I decided to finally be honest about what I don’t know, so I can move forward in faith. If I continue to mourn the loss of “I know,” I’ll remain stuck in a faith no-man’s land.
Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway.
– Mother Theresa
Inspiration
Over the past year, I connected with an interfaithful moms group in my community. This group, filled with women I love and respect, includes individuals of a diversity of faiths. I quickly realized that women of all faiths are searching for dialogue, understanding, and hope. Many practice faith with certainty, while others lean more on hope and a desire to connect with God. I find value in reading and sharing faith stories and hope my readers do as well. I wrote this stream of consciousness post this weekend while attending a faith retreat.
Letting Go of “I Know”
“I know” used to be my ultimate goal. What I knew brought me comfort, purpose, and solidarity. The more I knew, the more secure and confident I felt. I can’t pinpoint the moment this changed for me – there is not one penultimate, defining moment. Instead, it came on gradually. Cracks in my surety, rising frustration, unanswered questions, even a disdain for the certainty surrounding me.
And when what I knew became to crumble, I felt betrayed, angry, and alone. God, often so near, felt
impossibly distant. If I didn’t know, what did I have to replace it with? How had I failed? Where did I go from here?
Moving Forward
Before I could move forward, I had to accept that I could not go back. I let go of the goal of knowledge and focused instead on what I hoped for, on seeds of faith still growing within me. Freed from the burden of knowledge, God seemed less distant and my questions felt like opportunities, rather than problems.
I re-framed faith as fluid and changing, even leaving room for future certainties. The world around me reflected beauty, order, chaos, ugliness, confusion, and serenity. In this world, I recognized a flawed humanity created by a God who understands and loved imperfect humans. We know very little in this world. Even science is based in hope, conjecture, and faith as we piece together what we know with what we believe to be true.
I stopped imagining a God who would judge me on what I knew, but instead on what I did with what I did not know. Did I search, pray, question, query, ask, knock, and search again? In moments when I clung desperately to a thread of hope, did I keep seeking, sometimes finding relief and solace in the arms of Christ? In the midst of this all too human world, did I use my faith and hope to comfort others, improve the world around me, and most importantly, love?
Melanie Somnitz says
My women’s study has been reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan. It is very challenging and really has me adjusting the view of my walk. You might enjoy it.