Faith, like life and love, is a gift often given gratuitously and spontaneously. I did not ask to be born but I have received life gratuitously. A mother asks nothing in return for giving birth to a child, she just gives her love spontaneously. I was searching for God but I did not find Him until He revealed Himself to me in the events, people and places in my life. My seeking was in vain until He gave me the gift of Faith – gratuitously and spontaneously.
Faith, like life and love, is also a struggle, a striving, a battle. Life is a mixture of joys and sorrows. Even though there may be more joys, still I struggle from valleys to peaks and then from peaks to valleys and then again from valleys to peaks. Love is a give and take, a win and lose; it is up and down. I strive to always choose to love, to give more than what I take, to let the other win even if I may seem to lose, to always raise up the bar to my loving and to bring down my pride that is self-seeking. My faith journey has been a constant passage between darkness and light, between doubts and certainties, between mystery and revelations. It is a constant battle seeking God in my emptiness and thanking Him in my fullness.
Anabelle has always envied me for the ease with which I can fall asleep. My practice is that instead of counting sheep, I talk to the Shepherd. As I lay me down to sleep, I replay the whole day in my mind, moment by moment. I gather all the shadows and the slips. I ask for forgiveness for all my mistakes and shortcomings; I pray for courage to change what needs to be changed in me; I pray for healing for the hurts I might have caused others or the hurts I might have experienced myself. But I dwell mostly on the goodness and the light that came my way during the day in gratitude. That way, should I die and there is no heaven afterwards, I shall spend the rest of eternity in an everlasting sleep carrying with me nothing but the happy thoughts and joyful moments of my last day on earth. And if the Shepherd should be waiting for me on the other side, then we can just go on with our conversation and I follow Him as He leads me to the place He said He is preparing for all of us.
That is my nightly prayer.
You forsake not those who seek you, O Lord.
Psalm 9
A man came up to Jesus, knelt down before him, and said,
“Lord, have pity on my son, who is a lunatic and suffers severely;
often he falls into fire, and often into water.
I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.”
Jesus said in reply, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you?
How long will I endure you? Bring the boy here to me.”
Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him,
and from that hour the boy was cured.
Then the disciples approached Jesus in private and said,
“Why could we not drive it out?”
He said to them, “Because of your little faith.
Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed,
you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move.
Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Matthew 17:14-20