Untethered

I’m weary. I’m weary of grieving. I’m weary of adjusting. Weary of missing the man I loved to be with. Weary of finding my way in the dark. Everything I once clung to for safety and security, comfort and familiarity, is gone. There are days when I feel like a hapless balloon, escaped from the grip of its birthday party guest. Set loose with no destination in mind, I float along at the whim of the wind, helpless to navigate direction because, in part, I don’t know where I’ll land.

This is faith.

I didn’t know that until now. I don’t think you can know what faith is until it’s all you have left. I knew it in my head. I knew all the right answers—I teethed on a Baptist pew, after all. But I didn’t know it in my experience. Because what I thought I knew had never been tested like this before. Now that it has, I’ve come to this conclusion.

I don’t like to live by faith.

I like to live by sight. I like my feet on solid ground unless I’m in an airplane and even then I can still touch the floor. I feel safe when I have some control over where I am and where I’m headed. Doesn’t the Bible have something to say about not being blown about by every wind of doctrine? It sounds like the wind is a troublemaker. So, whose idea was it for me to be blown about by every gust of circumstance? I didn’t ask for this. I’ve gone to great lengths to avoid grief and loss. More than once in the last year I’ve screamed at my Creator for letting go of the string on my balloon. A lot of good that does. He’s not afraid of heights.

Not long ago I heard my son say on his Sunday podcast that God created everything both visible and invisible. I never used to think much about the things that are invisible. They don’t quiz you on that in school unless you plan to be a microbiologist or an astronomer and even then, if you have powerful enough lenses, you can see things that are invisible to the naked eye. Instead, I memorized dates and places and names of dead people. I learned to manage numbers and pronouns and musical notes. I didn’t learn geography, though, until Rob and I picked up a roadmap and started driving across America, but today I can tell you with certainty that the east coast is crowded and I like Montana. That’s because I saw them in person, not just in a geography book. Which is a pretty good way to see the visible things God made.

But the invisible? From his pulpit, Lee asked the young ones in his congregation to name things that we can’t see. Oxygen, one child told him. Germs, another said. God, was the obvious answer. For being so short, they’re all pretty smart. There were a few others that came to mind for me. I can’t see Rob right now. I can’t see heaven either. And even with the strongest microscope, I don’t think anyone has seen the particles of an atom. We know they exist, but we can’t see them. Like the wind, we see their effects, but we cannot see them. It doesn’t stop us from believing these things are real, though. If we see only their effects, does it still take faith to believe they’re there?

Maybe the altitude is getting to me.

I looked up “faith.” From the world’s most reliable source of information—Wikipedia. Faith is “a firm belief in something for which there may be no tangible proof; complete trust, confidence, reliance, or devotion.”

Then I looked up what God had to say about it. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen…” (Hebrews 11)

Faith confuses me.

Something I can’t see is evidence. It’s proof of the existence of a thing hidden from view. It is substance, but I can’t see it or touch it or smell it or hear it or taste it. There may be no tangible expression for something I firmly believe in. To make it even more confusing, I read that things which are seen don't last forever, but things that are not seen are eternal.

Faith sounds foolish.

How do I know Rob is still alive, waiting for me, loving me, anxious to take me on another road trip, this time through the galaxy? How do I know I belong to Jesus, and I can believe Him when He said whosoever will may come? How do I know God loves me to the moon and back even though He stood by and let my heart shatter in a million pieces? How do I know He will somehow turn what the enemy meant for evil into good?

I don’t. Not without faith.

Because it’s all invisible. For now. That’s the rub. The God of all the universes, brilliance times infinity, wants us to lean into the things we cannot see and come out believing. He wants to give us a new heart so we can trust Him, but walking by faith is still up to us. Rational thinking has its place right up until we can’t explain the way God intervenes—or doesn’t—in the affairs of men. There’s a reason for that.

“For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” (1 Corinthians 1)

I don’t know why I lost Rob. Nobody does, though many have tried to explain it to me. They mean well, but they don’t know either. I don’t know why everything I was anchored to disappeared overnight and my life was suddenly set adrift. I am confident of this, though. Rob is still very much alive. He’s more alive than I am. And because of that, I have an investment in the invisible that has changed my point of view.

Oh, I guess I’m just rambling now. Like I said, I’m weary. Untethered. Waiting to see where the wind takes me today. There’s not a lot to do up here when you’re floating aimlessly through the air except think deep thoughts and try to see life from a new perspective.

I’ll tell you what, though. I’ve gained a whole new respect for balloons up here. They may be untethered, too, but they're survivors.

 

Things that are seen don’t last forever, but things that are not seen are eternal. 

This is why we keep our minds on the things that cannot be seen.

(2 Corinthians 4:18)

With thanks to A. Currell for permission to borrow the phine photo seen above. The original can be viewed from the following link:  Going... | A.Currell | Flickr