Faith Cometh by Hurting

I understood myself as someone who didn’t know how to give up. But I did know what getting tired felt like. I learned the hard way: that my terrible SAT scores weren’t enough for God to warrant me a miracle. I had hoped to be accepted into a private college with a full scholarship, just as he had done for Karen. But it didn’t happen for me. I couldn’t move away from my mother now. I wasn’t looking forward to washing all those dishes. So I stopped believing in God.  I had over stretched my faith into believing something totally impossible. But I believed because  I wanted something good to happen to me, for me, in this foreign land.

I tried as much as possible to avoid God. I stopped going to church on Fridays. I didn’t have a choice about Sundays because my mother wouldn’t have it, raising an unbeliever under her roof. I was not surprised when I found myself swaying to praises and lifting my hands during worship. My mustard seed had been sowed too deep. Still, I wasn’t ready to ran back to God.

I dated for the first time. And then I realized that kissing was a chore so I stopped. He must have been a bad kisser or I overdid it. I was glad it was over. The two month summer break between my last year of high school and first year of college allowed me to sleep in bed and over think this whole faith thing. I slept on the lower part of the bunk bed while Karen slept on the top. I thought it would be too dangerous choosing to climb up while sleepy.. What I didn’t know was that Karen had already calculated that I would be the one to pick up the phone when someone called, open the door when someone buzzed and respond to my mother’s calls. She was definitely out of reach. But maybe, I needed to be close to the carpet where it was easier to kneel and ask God questions like why he had allowed my metrocard to go missing without telling me. He didn’t care. He was the reason I was in all this in the first place. It was because I trusted him. Where had I gotten this wild faith from?

After two years, I asked God that we be friends again. I am afraid of God, because I believe that even if He will not do what I want, He will do what He wants. There was no doubt that he loved me, after all the things I said to him and all the things I asked him to do. I was not going to give him my heart, not instantly. He was going to have to earn it. I had learned that I was not tired of believing. That even if it hurt sore, like the boil I had in my knee as a kid, the one that allowed me to touch the rocklike structure of my knee, I didn’t want the pressure of living on this world to be on myself. I had come to understand that a part of me was etched on the shoulders of God like a fading birthmark.