on walking by faith and not by sight

11Jan09

They are golden — perfectly yellow, spinning, spinning in the breeze that stirs ’round the tree as I walk out from Shryock Hall after UYP. They flutter, so light and gentle, spiraling down and down and down to finally rest on the already-thick carpet of gold. They crunch under my sandals as I cross the field to Alumni Hall, breathing in yet another reminder of God’s fingerprints on this world and on my heart.

I’ve never seen snow fall, but I imagine that it’s just like that. Breathtakingly beautiful, imbued with just enough magic to fill your heart in a way that words just can’t possibly hope to capture in anything but the sort of poetry that doesn’t speak words but just sings images over and into your soul. And I don’t want to come crashing back into the place in my mind where I just don’t really feel like I want this anymore. I never was one to run and hide, but as the days go by, I kind of want to do just that until I have the strength to come out and face the mountains and mountains of information that has become endlessly boring to me, a symbol of what holds my heart & mind prisoner rather than a symbol of what liberates me, what gives me strength and courage and beauty and resilience in the face of all that is wrong with this world. If I fall — if I have to fall at all — I want to fall like a leaf in the wind, graceful and serene, with faith and at peace with the seasons & the God that makes them, and not like the ticking time bomb of jittery doubt & wounded pride that I am right now.

I just want wonder again. I want life and energy and love and the feeling that I am doing this because I will enact change, because I will be the sort of physician that matters — and not because I’m too stubborn let go of who I’ve spent my entire life fighting to be & grow into to be reborn. Because at the end of the day, I know in my head that I am meant to be here, that I am meant to be a doctor, that I am meant to heal and serve and love and that I need to stop focusing and worrying about just what I am going to be doing. The journey and not the destination; the love is far more important than the specifics… than the specialty. Stripped of knowing precisely what I want to do anymore, the only thing left is to love and serve — and is that such a bad thing, after all? But as always, my heart doesn’t know what my head knows fully well. And then again, I was never good at leaving things to God. I was never good at not having a Plan. Never before in my life have I not known my destination.

But isn’t that what Abraham had to fight, too, the entire way from Ur to Caanan? The whole “I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know what I’m doing, am I even supposed to be doing this still?” And at the end — despite all his mistakes, despite the times he’d failed God, despite the times he’d forgotten to trust that God’s hand was upon him, wasn’t he still called the father of the faithful? We say it all the time: By faith, Abraham… by faith, by faith, by faith. It was all done by faith.

It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith — for he was like a foreigner, living in tents.

- Hebrews 11:8-9, NLT

I just want to fall.

I just want… I just want to be able to someday say this:

It was by faith that Prissi obeyed when God called her to leave home and go to another land that God would give her as her inheritance. She went without knowing where she was going. And even when she reached the land God promised her, she lived there by faith…

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Tags: faith, the why