The Doubts

At church on Sunday, I just knew what this posting was going to be about.  It's about doubt.

Writing about faith and a small town is something that comes fairly natural to me, but there is the other side of it all -- the dark side.  And this is the side that not too many people want to hear.

The movie, "Heaven's For Real," touches on it when the pastor, the father of the boy who almost died, tells his flock that he had doubts.  He admits them to his wife and best friend.

We should know that if we have doubts about the elements of our faith, we are in very good company.  The now sainted Mother Teresa was plagued by doubts.  It is written about her:  "Shortly after beginning her work in the slums of Calcutta, she wrote: 'Where is my faith? Even deep down there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. If there be a God — please forgive me.'"  She admitted that she felt like a hypocrit and wore a mask, a cloak, that covered her true feelings.  She said she felt like a fraud.

Doesn't that just amaze you?  Someone who did the work of the Lord so beautifully, without any outward hint of selfishness, was tormented by a sense of being alone.  This feeling continued until her death!

I tried to do a little research just now about what other saints might have also suffered with doubts.  I came up with one -- St. Rose of Lima.  There must be others but at first glance, nothing popped up.  It seems to me that maybe Mother Teresa had something else that is amazing -- she was so honest! 

I have doubts sometimes.  It crops up now and again and usually takes me by surprise.  The story of Jesus just seems so unbelievable, so far fetched that I question it inside myself.  Even the Creed, as I say that prayer, rings hollow for me sometimes.  I am being totally honest here.  Does it stop me from going to church?  No.  Does it stop me from praying?  No.

We are told to believe like a little child.  That open-eyed wonderment that shows on the face of a child discovering their faith.  Those simple prayers that children utter before bed.  The conversations about God, the Father.  Then about God, the Son.  And then about God, the Holy Spirit.

We are a difficult people.  Even when there is a breakthrough in our faith, when we have felt the touch of God in our lives, we drift.  It's exasperating!!

But we must persevere, as Mother Teresa did.  We must continue in our faith and just trust.

Father Kevin's sermon on Sunday was a good one.  One I'll remember.  He talked about the miracles that Jesus performed.  He said that they were for a purpose ordained by God.  Certainly, one reason was to show the people that Jesus was the Messiah.  But he said there is another reason, actually he listed it third but now I can't remember one of the other ones.  He said this third reason is to show US how much God can do with so little.  Our pitiful prayers said in haste and without full understanding.  He mentions his "small yes" to becoming a priest, because even while saying yes he wasn't enthusiastic about it at first.

How like Todd Burpo who said he had recited the Lord's Prayer so many, many times, but had never fully appreciated the line, "on earth as it is in heaven."  His son's visit to heaven is the basis for the book and the movie that signaled Burpo's firm belief that his son did visit heaven and that it was to show him and his wife that heaven exists.  And then he must have realized that his son's trip to heaven was for everyone.  I'm so glad he shared, and I'm glad he shared his doubts.

Holy people can have doubts.  The evil one loves us to have doubts and uses whatever chink in our armor we might have to lure us away.  The closer we get to God, the more we may be tempted.  Knowing that, we should march on all the harder and not rest on feelings which are capricious and are up and down -- but on "every word that comes from the mouth of God."

Please say a prayer for my granddaughter, Ella, who continues to have seizures.  We celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary on Sunday and she had a seizure on the way home in the car.  She is also going for her annual visit to the Cleveland Clinic on Wednesday.  A congressman from Pennsylvania has introduced a bill that would allow patients with severe epilepsy to be able to use the medical marijuana produced as an oil from the strain, Charlotte's Web.  It has less than 3% of the hallucinogenic properties of typical marijuana.  This oil has been known to work on the most difficult epilepsy cases.  Pray that the bill moves forward for a vote!!!

Thanks, everyone.