F Words
I’ve got a few to describe my dedication to writing HERE, but I’ll be good for now. Seriously LD? 5 FULL months? That's a record, and not the pride-inducing-Olympic kind either.
Apparently I’ve been busy. Very busy.
Work became beyond hectic. Then I had a little six-week post-operative thing (maybe I’ll talk about why I had surgery at some point, but not today). Then I’ve been playing catch-up.
Bottom line? Life got in the way, as it so often does.
But today…today I’m good. I’m very good actually.
I find myself with an abundance of Faith. (ah – there’s an F word!)
I’ve talked a lot about believing with your entire soul…putting into the universe what you want and getting it…(see my last post on that one, which sadly has not yet come to fruition…note I said YET). I’ve talked about being positive, even in the face of insurmountable odds. I’ve talked a lot about these things, but to be perfectly honest, I’m not entirely sure I truly bought into them until now.
A friend was lecturing me recently when I was wallowing in a pity party (which is perfectly allowed from time to time) that true Faith – whether you believe in God, Buddha, The Goddess, any other deity or no deity at all – true Faith is believing even when there’s absolutely no evidence to back up that belief. On the flip side, I have been told that Fear (another F word) can be defined as False Evidence Appearing Real.
Both Faith and Fear are about what you don’t see, can’t touch, can’t prove exist. The difference is that one embraces the positive, the other the negative.
My wallowing had to do with Fear. Believing the worst was coming and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Never mind that I have faced various degrees of “worst” over the last 8 years and still came out largely whole and mostly smiling. No, no – I spent several weeks instead allowing Fear to consume me.
I managed to lose myself in Fear. I wasn’t allowing the light that is provided by my own Faith to protect me. I allowed the darkness to overcome me – to the point where apparently even my Facebook postings were starting to freak out a couple of friends, which is rare since I usually focus on optimism in that forum.
Now I won’t say that the lecture by my friend was somehow the magical answer – I had been trying to say the same thing to myself for some time, it wasn’t that the words were brand new. But I will give credit where it’s due in that this particular kick in the behind came at the right moment. Because that night, as I lay in bed considering the decorations that I needed for that evening’s pity party, his voice permeated my subconscious enough that my dreams that night – for the first time in weeks in fact – didn’t focus on the Fear, but on the Faith.
I dreamt vivid dreams where everything was “ok”. Not perfect, but good. I felt love. I felt warmth. I felt the sun on my face. I knew in my dreams that Thing 1 and Thing 2 were going to be alright. I knew that everything was going to turn out for the best one way or another. It had been awhile since I’d felt those things. My eternal optimist had been playing a game of Marco Polo with me and we weren’t even in the same pool.
I woke in the morning feeling a little less drained. A little less hopeless. I decided it was going to be a different day. That Fear was not going to hold me back because Faith was where I chose to live. I dragged myself out of bed and decided it was elliptical time again. I went to work, sat through meetings and tried to focus on the positive. I wasn’t a chipper little chipmunk by any means, but I felt “ok”.
Then I received news that I’d really needed. One of my biggest worries – FEARS – that had been hanging over my head was suddenly squashed into a million pieces and solved. I sat back and nearly cried. It wasn’t that I’d won the lotto. The love of my life had not walked in the door. It wasn’t anything more than that I received exactly what I needed in that moment in time—no more, no less.
And right there, I had one of life’s few moments where I received actual proof that my Faith was not misplaced.
Was it a coincidence that this happened the same day I began to get back in touch with my Faith? Perhaps. I know there are plenty who believe it is just a big coincidence.
What I believe is that the three most important things in my life (other than the hooligans of course) - Faith, Hope and Love – never left me. These three concepts are what have always kept me going. I lost them for a while. I missed them. But what this little dry spell has taught me is that even when I couldn’t see them, they were still in my heart.
My point today? Even when you’re down…even when you can’t see a way out…I believe there are forces in this world greater than you are that can keep you going. I also know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are people in the world who care about you…who Love you. Who hold you in their Hopes, their prayers. Who have Faith for you when you can’t have it for yourself.
I consider myself lucky to be surrounded by them, and I certainly hope they know I do the same for them – and all of you.
