Faith

A couple weeks ago, a friend ask me, "How do you keep your faith?"  She took me by surprise.  It honestly wasn't a question I had considered.   I wasn't sure how to answer.  I said, "I just do."  But it's more than that.  It has to be.

As I was growing up, my very least favorite Bible story was "The Parable of the Ten Virgins."  I just couldn't get it.  Why couldn't they share?  Just a little bit of oil?  Or couldn't they share the light from their own lamps?  After all, a little light goes a long way in the darkness.  It wasn't until I was a lot older, and had experienced some of my own dark nights, that I started to understand.

See, for a while, we can share our light.  And we can benefit from the shared light from another.  I did this growing up.  I depended on the light from my parents' lamps, and that of good friends.  But at the same time, I was putting drops into my own lamp, sometimes without even realizing it.

But there comes a time in everyone's life when they have to have their own oil, their own light.  When the big things come along, it's not enough to rely on other's strength.  While they want to share, would love to share, some things can't be shared, not in the amounts sufficient to sustain.  I can't breathe for someone else, and my nutrition won't help them grow.  And while my faith may help another, it can't give them the knowledge that I have.

When I was told that Aaron had a fatal disorder, I had to draw on that oil.  I felt like a failure, like I had failed my son.  His body was flawed and frail, and I hadn't given him a better one.  I ached for him, and for the rest of us.  And it hurt, it hurt so deeply.  I felt that pain in every fiber of my being.  And I needed that oil in my lamp, needed it desperately.

I think about those drops of oil, placed slowly in my lamp over the years.  They are drops of primary songs, "I Know My Father Lives, and Loves Me, Too."  "I Am A Child of God."  They are nights spent in prayer and days looking up at the sky through the green leaves and listening to the wind.  They are quiet moments with my scriptures, hearing His voice and counsel.  And they are joyful moments with my family, laughing and goofing off, knowing that these children are mine, forever, under covenants I've made with Him.

And I guess, in a way, that's how I've kept my faith.  I've always known Heavenly Father and Jesus love me.  They love ME, the good me, the bad me, the cranky, tired, out-of-sorts me.  And They want what's best for me, even if I don't understand what that is.  And it amazes me how They know me and my needs.

Jeremiah 29:11 says: For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith theLord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.  He knows me and He has a plan for me, a plan that will let me be my best me.  And He has one for Aaron, too.  

I don't profess to understand why Aaron's body is so imperfect, but I know his soul is perfect.  And I know that the foundation for my faith was laid a long time ago, long before I dreamed that I would need it.  

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, 

the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1