Spirituality

Once again, the first thought on my mind when I awoke today, is reflected back to me from a blog I read every morning with my first coffee. I got up this morning, and walked down the hallway, dogs racing out ahead of me in their usual delight to greet the day, and thought "Faith is simple when our lives are going well, and correspondingly more difficult when we're going through hard times."

Well, it is for me, at least. My faith is tested when I am afraid. Fear is my adversary, and this is how it seems to have been throughout my life. Some days, I feel like my little female dog, who quakes and quails before the new and the different, although she puts up a brave show, barking, while her tail is quivering back between her legs.

I let them out this morning, and they both went rushing to the front of the yard to bark like raving maniacs at an elderly gentleman walking past with his Brittany spaniel - I apologised to him, but he just laughed - he found the commotion entertaining, rather than  threatening, as did his dog, who was gazing at them with interest, ears up, head tilted, and tail stump wiggling - small barking dog isn't intimidating to man nor beast.

I have had years of experience to overcome, with regard to worry and fretting - that was my normal state - I faced perceived threats as my little dog does, barking and snarling, while shaking in terror. I lived in a constant place of worrying that the little I had would be snatched from me - I'd learned of that possibility very early on in life, and it left an indelible mark. From the vantage point of today, I can see that is isn't that the mark has been eradicated, but rather that I have decided not to keep going back to stare at it.

For me, faith is a matter of choice. I choose for today, to believe in a Higher Power who loves me. This does not mean that I will be miraculously protected from the ordinary course of human calamity. What it means, is that I have a source of strength from which to draw, when my own is exhausted.

I have the option of choosing an alternate activity than obsessing over my worst fears. I can decide that I will not go down the road of "what if..." I can choose to live in today, and if I am unable to do that, then - in the hour, and if that is beyond me, then in the next 5 minutes. Some days, fear is the monster in the closet, and all I can do, is keep the door tightly closed, and walk past, bravely whistling.