Faith and Doubt

A conversation with a good friend of mine this week got me thinking about faith and doubt.  There are lots of bumper stickers and notebooks and pretty wall hangings that make a particular one word statement/imperative - "Believe". Just believe.

Well.... believe what?  And why?  And how will I know what I'm believing is right?  It sounds so good and deep and transcendent to just say "Believe!"  But many of us know from personal experience that, well, it isn't really all that simple.

I'm a believer in the body of a doubter.  My natural inclination is to question.  I've struggled and re struggled over the decades with many of my core beliefs. I can remember how good it felt to believe everything my parents told me as a child, that grounding confidence I had in their omniscience.  But as it was destined too, that foundation had to crack, because of course my parents (though very wise) are not omniscient. They could be wrong about things, and as I got older that meant I had to figure many things out for myself.  And that journey can be a painful one.  And it can be a fearful one.  Because if your entire life structure and internal essence is based on certain beliefs, can you survive it if they crumble? Would you want to?

I wish memories weren't so weak.  Because if I look back and pinpoint some experiences of my life, they tell a powerful story about the hand of God in my life.  Proofs of His existence and Presence.  I felt and watched my sister's short leg grow out in my hands as we prayed for her in my grandparent's kitchen.  Tissue that didn't exist before is there ex nilo.  My spirit grew in the soil of the stories from my parents and grandparents and the large array of international Christians that sat around our dinner table of how God directly spoke to them and guided them.  I believed them.  And I cried with my family when we learned of the death of our Peruvian friend who died at the hands of men who hated his message of peace. 

At times I've pulled against it even while fearing it would release me into an undefinable vacuum, but the tether that ties my soul to the story of Christ somehow holds strong.  And even now as I get older and questions surface, I feel the unyielding tie that I now know will never break.  So even though I'm prone to doubting, I remain a believer.

A large body of the things that have convinced me of what I believe are convincing because of my first hand experience with them.  I know they don't hold the same weight for people hearing them second hand.  A person I kind of know seeing a miracle is no proof to me of miracles.  Me seeing one on the other hand - a little more compelling.  So what do I tell my friend who like me, finds herself most often in the grips of doubt?

I don't have perfect answers. Few doubters ever do.  But a few things I would say to you who struggle with belief are as follows:

Don't use doubt as an excuse.  Sometimes we can use not being sure about everything as an excuse to not do anything.  It keeps us from having to commit to something.  It keeps us from changing our lives.

Don't let it disable you.  Don't throw up your hands and give up as soon as things don't make sense.  Use it to press forward, not give up.

You are a lot more likely to find answers if you purposefully look for them. A promise Jesus made was "ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you."  It implies a bit of pro activeness on our part.  And though faith is and isn't simple, in my experience asking God for helping finding Him and knowing Him is a request He loves to answer.

On Growing Up and Growing Stronger

When I first started nursing, working three 12 hour shifts in a row wrecked me. Literally.  I'd spend the entire next day recovering.  I generally avoided having my shifts grouped together at all costs, because frankly, it was exhausting!  I was so amazed and confused by women a couple decades older than me who could work 4-6 in a row and seem no worse for the wear.  How did they have more energy than me?  Wasn't I supposed to be the one in my prime? Full of youthful energy?

Now I know the answer to that.  They were all moms.  Nothing forces you to stretch further and longer than you would ever have wanted to like being a mom.  There's no clocking out at the end of the day from parenthood.  You may have a long and trying day with your children and fall into bed exhausted... only to be woken up a few hours later by insistent and high pitched wails.  Now it doesn't matter how many shifts I just worked in a row, there is no day of recovery!  The next day, bright and early, sleep or no sleep, I'd better be ready to get back in the swing of a different kind of busy.

Looking back now, I can see that I may have been a little bit of a wimp. Thinking I couldn't possibly function adequately at work without a good nights sleep.  Thinking I needed all this time to myself to be able to better give my energy to others when I had too.  Back when a day off work looked like sleeping until 9, going to the gym, taking a long luxurious shower, cleaning, eating, living at a relaxed pace all my own.  And still feeling like I was busy and maxed out.

When I compare myself to the me I was a few short years ago, I'm so thankful for how being a mom has made me grow up and grow stronger.  Something that would have broken me a few years ago isn't worth mentioning now in my new normal.  I thought having time to myself to do things that I thought made me happy would help me be a better, more gracious person.  But it turns out that generally only makes us more selfish. But having your time constantly (sometimes forcibly) focused on other people is an amazing catalyst for growth and change.  And a catalyst I'm thankful for.

The First One Stays

Anyone who has been in nursing for a little while has had to deal with death.  We have a front seat to it, so to speak. Surprisingly for me, it isn't as hard as I thought it would be.  It becomes strangely normal.  Wash the body, zip up the bag, fill out the paperwork, make the phone calls, return to your day.  Besides the unusual or unexpected cases, it starts to not really phase you all that much.  But the first one, that first patient you lose, stays with you for a long time.

  I was working on a medical floor at the time, that first painful year of nursing. The hospital I worked at was in a town that was split down the middle between college students and retirees.  I'm sure you can guess which one made up 99% of our patient population.  We got to know many people fairly well, as many of the retirees made their way to the telemetry unit several times a year.

He was a little old man who hadn't lost his spunk and spirit.  The first time he was my patient he couldn't wait to get back to his nursing home because there was a lady there he had been seeing.  He talked long and passionately about her and about fishing.  I remember thinking he was seriously cute.  The second time he was my patient he wasn't fairing so well, and I had to transfer him to the ICU because of some bad heart rhythms he started throwing out.

 Later he came to me again, significantly smaller and slower. Apparently the nursing home he had been living at failed to notice that he was having too much trouble with his arthritic hands to effectively feed himself. He was also frustrated that despite his desire to rebuild his strength, no one was ever available to help him walk.  After that, his cardiologist (one of the best in my opinion, to this day) made it a point to visit him there almost every day to make sure he was taken care of.

A few months later, I found myself again his nurse.  This time he was a shell of what he was when we first met.  His skeletal frame was curled painfully in the bed and he cried out every time we touched him or moved him.   He was so weak he couldn't even speak, expect to whisper yes or no.  A few visitors stopped in from time to time, but always left after a few moments of awkward silence in his room.  We find it hard to be with someone when they can't carry on conversation. When it was clear that he was dying, the cardiologist tried to make arrangements for him to be flown across the country to where his son lived, so he could live out the weeks or months remaining to him with his family.

Soon it became apparent that he would never make that journey. He might not make it the rest of the day.  I made the call to his son, who was on the next flight out to see his dad.  The rest of my shift I'd slip into his room and reassure him that his son was on his way and would be there soon.  You could almost physically see him holding on to life by his fingertips those last few hours.

Finally, his son arrived, hurrying desperately to his dad's bedside, eyes full of tears.  "We all kind of think he's been hanging on to see you," I told him before stepping out awkwardly. An hour later, he died.

He was my first patient death, and I'll never forget him.

Walking with My Mom

As I look back on life and my times with family, certain trends stand out as to where and how our most intimate moments took place.  I remember meaningful conversations with my dad during the long commutes to high school, mulling over thoughts and philosophies and possible book ideas with my sister over wine and cigarettes, and walking, always walking, with my mom.

Some of my earliest memories involve going on long walks (or hikes) with my mom.  Around our neighborhood in Albuquerque, down the dusty ditch roads of Peralta, through humid neighborhoods with waxy looking leaves in Southern California, across shale and meadow in Colorado. Walking.

If you know my mom, you know she doesn't sit still very well.  I think there is a marriage for her between the movement of her limbs and climbing of her heart rate and the ease with which she prays and talks about her thoughts and journeys.  I can't remember a walk with my mom where I didn't hear her talk about how God is teaching her and forming her and helping her to let go of the things that hurt her.  I remember walking the trails of the Sandias, listening to my mom talk and cry about how she felt losing her own mom and listening to her explain how the things she has seen on her hikes have become analogies and lessons for her spiritual journey.

For my mom walking and hiking is almost like an addiction.  I think because with each step she takes, she feels like she is one step closer to her God.  One step closer to making sense of the chaos.  One step closer to being the person she wants to be.  And after decades of walking with my mom, I believe she is. And because of her, I am too.

Desert Road

Last week I fled the dim, drizzly grayness of the Northwest for the sun and springtime winds of New Mexico.  One day I left my sweet children in the care of my parents, and took a 3 1/2 hour drive to the southern most reaches of the state to visit some of my dearest friends.

The drive there was in a word glorious.  The sun burnt desert landscape stretched out on either side of an arrow straight road like two arms open in an embrace.  The brilliant and vast blue sky contrasted with reddish brown mesas and sloping hills scattered with desert brush, all framed by mountains appearing hazy blue in the distance.  I remember why I initially felt closed in and claustrophobic when we moved to Washington.  The sky and landscape are so open and vast, I could almost physically feel weight lifted off of me.  That and the brilliant sunshine and absence of hollering toddlers in the backseat...

3 hours alone in a car surrounded by sunshine, beautiful scenery, and the soothing voice of Glen Keiser, thoughts and prayers intertwining in an easy dance. Reminiscing about the years I made that drive back and forth from college a younger, more carefree Merrily with an old brown pick up that lacked a stereo.  Maybe it was because silence forces introspection and frees prayer, but I always felt God's presence most acutely and painfully (the good kind of painful, the kind mixed with hopeful longing) on those long drives.

 If I could make that drive once a year, I think it would be all the therapy I'll ever need.