FAITH

We hear it all the time: anything is possible if you believe. It’s the eternal buzzword for ad campaigns from vodka to video games, and the backbone of the lyrics of dozens of weepy movie soundtracks.

Faith, in itself, though, is a funny thing. By definition, it is “the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, concept, or thing,” according to Wikipedia.

Singer George Michael has bleated for 20 years or so that we gotta have faith. Many of us grow up in families that instill it, go to schools that teach it, and sit in Sunday services that profess it. And after all of that, some of us have it and some don’t. And some, like me, lose it.

In my life, something as complex and deep as faith feels fragile. The worst circumstances can banish a belief system you thought was unshakable. And the most ordinary events can respark it, like a chance meeting, or a coincidental chain of events that are really more than a coincidence, long after you thought it was lost for good.

I know it sounds like I’m speaking in code. And I am. But what I will say is that an incredible thing happened to me last week that restored my faith in something I never expected to believe in again. Just by chance. And in one moment, a heart that had been hardened for a decade began to soften. I began to find my way back to something dear to me that had been bruised and battered by circumstances out of my control until I didn’t want it anymore.

Come to find out, underneath it all, I really did.

You don’t know what to think in the midst of an epiphany. In my case, I looked to my higher power and said, “Wow, is that you doing this?” as if there is any question. I have faith in that.