reality of faith. Faith is a thing with lots of jagged edges. Faith is small and dangerous. Faith is not a thing with feathers that perches in the soul. Faith is painful because it keeps you believing instead of giving up.
Guess what hurts more, believing in something that’s not happening or giving up on it and moving on?
Giving up on something is hard. But you give up, and you let go, and you sit in that grief and anger for a bit and then you start moving on.
Faith is not like that. Faith is torture. Faith makes you keep going. Faith won’t let you lay down and die already.
Faith is what you have when you can’t give up on something, even though everything and everyone are telling you that you should.
Faith is a roaring screech of desperation that keeps you up in the abandoned hours of the night.
Faith is a tiny shard of glass stuck in your soul. It won’t let you get comfortable. It keeps you aware enough that you can’t go numb.
Faith makes no fucking sense.
Faith is the tiniest flame. It’s like one of those trick birthday candles that relights itself. I’ve doused this thing over and over again. Dark, cold breezes and hurricane-force winds have blown it out, over and over and over again.
It won’t stay out.
It keeps coming back.
It won’t let me lay down and rest in the dark. It won’t let me quit. It won’t let me put my head in my hands and give up. It won’t let me sink into the soft gray doubts all around me. It won’t let me be.
Reasonable people make plans.
Reasonable people have goals.
Reasonable people see obstacles.
Reasonable people understand how the world works and concede.
Reasonable people reach into their souls, remove that pesky shard of glass, and carry on.
I don’t know what I’m doing. Don’t take advice from me.
Reasonable people know what they’re doing.
They figure things out. They work the systems. They get it.
I’m just here with this stupid candle.
