Faith No More. Not the band.

I've got about a ton of blog topics floating around in my head right now. Well maybe not a ton...but they all weigh a ton. Heavy issues, I guess. And I can only do one at a time. Sure, I could write about going to the mall today -- the one in the nicer part of town -- and all that I saw take place there. I could over analyze and dissect the diorama of mommydom that I observed; the annoying behaviors I noticed some kids seem intent on displaying. That would all be quite trite indeed. It would make for great fodder, but there's something else weighing more heavily on my mind presently.

This past Sunday in class, we talked about trusting in the Lord. A lot of the class discussion we had focused on the daily pressures we all face and how much easier our lives become when we give it all over to Him. Part of that too is how stressful life is when we forget that we can find comfort in prayer and faith.

That's exactly what I've been stressing out about lately. I know that I am not always number one at remembering how to hand my problems over to the Lord, but I know Him just the same. I know He's there for me constantly, watching over. I didn't always have that comfort. There was a time in my life that I refused the Lord. I knew of Him, I just didn't listen to Him. So many things had happened in my life at such a young age that I think I blamed God for my problems, instead of asking him for help with them. I was very angry with Him, and for that I turned away. But I came back. And whether I would have always admitted it or not, I knew God was always there. I was just having a spat with Him. But a profound question has been nagging at me lately: what would it be like to have no faith at all? To be completely devoid of all spirituality? That would have to be an empty existence.

I didn't necessarily grow up going to church until later on in my youth. My Mom was very confused about religion for a very long time. She was raised Mormon, and resented the way in which organized religion had ostracized her as a child. She left home when she was 15, and needless to say, she left church then as well. When I was 10 or so, she worked at a volunteer ambulance company and became friends with the administrative assistant there. Rita was the associate pastor at a small Presbyterian church in the town we lived in. She invited us to her church and we felt at home. We were back in the Lord's House. But even before we attended a Christian church my mom instilled some level of spirituality in me. I was aware of God. I was aware of faith.

Now here I am, a member of a Presbyterian church in the new town in which my family resides. We go to church as a family. Multiple times a week. We participate in events at the church constantly. It's important to us that we stay involved in church life. After all, it's important to the church that we stay involved. My pastor likes to tell a parable in sermons about coals. It's about how when you have a group of coals burning in a fire, they stay red hot as long as you keep them together. When you move one to the side, alone, it cools and fizzles out. He uses this to show how important it is to stay involved in a church. I don't think it's a hard parable to read. So I'll save you the details of explaining everything. But what if the coal were never part of the group to begin with? What if it never had any fire to hold on to?

It worries me. It makes me sad to think there are people in this world that have nothing to hold on to. They have no fire to keep them warm. They have no one to turn to and no one to take their troubles to. What a lonely existence they must lead. Imagine going through life depending solely on the good of people. You've all heard that one person say they don't believe in God, only in people. Well in my short life I've met many people -- and to only believe in them would leave me very needy and jaded. I mean -- people. Really. How could someone be in a position to see the things that happen in the world every day and not cling to some belief system?

What troubles me even more than fearing for adults who have no spirituality, is the feeling I get when I imagine a child being raised with none. Can you imagine -- a faithless child? All children are born with an innate sense of faith...but what happens when the parents tear down that wall? I pray for every child in a situation like that. I cannot imagine why someone would want to bring up a child with no faith in anything. Surely that child will not be doomed. I don't believe that at all. The light finds everyone eventually. It's just the dark loneliness that will follow them until that happens...that makes me sad beyond all means. And I'm not saying faith necessarily needs to come in the form of Christianity. Just faith...in something.