A crisis, of faith

The other day someone asked me if I was having a “crisis of faith.”

A crisis of faith implies that I am doubting my belief in God or in the way God works in my life or the world. I do, often, doubt.  However my life long relationship with God, grounded in prayer and an existential sense that God is with me (us), assures me that my doubts are actually about me. I doubt because I am struggling. Yet, even as I struggle I know that God will once again show God’s presence and I will see, probably in hindsight, how God is and has been present. 

So I live in a paradoxical reality of doubt and trust. As a result I don’t worry about my doubts and because I don’t worry about them I don’t fall into a “crisis” of faith. I just keep trying, more or less successfully, to  stay in relationship with God, self, and others, until this time passes. Because it always passes. Which is what I said to the person who asked me that question.  

That doesn’t mean I am comfortable in these times. I am not. 

Because I am in kind of “crisis” mode. Crisis because at the age of 60 years I am wondering if this is it. Is THIS all my life will amount too? I haven’t accomplished nearly as much as I thought I would, as I hoped I would. I feel a little bit like Sarah in the tent, laughing, smirking, weeping. Really? In my old age something new will happen? That’s a promise of faith, right, if one stays faithful, life will be transformed and made new? That this is really NOT it, and that the best is yet to come, even in my old age.

God of minutes and years

God of waiting and sustaining

God of action and change, of

Life as it is and life transforming - 

God, give me stamina

to walk these days

fill me with trust

trust in your ways.

Trust that even now

in my obtuseness,

you are at work.

That you are always seeking

ways to move in the world

to move the world toward

the good of life, newness,

transformation, hope.

Trust that even in my little life

there is still much I can do

to work with you, to be

creative, generative,

and even in my old age

to give birth.

Written for the RevGalBlogPals weekly devotional E-reader