When me and one of my best friends, Joe, talk about the struggles I\’ve been having, he always uses a cliff metaphor to describe where I am on my journey. According to him, I\’ve been sitting on the edge of a cliff, knowing I should jump, but being completely frightened at the possibility that no one will catch me. It\’s my metaphor for my giant leap of faith, jumping ship, living life with reckless abandonment. And while those things are all nice enough in my head, the reality is that my head does not necessarily inspire my feet to do the leaping. There have been several things I\’ve done to somewhat prepare myself for jumping, and part of my life seems to be in the falling process as we speak (falling in a good, unplanned way). I mean, even if I haven\’t just fallen completely in the arms of my beloved, I have made honest, human steps…even if they have been painfully slow. There are a couple more connections I\’ve made to this idea of faith and especially the fall of faith. First being a scene this season of the Amazing Race. I don\’t know if any of you watch it, but there was this couple and all they had to do was slide down an admittedly steep water slide (about a 6story drop or something.) The girl was absolutely terrified at the prospect as she was both afraid of heights and water. This was her worst fear realized. That\’s all they had to do and they would still be in the race, because there was a team behind them. She absolutely would not do it. She would not do it for the chance at a million dollars. Watching this made me think whether or not I would do it for the chance at a million dollars. I mean, I\’m not the most adventurous person in the world and am not a huge fan of heights by any stretch of the imagination, but the reward might be worth it. Plus, and what really made me think I could, is all it would take would be letting go of the bar at the top, because once you start something like that, gravity will finish it for you. It literally takes a minute amount of action to preform such a huge fall. And this is where I think it\’s relevant to faith. This prayer doesn\’t say, give me a lot of faith. It says give me a strong faith. No matter how minuscule the faith, as long as it\’s strong enough to let go of the bar at the top, God will take care of the rest. When the other team came up behind them, they had 2 minutes to go down the slide. Her partner said \”2 minutes and your life will change.\” And that\’s all it takes. Two minutes, one action and the rewards of that are huge. Faith is something that I admit, I struggle with. It\’s probably the root of all my struggles to be honest. But then again, how can it not be. What an impossible task! To believe and trust in things you can\’t feel or see. It makes me think of So You Think You Can Dance when the female dancers sometimes leaps completly into the arms of her partner with no room for apprehension or fear, just moevement (Think Ade and Melissa, season 5 the breast cancer dance). I pray that I may be able to do that with my beloved and to know that though the skies may fall, his love remains.
\”I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.\” – Mt 17:20