If we believe these stories...

I was sitting in church the first time I followed that thought: "If we believe these stories..." And my black pen met my black book because I liked the sound of those words and I wanted to inspect their truth later. It has been a month or two or three since (not more than three though) and I still like them.

The sermon was on Psalm 105 and it asked us "why do we focus on the one thing that God has not done and ignore all that he has done?" Verse 14 talks about how God has moved kings for his small group of sojourners. It was good to be sure, but I think the most I got out of it was this phrase that would follow me..."if we believe these stories..."

I look at my Bible and I tell the world that I believe the words written in it. I promise to live by them and, perhaps, to die by them. But I forget.

Tonight is heavy. It doesn't have to be, but there are forces and people beyond my control making decisions, and they do not care that I am wrapped up in their story. They do not grasp the depth of their own significance, especially when one names them family...and that is ok. It is not good; but, quite simply, it is not the point. It is a symptom, not the problem itself. And so, tonight is heavy because I am waiting and hurting and trying to guess at the end. And because I am human. A woman living on a planet under a curse.

And I want to know what to do. I want to know how long this will last. I want to catalog all of my complaints and deliver them to heaven with a final request of answers in the same orderly fashion. Most of all, I want a promise that life wont always be this way, because, quite honestly, it has been just this for such a long time.

So I am sitting again, this time, weeks later, in my room. And just like that, I am holding that black book and looking at my Bible and hearing those words, "if we believe these stories..." Then what? At the time, the first time, I wrote: "If believe these stories...we should realize that we do not stand upon the shoulders of giants only, as the saying goes. But we stand and fall by the breath of God. A God of ancient goodness. We should have fallen a long time ago; but we forget our frailness and think ourselves invincible."

I wont get all of my answers delivered to me in bullet point form--that's hardly a way to live. But I get what I most want. It's truth. And it's a promise that life wont always be this. I forget what has been done and I get so afraid of something I know is not true. "There is a time for everything, for every activity under the sun." "Hope that is seen is not hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?"

If I believe these stories, it changes everything. There are hundreds of people in that book who have fought their way through living. It is not a plan in black and white with diagrams, but it takes care of the bigger issues. It makes itself useful to all people in all places at all times...and it answers my fear and my humanity. It gives me just enough.