In the first post I talk about how Dr. Oz stated that each person's body changes every 7 years on a cellular level, leaving each of us as an entirely new person. I talk about how I struggled in my different body with Fibromyalgia and what I now had to do when faced with my different body- learn how to deal with the changes and discover myself all over again.
In the second post I talk about having to grieve my losses, letting myself feel all the negative emotions, and let the losses go so that my heart could have emotional freedom and the space to discover myself.
In the third post I describe a process I went through in how I decided to do something scary and face my fears, not letting them take over my life. This took courage, but it changed my life and let me teach my son Reilly about being brave like his name describes.
In the fourth post I walked through some of how I have had to recalibrate my thinking so that instead of focusing on the negative things of what I had lost, I needed to realize what I had gained through Fibromyalgia. I didn't want to at first, but I learned a great deal about myself and about focusing on what's really important.
In this post I will describe a little as to how I reaffirmed my faith and how my faith has helped me.
During my counseling classes we had what we called labs, where we practiced some of the skills we were learning. During one of the lab times in my first year I walked in and sat down to do the exercises. I don't remember what it was that I was upset about specifically, but I was so bothered by it that I couldn't stop crying and had a hard time even talking.
One of the lab leaders took me aside. I don't really remember what I said to her, but one of the things that bothered me must have been a topic that I struggled with often over that time period- that I had a hard time knowing God was there and with praying because my emotions felt like that nothingness that I later recognized was from exhaustion and depression. I had questions. I had doubts. When I prayed it was as if I could have been talking to the backside of a barn because it just felt like it was going nowhere and that God wasn't hearing me.
Now, if you don't believe in God or have never found anything you really had a lot of faith in, you might think, yeah, it wasn't going anywhere because there was nothing there to hear! I can't convince you to think otherwise, but I will tell you that I had previously felt God's presence in my life. It was awesome and wonderful. I know God protected me at various times in my life from physical and personal harm. I often just felt a sense of peace even if there was no circumstantial reason to feel that way.
At some point though, that feeling was gone, and it was gone around the time that I felt the fatigue and depression ramp up after I got married (No, I don't think those are related!) and felt worse around the time I was in the counseling program and classes. Regardless of my emotions feeling blank, I know I was experiencing doubt, discouragement, and depression. I kept wondering, What's wrong with me? What am I doing wrong? Is God angry with me? Do I even have faith? Have I just been fooling myself this whole time?
So, you may be wondering why I know roughly what I was upset about even though I don't remember what I said? That's because of the response from my lab leader, which I remember almost word for word.
"Sarah, I know it may not seem like it now, and it may take some time in coming, but I know there will be a day when your faith in God is so strong that nothing will be able to shake you from it."
[This is a 1,300 year old monastery built on a single enormous rock in France. There is a passage
in the Bible about a wise man building a house on a rock instead of shifting sand.
I often thought this was referring to what teaching you followed and what you placed your faith in-
if you placed your faith in God your foundation was strong and immovable.]
Wow.
I remember thinking things like, "That's nice for later but not so helpful for now." However, as the days went by I heard her words play and replay in my head. If you've read my post about finding and holding onto your hope, you might understand what I mean as I tell you that this thought became something for me to hold onto when the days were dark and difficult.
This time period, that lasted a number of years, tested, sifted, measured, weighed, examined, filtered, and purified my faith. I didn't realize this at the time, because all I saw was the pain, but this was good for me. Actually, this was one of the best things to happen to me that I never would have wanted or asked for. This was another way that Fibromyalgia was a benefit to me in ways I wouldn't have thought before. I mention more of this in my post about recalibrating my thinking.
I've come across people that seem afraid of dark and difficult times partly because they can shake your faith. They seem afraid of questioning anything related to faith and how faith intersects life as we now live it because it's seen as shameful to have doubts and fears. It seems wrong to them to have any questions about God and faith because isn't that just a lack of faith, and doesn't it say somewhere that isn't a good thing?
Having been through this process I say, you can be afraid. You can't change how you feel right now. However, while it is a painful process, there is nothing to fear about having your faith tested, sifted, measured, weighed, and all the rest. There is nothing wrong with crying out to God, asking Him the hard questions, and beating your fists against anything you find (though, as we tell our son Reilly- not people!).
That might seem odd to you, but I think it's right. If you know something about the Bible you might be familiar with David. He did this all the time. He questioned, he yelled, he was discouraged and depressed, he made mistakes (and several really big ones!), he sobbed. And God called him a man after His own heart. Job, the man who went through almost every kind of misfortune on earth, had strong faith and still questioned God, at one point basically saying, "Why do I even exist?". God later blessed him and restored everything He took away.
Why would God do and say these things about men that had deep questions about Him, about their circumstances, and about their relationship with Him?
I think it is because even while doubting, even while being angry, discouraged, and afraid, they still turned towards God. They never turned their back on Him and said, "Forget you!". Their spiritual posture was still facing God. They still had faith even if they didn't realize it, even when it wasn't obvious to themselves. They recognized His hand, knew God was there and had their back, even when their feelings and their circumstances told them otherwise.
So, this is why a testing and sifting of faith is good for us, and me- because it ends up strong and purified. A faith that hasn't been through testing of some kind can't become strong- it's just an untested weak kind of faith.
So, after years of struggling with wondering what happened to my faith, I realized that faith in God was one of the very few things I was still holding on to. I was still turned to Him, I still searched for Him, I still found Him, even when my feelings and my circumstances kept telling me my life had a huge void with God's name on it.
I found pieces of who God is in seemingly random places that showed me I wasn't forgotten. I found Him in books (not just Christian books!), I found Him in movies (not just Christian movies), I found Him in nature (not just at church), I found Him in people (not just the seemingly uber spiritual ones!). Please don't mistake me saying these things as some sort of "there is divinity in all of us, etc." That is NOT what I am saying here!
I'm saying that I would go through my day and God would show me little bits of Himself, basically saying, "Hi Sarah, I'm still here. I'm not gone. I've been here the whole time. Just see me. I'm right here in front of you." At first it was a bit here, a piece there.
If you've ever had someone write little post it notes to you and put them in random places around the house for you to find as you go through your day, you might understand how this was. I saw the equivalent of little post its from God here and there, basically telling me He was thinking about me.
At first I was aware of very little. But, then I started noticing. Once I started noticing, I eventually started seeing. And once I started seeing, I saw Him everywhere.
God was here. He was with me. He had my hand. He had my back. He wasn't letting go. He wasn't leaving me. He had me. He holds me. He's got me.
And once I realized that, I knew that my lab leader was right. It had happened. I was finally at the place where my faith in God is so strong that nothing will shake me from it - including Fibromylagia.
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