Faith in Things Not Seen

4/18/19

I began this blog after a lunch date with a friend discussing children, school, cancer, and church. It was then and there that the tug for writing my story came to fruition. Her daughter was fighting a three year battle… My heart is heavy beyond description, but my loss has no measure to hers and her family. Her precious girl went home to be with the Lord last weekend. There is no way I can describe their loss. No way on this earth. My prayers and encouragement may be a help, but that is all I can offer.

In the last few months, I have seen families hurt by this disease, and I tried to answer the “why? “. I do not know if I have real answers, and for most people that have seen God work in their lives over and over again, they kind of already know those answers. We read God’s word, hear God’s word preached, and see Him work because of our faith. Faith is the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Everyone has faith in something. Having faith in God who takes every aspect of our lives in His hand and gives us hope, direction, and love makes life on earth seem bearable. He gives us evidence through answers to our prayers; whether He answers them how we want or how He wants. We can then have hope that He will do it again. Then the cycle repeats.

What are tough times? They come in all forms like taking away those who are precious to us. Cancer took other things from me: almost half my teenage years, school attendance, a healthy body, a head of hair… Tough times can only be labeled by us. We have to fill in the blanks ourselves, and no “tough time” is less important than someone else’s. They range from a broken body to financial troubles to spiritual downfalls. Whatever it is when we feel downtrodden and lost, then it is our tough time. It comes in all forms, and sometimes we do not see it until it is too late. Our relationship with God can keep our eyes open to what is around us and help us see a tough time. Then our faith is strengthened. The cycle repeats.

Cancer took so much from me, but it gave me a list of amazing things that would fill pages and pages. Which is why I have made note of many of them here. There are so many gifts and blessings that come from tough times, but it is important to grieve when we feel empty. Sometimes we cannot be strong for others anymore and just have to go to God and grieve. The grieving process is how we get back to remembering those blessings. Blessings that give us hope; blessings that increase our faith. Then the cycle repeats.

We have faith in so many things. We trust when we sit down that the chair will hold us. Our vehicle is important to our daily lives. The education we receive is used to improve our future. Each doctor we visit with helps us make decisions about our health. Faith is all around us, and we miss it sometimes. But when the tough times come, we remember what we are supposed to remember about God and His power to get us through. Next, we have to act upon it and have faith that He will. Easy to say, easy to do; because we live in faith in other things every day. I promise, it is easy to do. And then the cycle repeats.

Hebrews 11, the “Faith Chapter,” is all about people in the Bible that did do faith. Some of them in the daily things and some of them in the Godly things. Ordinary and extraordinary. But they all experienced a faith in God that brought them closer to Him. Abel offered up a sacrifice that pleased God; Abraham left his home and followed God’s leading; Sara believed and received a child in her old age; Rahab help God’s people escape. People who trusted in something they could not see but had seen the results of their faith in the past. Their faith put them in the Faith Chapter. It starts like this, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”