We have all been through stormy times in our lives: financial difficulties, sudden loss of a dear one, health issues, broken relationships. What keeps us glued together during challenging times, and even through great trauma?
G.K. Chesterton, the renown Christian writer said,
…there had always been a fixed star of faith behind the storms.
His reflection strikes me as so true!
Faith is the run-down, independent gas station that appears as you begin your ascent in the mountains with very low pressure in your front tire. Faith is the hug at the end of an excruciating day of medical tests. Faith is the bus driver who waits in the pouring rain as you struggle to cross the busy street, drenched by the spray of speeding cars. Faith is the belief that God is always present and that he makes himself known through people and nature and all manner of phenomena. Faith is God with us, never abandoning us. It’s because of faith that we comfort one another by saying, “It’ll be okay; it’s going to be fine.”
It is only in retrospect, when we get back home, safe in port, that we acknowledge there was something deeper going on in and through our human experiences. We feel with sure knowing that God truly was with us and saw us through. And if we are like the tenth leper, (see Luke 17:11-19), we stop to thank him for once again being steadfast: our rock, our anchor, our star behind the storm.
Every day, nurture your faith through prayer, kindness, sacrifice, generosity, and in all sorts of loving concern and goodness toward others. It will hold you steady through the tumultuous and challenging times of life.
Jennifer Christ
