Lost and Found

I'm, of course, not your most devout Christian. I don't do church, I don't stop people in their tracks proclaiming divine interventions and miracles, and least of all, I don't mutter thanksgivings to a higher being whenever something good materializes.

in short, I'm just your average (worldly and materialistic) woman next door.

however, in a past long gone, I was once all these things. but came questioning and cynicism, and my faith ceased to exist.

because I guarded my independence so fiercely, I had always (mis?)interpreted my spirirtual dormancy all these years as freedom. I cherished the fact that I could come and go as I please, and that I could chew on questions thrown at me without turning them over to some alien entity whom I can't even have conversation with over coffee.

but life has a way of reverting you back to old belief systems. the people you meet, the struggles you experience and the endless questions that wreck your sleep every night-- they all tell the same story: your heart is a donut. that, all along, you've been wading into deeper waters thinking a little farther wouldn't hurt. wading, until you realize you no longer see the shore when you turn back, and wish desperately that someone would notice your struggle and throw you a life buoy.

all these years of self-validation and foolhardiness have reduced me to a sorry combination of fatigue and emptiness. in retrospect, I had been walking on a tightrope of happiness that threatened to tip anytime I was not careful. in short, I was on my own, answering questions with questions.

if I come clean with myself, I can only say I've built for myself a spiritual warehouse of emotional junk. the skeletons in my closet were threatening to show, and I finally admitted to myself that I've had enough of rationalizing God, His miracles and a faith which required not understanding, but obedience.

I once read somewhere that human beings have the tendency of  overrating our intelligence, using logic to explain God's love for us, a love which no words could fittingly describe. the author then continue to say that if we are smart, then we should be smart enough to know that God is smarter.

so with that mustard seed of faith, I suspend all logic and return to the Shepherd who willingly abandoned His 99 sheeps in search of me. for someone like me, I must say, by my books, that that is the ultimate expression of love.

(picture credits: Cartoonstock)