Journaling Personal Faith

You can have faith with or without religious affiliation - faith is a state of being. Faith is putting hope and power into that which we cannot see now...but know we will see in the future. "Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Faith is what your soul knows and has, in spite of conditioning.  Faith has something to do with intuition.  Faith is an everyday, every moment thing that keeps us going even when we are not in travail.  Faith can sometimes be a longing.  Faith is unique to each person; my faith is not your faith.  I am me and you are you, and faith that sustains us is unique.  Faith is a feeling and has a whole lot to do with trust.  If we have faith in a person, place, or thing, we know how to trust.

Faith is to do with hope, as well.  Faith is the thing that tells you things will get better, that life does not always hand us lemons, and that there is something 'more'.  Faith has us cling to our beliefs no matter what.  Faith is what has us follow our dreams and wishes.  Faith in ourselves needs to be magnified because we are all we have, truly, in the whole of everything.  

Part of our faith has to do with Love.  We have faith that, if we love someone, they might love us back.  Of course, we have been wounded by such faith, because we make really dumb decisions...well, I do.  If we have faith in ourselves, we love ourselves.  If we have faith in love, we will live by example.  Faith is what has us try and try again to keep love.  Faith is what brings us from our wounded knees to rise and face another day, another time, another place, because, really, deep inside, we know it has to be better. To long for faith in people, places and things, means that we are still soulful and grateful and we know how to find that which fills our longings and loneliness's.  Faith is very much a soulful triad with Hope and Charity.

I spent many years afraid of God, people I loved, and life in general.  I felt like, and lived this ideology, thinking it was me against God and people and life.  I was truly unhappy and fearful of taking risks, of everything in everyday life.  I felt it was me against all.  Something inside me would never give life up, no, but I cannot say that there were days, decades ago, where I thought life was horrible.  I guess faith in myself kept me going and faith that there was, truly, something better.  I was stuck.  But, I put all my faith in myself and in 1984, I wrote the admittance tests and was accepted into the University of Lethbridge, and that faith in myself was extremely tested until I aced it.  I am, indeed, taking the credit.  One foot in front of the other helped me mother my four babies, mother the older ones, and keep on keeping on.  I did five years of University, got my B.Ed and my 5th year NAS specialization in 3 1/2 years.  I had faith that I could raise good kids even being a single-parent mother.  And it worked.  Of course, faith without works is not faith.

I had some dreadful times with the divorce from a 19 year marriage.  it took faith in myself to do the work needed, and, yes, I got so thin I looked like a holocaust survivor, but, dang, I had the courage to follow my own faith in myself.  I had faith that my kids would turn out well and adjusted.  I had faith that every class I did in my courses, I could complete.  It was danged hard work to follow my faith in myself.  Along the way, I learned that I could have faith in people, places and things.  I had work to do to have faith in a kind and loving God, though.  I let nothing intercede in my personal faith in Self.  I did the work, with that faith wrapped around me like a comfort. 

It was newly into my career, way up North, in a semi-isolated community that something happened to my faith.  God become less a monster to me.  I learned, through University and then living in a small isolated village, about Creator.  I replaced my sense of a monster God, to a loving Creator who had my back because I had faith.  Then the full-blown faith in Creator came to be and I hold that even now.  Creator is not the monster-God of religions that made me fearful.  I changed the name I called him.  I loved to learn and sense Creator, as my definitions and connotations changed and I lived my talk.  I still, to this day, have my own personal relationship with a Creator.  It literally saved my life.

As you contemplate Faith, in your own understanding of it, can you express that on an art journal page? How did you come to your faith?  What kinds of things do you have faith in?  Never mind the negative people, places and things that truly tested your faith.  Faith is beautiful.  Faith in Self is mandatory.  Express that! 

©Carol Desjarlais 9.5.19