394191

I was a number. 

As a number 394191, I created a person. 

September —

She knelt beside her bed tonight,

her hands folded in prayer,

though her heart could scarcely follow her lips.

She said that she loved God.

And yet, beneath the words,

there lingered a question

she scarcely dared to speak:

Why, then, is she so afraid?

She has prayed until the words became whispers,

until her tears seemed more faithful

than anything her tongue could utter.

Still, the sorrow remains.

There are moments when she almost believes

that Providence has written some gentle purpose

upon the pages of her life.

Then misfortune comes.

One door closes.

One hope is taken.

One more grief is placed upon shoulders

already weary from carrying the last.

And she looks toward Heaven and wonders—

Why did God let this happen to her?

The question troubles her.

She fears that doubt is a kind of betrayal,

that sorrow is proof of a faith too frail to deserve

the mercy for which she prays.

Yet perhaps God does not despise

the heart that trembles before Him.

Perhaps He knows

that she is only human.

For so long she believed

that if she were good enough,

careful enough,

patient enough,

faithful enough—

then surely suffering would pass her by.

But slowly, painfully,

she is learning otherwise.

She is not powerful enough

to make herself responsible for every misfortune.

Not every sorrow is punishment.

Not every loss is judgment.

Not every wound was earned.

Some things simply happen,

and no amount of self-blame

can make them righteous.

Perhaps this, too, is faith:

to love God

without understanding Him;

to trust Him

while her hands are trembling;

to kneel before Him

with questions still unanswered;

to believe that He is good

even when His goodness

is hidden from her sight.

Tonight, she will not demand perfection of herself.

She will not pretend

that she is without fear.

She will not call her sorrow wicked

merely because it hurts.

She will bring God the heart she truly possesses—

wounded, uncertain, frightened,

and yet still turning toward Him.

For perhaps faith is not

the absence of doubt.

Perhaps faith is this:

to doubt, and still remain;

to grieve, and still pray;

to ask “Why?”

and yet, somehow, whisper—

“Thy will be done.”