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“Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark.” ~Rabindranath Tagore
I have been hearing a lot about faith over the past few weeks and I finally figured out that somewhere amid the quotes, slogans and book passages I have read recently, there is a lesson intermingled.
Not too long ago I had a test of faith that rocked me to my very core. My head was screaming, “No! Don’t do it! DON’T GO THAT WAY!” But my heart was pleading, “You know this is what you want. You must proceed. IT IS RIGHT!” Now when the heart and head battle it out, I usually wind up with one heckuva case of headache and heartburn.
But because of all the spiritual growth I have experienced over the past few years, I decided to just let myself “be” for a bit--To listen and see with my “sixth” sense. During that period I actually took the time to look up the definition of faith:
1) firm belief in something for which there is no proof
2) : complete trust
3) something that is believed especially with strong conviction;
Well, I certainly had firm belief. In fact I had two: that of my head and that of my heart. But then I looked at the origin of the word faith which is derived from the Latin “fides” and is the root for such words as confide, fealty, fidelity, and fiduciary. Soon it became all too clear that trust was a very big component of faith as was confidence.
So I asked myself which I trusted more: my head OR my heart? But still, no solution presented itself. Then I saw this quote: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1. And I knew it was time to take a step back and pray/meditate for guidance.
I thought a lot about faith over the next few days. We are all too unaware of just how much it comes into play every single day. From the time we wake up each and every morning to the time we go to sleep each and every night, we live in complete faith for that day-- Faith that we will wake up, be able to get out of bed, go about our day, and once again be able to get up the next day and do it all over again. From the minute we open our eyes, we hope for the best and trust with some degree of confidence that the day will proceed as planned. If fear should enter the picture we calculate the odds of past success and quickly put aside any doubts.
So I declared to the Universe that I was going to trust that an answer would present itself when the time was right. And I, too, cast aside any doubts I had. It wasn’t long after this that I had to take my daughter to a doctor’s appointment and not being one to sit idly in the waiting room reading some medical journal acquired from a nearby table, I grabbed a book from my bookcase. It was one of several that I had in a stack of “books to read, when I have the time.” I honestly did not even give much consideration to the title as I was in a hurry that day.
As I sat in the waiting room and I began to read, it was as if a voice was speaking to me from the manual of “What You Need To Know In Order To Make A Decision”. The premise of the book was a mirror of the exact struggle I was going through. The characters asked the very same questions and the quotes were some of the very same used by important people in my life. I found myself laughing and crying at the same time.
For the next two days, I read that book at every opportunity afforded me. When I was finished, I went back and reread the highlights once again. And when I was finally done, it was all too clear what my decision was going to be.
Suddenly I had a vision of the “Dark Night of the Soul” which is the ultimate test of faith. F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning." And yet, shortly after that time, the birds begin to chirp. If we can trust and believe that when we fall asleep each night, we will once again wake up the next morning then why can’t we believe that just as the dark night follows the brilliant day so does the brilliant day follow the dark night?
So in the end my heart won out, as I realized that my head was simply warning me of all the things I didn’t want, my fears in essence, but my heart was revealing all the things I’d hoped for and evidence of wonderful things not seen. But more importantly, I now had the faith necessary to take that chance and the firm belief that no matter what happened, things would work out as they were supposed to. And somehow, I trusted that I’d made the right decision. And that was a lesson of the best kind.
