Beech Tree News Network

Sometimes, when the life has been knocked out of me, and I’m all out of mustard seeds, I depend on other people’s faith; not as a substitute for unbelief, but as a bolster against exhaustion, sorrow or fear.  These people are there for me when I can’t be there for myself.

My sister, Marsha, is one of those people, especially if I am sick.  Sometimes, I hesitate to call on her, because I know she will hold my feet to the fire when it comes to the part I play in the outcome of my own circumstances.

 “Did you get your flu shot?  Are you using the nasal flush I told you about?  Are you staying hydrated?”  These are all questions she might ask after I’ve called her to pray for me because of a lingering sinus infection.  Marsha knows God will do his part, but he won’t do my part.

 I don’t get much sympathy from Marsha, but I do get results.  When Marsha prays for me, little things, barely perceptible things, start to happen.  One sinus will open up then I’ll be able to hear out of an ear that has been clogged for days.  My attitude will begin to change and I will actually smile and start to feel better.  It is a gradual, consistent change that takes place over a few days. 

                I know what you’re thinking, my illness would have run its course in a few days with or without my sister’s prayers.  The thing is, I don’t have sinus infections for a few days.  They linger for weeks, making a circuitous trip from my sinuses to my throat then into my chest and back again.  I’ve gone through this event almost every winter since I was a kid, living on Ashes Creek, in the Ohio Valley, home to the greatest number of allergy specialists in the U.S.  The one blessing I have today is that the infections don’t lead to strep like they did when I was a child.  Yes, I get shots, I take vitamins and prescribed antibiotics.  I did allergy shots for two years without much effect.  My sister’s prayers seem to be the only thing that makes a difference during the really bad episodes. 

                When the circumstances of my life threaten with a knockout punch, I turn to my sister, Rhonda, for inspiration.  She has had one of those lives that make you wonder how she still has faith in God.  She does, however, have tremendous faith, and it is a tangible faith that she is able to pass on to others.  When Rhonda was teaching her young son, Adam, the meaning of the word brave, she took him outside into the darkness. 

                “I can’t see through the dark,” she told him.  “I don’t know what’s out there, but I know what’s in here,” she pointed to her heart, “And I know that what’s in here will get me through what’s out there.  It’s alright to be scared, but you have to go on through what’s out there.  That’s brave.”

                In July of this year, I attended Adam’s wedding.  At the reception, Adam’s army buddies (Adam was part of the 10^th Mountain Division, deployed to the Afghan/Pakistan border) told stories of his fearlessness during the attacks they endured from the Taliban insurgency.  One of the soldiers wrote a book entailing their exploits (Unsung Memoirs of an Infantryman) in which there was a chapter about Adam’s courage.  That’s the litmus test of faith, if you can pass it on to those around you.

                 I often look at people like my two sisters and wonder if I’ll ever have their kind of faith.  I don’t tend to accept a lot at face value.  I’m always reading between the lines, looking beneath the surface, and questioning things that others seem to easily accept.  I used to beat myself up about having that kind of attitude until one of my friends told me about an encounter she had with a hospital chaplain.       

My friend lost her only child to cancer.  She had a complete mental breakdown and had to be hospitalized.  Every day, when her friends visited, they would find her crying out a single question for God.  “Why?”

                Her friends, evidently distant relatives of Job’s friends, would tell her she shouldn’t question God.  When the hospital chaplain came to visit her, she told him, “Everybody tells me I shouldn’t question God.”

                “Do these people think they’re better than Jesus?” the chaplain asked.   “Jesus questioned God while he was being crucified—‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’  I don’t think any of us is better than Jesus.”

                That was the day my friend began to heal.

                It takes the really hard times in my life to make me realize how much I depend on my friends’ and family’s faith.  I just hope they all outlive me or I’m going to be in big trouble.