Faith

Happy February!!! Here is the first day of the second month of the tenth year in this century. Did I lose you??? It is 2/1/2010.

January has been unique. Much has happened in this first month. Most of it good, some of it not so good and nothing so horrible that it cannot be made better. At least I think so.

There were moments there, though, when I felt very confused. Very lost and in a way reproachful of the things that happened.

For example, unless you were hibernating, you couldn’t have missed the earthquake that shattered Port Au Prince, Haiti. The images of the destruction were spectacular; nothing Hollywood could have come up with could have topped those images. The dead bodies in the street, the rubble, the knowing that under that rubble there were even more people who couldn’t get out. And the lucky ones that did get out and have the job of rebuilding. How do you rebuild? How do you get pass that??? I certainly don’t have an answer.

Later on the month, my cousin called to tell me one of our own was now battling a serious disease. I won’t call it deadly, but it certainly is life altering. I thought of him, so young, so full of life. His children will need him always; his girlfriend, now wife, and his parents. Most of all, I identified with his parents. I am a parent, what if my children ever went through something like that? How can I stand there strong and support my child who fights this battle?

In our own legal battles, we found that Lady Justice is only available to some, not all. In order to reach for justice you need deep pockets, and knowing that “justice” is not within our reach was devastating. How do you deal with this limitation? How do you stand in front of the moment and not let it crush you?

Throughout the day, millions of people will deal with circumstances that can break the human spirit. Millions of people will deal with violence, death, loss, frustration and despair. Millions fall in the path of such battles and others are able to stand, able to face the problem in the face and deal with it, regardless of what it may take.

What makes such a difference? What makes some of us fighters? What gives us the strength to deal with these circumstances and not break?

It is FAITH.

I don’t mean choosing a religion and going to church.

I mean having a knowing in your heart that no matter what, you will prevail, you will be ok, and this too shall pass.

Some of us are taught this through our experiences. Some of us are taught by example and some of us just have it, always, innately.

Faith and Inner Strength are not things that are easily taught. How do you teach someone about that feeling in your gut? that it does not matter that you have hit rock bottom, you will get up and you will get better.

As parents we strive to provide our children with the perfect life to ensure that nothing hurts them, that nothing upsets their world. I don’t know if that works, I do know that as someone who had a “challenging” childhood, I learned to cope and deal when I was very young, my inner strength reached body builder status. It helped that my mother would lean on me for support; I had to be the one with the faith to get us through this. Not a very religious person, I indeed developed faith, on tomorrow, on life and on the fact that like all things in nature, everything restores itself.

I used to often envy those that came from homes that were intact, that were loved unconditionally by their parents. I thought that if I had all of that supporting me my life would have been different.

As I have matured and gotten older, I realize that a lot of that faith and inner strength that propelled me when I was younger still sustains me when I am faced with a problem or a situation. I KNOW that I will be ok, I might fall down and get hysterical, more for the drama than anything else, but I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I will survive…

I talked to someone this weekend who did not have this inner knowing, who lacked the faith in himself to make a decision. Someone who had created a co-dependent relationship with his mother that he could no longer hear what his inner voice was telling him, all he heard was her advice, her prompting, her control on the reins. He had floundered for the past years without any real direction, following her advice, not that it was bad advice but it took away from him, from his learning, from his growth process, from his faith-building steps.

In her efforts to save him from grief, from pain, from loss, his mother had taken away his experiences and his lessons and his opportunity to create something better. She had lovingly taken over his life. And yes, she had the best of intentions but I gently reminded her, that one day she would not be there and then where would he be? Who will care for him now when she was gone? For she had created an infant in a man’s body, totally lacking any survival skills or instincts, an emotional eunuch.

If at this point this man has not fine tuned his inner compass and his inner strength and his faith, is he doomed to wonder in his path until another woman takes over the place of his mother or will he just live his days without that knowing that all will be well.

We cannot teach our children faith from a book, it won’t be covered in school and even if they do attend Sunday school, not everything will be covered there.

It is our job as parents to give them that. To put together those blocks under their feet so that when they fall they will have something to hold on to, something that will help them get back up again. It is our job to teach them through their own failures and their own contrasts to look beyond the immediate despair and reach to the moment past.

Sometimes the despair is so great that you can only look to it one day at a time, and then little by little your vision expands. And you are able to walk away from the situation stronger than before. Sometimes mistakes are made and sometimes we hurt ourselves or others. However, it is making these mistakes, in taking full responsibility for them that we become fully mature and fully able to look at the world and live a fulfilled life.

So we teach our children Faith. We show them that even if the sun goes away for the winter, spring is usually around the corner. We tell them that sometimes we can stand and fight and sometimes we just take our lesson and walk away with a clearer idea of how to make things better. We tell them that tomorrow is full of the chance to make things better, to make things anew. We let them make their mistakes, carve their path and learn the beat of their own song, because when we are not there to sing it back to them, they will have to carry their own tune.

Listen to your inner voice, love, laugh, leap out and live life and have faith, for all will be well!!!