Keeping Faith-Praying for a Friend

Sometimes we are faced with scary things in our lives. Sometimes we are asked to understand the unexplainable. Why is a young man with a world in front of him addicted to alcohol while so many of his age can enjoy and indulge with no ill effects? Why does this disease threaten to take the life of this man and so many others? Why do people we love become ill? Why do good people end up with horrible diseases and leave us saddened at their lot in life? Why do some people suffer mightily with relationships and mental illness?

Is faith about not asking why? Is faith about something more than our simple desire to explain the events that do not fit our plan?

Here is what I know. There is a God, we all have access, in a million languages and ways we are able to speak to and know God. God represents love and love is about trust. I would almost venture to say that trust is the hardest and most powerful of all the emotions we experience in love. That when all else fails this trust is the only thing that brings me peace and hope. When I spend time quietly each day with God, with my faith, my life is better. Not better because bad things do not happen but better in that I am able to move through those things with hope and faith that I am loved and cared for.

Brennan Manning ...(a total favorite of mine) puts it so beautifully when he is describing what he believes God would say to us if....
"My child, fan the flame of your confidence in Me. Keep it burning. I want you to be happy, to come back again and again to this feeling of trust until you are never without it. Trust is an aspect of love. If you love Me and believe in My love for you, you will surrender your whole self into My hands like a little child who doesn't even ask, "Where are you taking me?" but sets off joyously, hand in hand with his mother. How many blessings this happy confidence wins for you, My little one......In all of this see My tenderness. It is everlasting."