Faith Over Fear, At Least That's What They Say

Sometimes there are seasons where our life is amazing and wonderful and when that happens, it becomes easy to "walk in faith" and believe in a higher power. To believe that no matter what happens, God hears you. To believe you will always be alright. What we forget to consider is that when life is going great many times we forget to look up at what other people around us may be going through. It becomes hard to put yourself into the shoes of someone who is struggling or questioning. We forget what it really means to have true faith because we forget the struggles and the feelings of loneliness, hurt, pain, and fear. 

My struggle and journey with my faith has been one that I have become very open about in recent months because I want to help others who may feel like they are confused or walking through the fire alone. I am here to tell you, you aren't alone. Through the recent questioning of my faith I will be honest; I have lost people in my life, I have been judged, and even made to feel like I was not a good person. I was made to feel as though I was an untrustworthy person because of my decision to figure things out instead of constantly believing in something or someone I couldn't see. On the other end, I was also shown so much love, grace, and support through this journey by people who are very solid in their faith. The group of people who did not judge me for doubting my faith and questioning things gave me so much hope and encouraged me to continue to search for my answers.

For the past 4 years my trials led me to go deeper into my faith and pray immensely. When I say immensely I mean I was locking myself in my room praying for at least 2-3 hours a day spending time with the Lord. I know that for many who read this that sounds crazy and unbelievable but I did it everyday because I wanted to have faith. I wanted to be close to God. During this time my main focus was my prayer life and leading people to God. I believed with my whole entire heart that God was going to hear my prayers and come through for me and the others I was praying for. After all, God is the healer of all things.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-17 states, "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing." So that is what I did. Non stop I would pray over and over, I would speak to pastors, read my bible, pour my heart out to the Lord, spend most of my time at church gatherings, or in worship. Every church service I would go up to the alter and and pray with someone from the prayer team. I just knew God heard my prayers and they were going to be answered. "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7). So that is what I continued.. ask and ask and ask. But after a while, nothing changed. Things in my life did not heal, my demons did not go away, my relationships did not get better, and the people that I prayed would come to know Christ, didn't. It seemed the closer I tried to get to God, the more I became spiritually attacked.

I began to feel more alone than I have ever felt. But I listened to that voice in my heart, I still wasn't giving up. "Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours (Mark 11:23-24). I continued to tell those mountains to move. I became so confident that God was going to come through that I began to argue with people when they told me I was crazy for believing he was working and I just couldn't see it yet. As more time passed though, I still couldn't see the prayers I'd prayed over and over coming to fruition. I will say that through this time, I won't claim I was perfect and I still am not. I did things that weren't godly. I said things that weren't godly. I acted ungodly towards others but I was trying to be better and still lead.

After a while, I still couldn't see the answers from the Spirit or feel the answers even after all the praying, worshiping, and reading I was doing. I began to notice myself sitting in church during worship and tears would begin to roll down my cheeks because of anger. I felt like I couldn't continue leading people to Christ if I didn't even feel like God was hearing my prayers. People kept telling me that things were going to get better and turn around. If that were true, why did I still feel so empty? God was supposed to be the one thing in my life that didn't make me feel empty. I saw people around me who didn't have a deep prayer life or church life receiving everything they wanted. I saw people who were praying and almost immediately, things were turning around for them. I saw people who acted out with no intent to please God pray a few times and POOF, their prayers were answered.

As I became more and more lonely, I began to feel that maybe these things weren't God but they were coincidence or luck for these people. I couldn't understand that while I tried to do my best, I saw things getting worse for me. I mean it made sense right? What was more likely to believe, that there is a guy sitting up in the clouds answering prayers all the time or there was luck involved for people. To me, I felt like I was leaning towards one answer. That answer was, luck only. 

In the past few months, I had become more angry at God than I'd ever been. Demi Lovato came out with a song called "Anyone". Man, those lyrics hit me hard. Every lyric in that song described how I felt. Demi sings, "I talk to shooting stars but they always get it wrong I feel stupid when I pray. So, why am I praying anyway, if nobody's listening? Anyone, please send me anyone. Lord, is there anyone? I need someone." I began posting lyrics like that to let people know I was struggling, empty, and lonely. After all, I didn't want to be this hypocrite.

I was struggling but doing my best to not give up. I was praying but didn't feel heard. I felt like God had forgotten about me. I know if you're still taking the time to read this you either feel what I have felt or you're feeling like this is over-dramatic. But this is where the struggle came in big time. I began listening to songs where people were struggling with their faith and I finally felt like people were going through what I was. They'd prayed to a God they believed had the power to change things for so long and believed for so long but saw no results. My mind began to spiral. Why did good people go through terrible circumstances? Why did bad people get away with things? Why were animals who couldn't defend themselves abused all of the time and people got away with it? I couldn't understand why babies got sick from cancer and were taken away from parents who had so much faith. I couldn't understand why people who acted more in faith weren't getting results while those who were care free and not living for the Lord continued to have amazing things workout for them.

At this point, I just decided to give up because I was so angry. I was so mad that people who believed with their whole heart prayed and prayed with no results. I announced to everyone that I was struggling to believe in a God who didn't seem to hear me or others. Though I decided to give up in my head, my heart couldn't accept. 

So, this is where I currently find myself. I took a month off of social media to really collect my thoughts. I still forced myself to go to church and I still spoke with those continuously walking in their faith. What made me feel better is that many of them reassured me that what ever higher power I believed in, they weren't going to be mad that I was trying to figure things out. They weren't going to send me straight to hell for not understanding or questioning my faith. And so after a month of diving deep into my pain, I made the decision to reconnect and follow my heart and Jesus.

I do believe that there must be a purpose for many things that happen. I still can't say I am fully committed to believing that everything people picture God as, is true. This is where I still find myself struggling. I think many Christians take the bible very literally instead of symbolically. I have chosen to follow the symbolic route. The journey I find myself on currently is figuring out these questions, figuring out what is missing and trying to place the pieces together. I do believe that there is a spirit world that many in the church don't take into consideration. And this can be a struggle in it's own self. "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" Ephesians 6:12). It is really easy to not understand the depression and questioning when things fall into place easily for you. Or you may have been fortunate not to have dealt with anxiety and depression. But I believe it also makes it harder for you to really find that faith that you desperately need to really truly know you will be alright. I also believe it makes it harder to connect deeply with those who have had to fight to find what they believe to be true.

In the end, something that I have realized over time is that when we go through hard trials and then come out on top, we forget what it is like to be on the bottom for so long. That feeling of loneliness becomes a distant memory. The feeling of really struggling and feeling empty becomes unrelatable because you can't understand why someone can't move forward or why they are so stuck on a prayer. You become tired of these people and want to give up on them. When things work out for you, you have that child like faith that is "God did it once, so he'll keep me safe always". But there are those of us out there that still want to have faith where we haven't seen the work yet, and we may get angry, question, and even lose faith for a while. But, in the end, when we get a victory, let's remember we were once those on the bottom struggling for answers, alone and full of fear. And in those times where we do finally see or feel our higher power come through, lets not lose patience in those who are struggling or give up on them. That only makes them feel more alone and less likely to believe. Let us show others love. Let us act in kindness. Just know that what ever you believe, it is not my purpose to judge you or degrade you, or even give up on you. It is my purpose to support you, and love you through your struggles. Faith over fear they say, so I will proceed with faith but I will never forget, that I struggle to find answers too.

"Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Hebrews 1:11)."

Lovingly,

-Lucca