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Having faith in Good (or God, call it what you will) is the precursor to so many other things: self-acceptance, nonjudgment, forgiveness, embracing meaning, finding purpose, everything. And it seems like the gateway to having faith is prayer and a willingness to pray, even when we don’t buy it or we know in our heart of hearts that this BLEEP doesn’t work. 

I’ve written about this often before. The willingness to pray, even with a complete lack of faith, is an important gesture, even when it feels empty or hollow or fake. The Alcoholics Anonymous community calls this “fake it til you make it,” because they know if the sober newcomers keep coming back and keep praying, sooner or later even the darkest heart will see the light if the door is open. That sounds cheesy, but it’s true.

I like to think of faith as a campfire in a dark forest. We’re not going to find it if we stay in the dark and don’t search, but if we do start searching and see it off in the distance, it’s almost impossible to avoid moving toward it after living so long in the dark. The closer we get, the more real the light and warmth become. 

The cynics within us resist having faith or even searching for it. We use any number of things to avoid it. Bad things still happen, and we can use any number of them to explain away Good (or God). Cancer. War. Pedophilia. All of them are horrible, and I would argue all of them are expressions of humanity in pain and lacking in faith in Good (or God). 

Beyond the every day atrocities we faithless can use to explain away God (or Good), bad things will continue to happen to us individually, whether or not we’ve ever been in a war torn country, lost a loved one to cancer, or been traumatized as children. We can fall ill or make poor financial choices. We can lose a family member or trust a love-bomber who promises the world and then takes everything. Life is hard, no question, but we either decide for ourselves that all of it (and I do mean all of it) has meaning or we can believe everyone else who tells us that nothing matters and all is lost all the time. 

I was once in the latter category. Nothing mattered and I always felt lost. Bad BLEEP would happen and I would make it worse with a deep-seated lack of faith. At some point, fifteen years ago, I started to suspect I was wrong about everything. I started to pray and move toward things with intention, and crazy, lovely, wonderful things happened that could only be explained as the presence of God (or Good) in my life. Terrible, horrible, heartbreaking things also happened. I now firmly believe that everything, everything was putting me on a path to here and now, where I have faith, I have the life I always wanted, I have meaning and skills and purpose. 

The worst part is, I have been given everything I have ever wanted in life. I have been given enormous opportunities to be successful, to be loved, and to go on grand adventures - all of it I embraced, at least for a time, but sooner or later I destroyed it all due to a lack of faith. God must have been watching, thinking What in the BLEEP is she doing over there?

So, for the past two years, and more specifically the last 288 days, I have made a more concerted effort to have complete faith, no matter what. I didn’t want to sabotage anymore chances. I didn’t want to ruin anymore of my own dreams. 

The interesting part is some things have still fallen apart, but my faith has held steady despite those failings. I promised myself and God (or Good) that I would believe that I was worthy of Good, so now I feel less like an active participant in the destruction and more like an observer watching other people sabotage themselves or God (or Good) intervening to remove negativity from my life.

And other parts of my life are flourishing and growing in indescribable, concrete ways I am so grateful for, and I can only attribute such opportunities to Good (or God) working in my heart and mind. I now have faith I am worthy of such growth and strength and good fortune, therefore I am doing far less to BLEEP it up. It belongs to me now. I deserve it. God (or Good) provided it, so why on Earth would I question it or mess it up?  

Life will always be full of change and full of lessons. The important thing, I see now, is to keep the faith.