How do you loose faith? In god or people in science or medicine. You feel let down …betrayed, an expectation that you think is reasonable goes unfulfilled. It’s a this very moment that I little piece of you breaks, it will never return, never grow back – it is gone. You have lost faith. Not all of it, but some. You cant measure the loss you can only feel it.
I knew a woman, her husband was a serial philanderer, years and affairs and yet more years and more women, had left her bitter, dark and cold. I didn’t understand her then but I do now.
Years and years of lies, broken promises, hope shattered again and again – she lost her faith, in her husband, in other woman, in the men that lied for him, in herself for hoping and believing, she stopped believing in happiness. Her heart was broken open and all that was good seemed to have spilled out to be replaced by a bitterness. “ I was a good loving caring wife and mother I should have been rewarded with a measure of happiness – I was rewarded with pain and lies therefore belief in a value system that punishes the good and rewards the wicked means there is no “true” measure of people and reward – there is nothing to believe in.
I know a couple that lost a son, they were broken hearted and could not find their God in this new son-less world, its been 12 years and they still cannot find their god anymore than they can find their son. The years have slipped by one after the other marked only by the days that bring more pain… birthdays, deathdays, Christmas. Their faith forever shattered. “We were good simple people our son was the light of our lives if there was a god he would not take our son from us ergo there cannot be a god”
And me how and what faith have I lost..? some days people, the people I have loved that have lied that have betrayed me with duplicity ~ that somehow believed that the love I had for them was not one of acceptance and perhaps they were right because here we stand –estranged angry bitter. And as my mind swirls around remembering, seeing as if for the first time the lies the tricks, the accusations and the denials, I wonder again and again what did you want me for? I thought we were friends, comrades, compatriots, but you knew the truth – so set me free once and for all tell me what it was..Did I protect you? Give you money? Act as a cover? Of what use was I to you? Did it not exhaust you keeping up with the double dealing, remembering the falsehoods as they accumulated? Did you live in fear of what people would tell me? You need not have I always believed you, but then you knew I would.
The anger, the resentment the rage I carry – its not just for you but is for me also. My naivety, my willingness to believe every word you fed me – all evidence to the contrary. For you this is what I resent – you took away my choice. My choice to stay or to leave. You were people I trusted, people I loved in all of this I have lost some faith in humanity and this I grieve.
Is their salvation for any of us? Can we find again that which we have lost?
For the bitter and broken woman is it the love of a good man or perhaps the oblivion of the bottle ? For the lost couple will they see god again in the lives of their grandchildren or only when death calls to them?
And foe me where is my salvation ~ in the love of the others, in the kind gentle healing hands of friends in learning to see what healthy relationships are. In each day spent in truth and honesty. These things are like the waves of the ocean washing away the hurt, cleansing that which has been soiled and returning the sands of my soul to the sate of faith.
The lesson ~ We can all loose our faith and we can have it returned to us, as death is balanced by life, as betrayal is forgotten in the face undying loyalty, as lies turn to ash in the light of truth. If we have to courage to allow the healing, the courage to love again, the courage to believe and the faith to trust.
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