Friday, September 11, 2009

Faith

I have always struggled with the concept of faith. I still do. Faith is like that trust exercise where you fall backwards with the belief that the person standing behind you is going to catch you. I never did well at that game. No matter who was standing behind me, I couldn’t blindly drop back into someone else’s arms.

Letting go, and putting faith in God, the universe, a higher power, whatever, makes me feel like I am being weak and irresponsible, like I’m not tending to what’s mine to mind, and that I need someone else to take care of things for me because I can’t do it myself. I’ve thought about why I do this. Perhaps, it is because I am an older sibling , or the fact that I’m a steadfast, reliable Capricorn. Whatever the reason, leaving the consequences up to a higher power just makes me feel like I’m not keeping up my end of the bargain, that I am weak...that I (God forbid) need help.

As I get older, I question what is so wrong with needing help or not having all the answers. The level of anxiety I can carry around with me, regarding this, can get ridiculous at times. For the sake of my own sanity, and well being, what I am, thankfully, realizing now is that I really don’t need to be perfect, I don’t have to have all of the answers and the world certainly won’t fall apart if I stop trying to manage everything and leave things up to faith.

Life is always right on time with its lessons and, lately, my life has been unfolding in ways that I never would have planned. Needless to say, this has challenged my comfortable ways of operating and has really thrown my controlling, unfaithful self into a tizzy. I’ve spent years not only thinking about what I want in the future, but I’ve done so with the belief I know how these things should unfold in my life and, or at least I think I should be the one to figure it out. At this very moment, nothing is unfolding as I would plan it if it were up to me. This is exactly what faith is, believing that, in this moment, right where you are is exactly where you need to be, that all is happening as it should and that your meddling hands need not get involved.

I feel like I’m finally becoming smart enough to acknowledge that I may not know the best and quickest way for my life to go and that, maybe, this faith stuff isn’t half bad. From this, I realize that life is like a GPS system. All it needs is for you to punch in your final destination and it will calculate the best route for you to take. Sure, you’ll be doing all of the driving, the experiencing, the living and the decision making but, as far as what and how the journey unfolds, I am learning that this doesn’t have to be figured out by me.

So my message to you, and myself, is to have faith, knowing that wherever you are, is exactly where you need to be. That your journey couldn’t be any better mapped out as it is and that, on this route, you will pick up everything that you need to grow and evolve along the way.

With love,
The Dancing Shiva

No comments:

Post a Comment