What Do I Know?

I am not the smartest.  I did not go to seminary school. I have not taken a single class on philosophy or theology. I do not hold a masters degree.

I do know the path of blood. I know the electrical current of the heart. I know the intricacies of breathing in and breathing out. I know cells divide, sometime for the good and sometimes for the bad. I know medication and the routes. I know the five rights.

That is all I know. I know a little of a lot of one area of life. One small intricate, delicate detail that makes this world go round.

I do not know much. I am not the smartest. I am not full of wisdom and knowledge.

I do not know much.

I don't know what the theologian does.

I only know what I feel, what I believe, what I have experienced.

I do not know the big, beautiful, perfect answer to faith. But I do know what I believe and what I have experienced.

I may not hold the exact, beautiful definition of faith and I have a hard time explaining it to another but this is what I know for myself.

My faith is the ugly, the hard, the unexplainable.

My belief is in the tears, the sharpnel, the ashes.

My hope is in the blood soaked wood.

This is what I feel, what I trust. And this is what causes more questions to flow.

Where does faith start? Is it inheriant? Are we born with all we need and then through life it becomes less, becoming tainted?

Or is it something that is acquired? Is it born from the hard?

Or does it just grow, nourished when the sun is eclipsed by clouds, making way for the True Light Source to shine, causing growth?

I do not know. I do not know the ways of faith. I do not know if it is the result of cells dividing, blood circulating through or a big electrical shock.

I do not know.

But I do know this.

I know that the small was made big and the ugly became beautiful. 

I know things, life, are ever changing, but there is One who stays the same, no matter what.

I know that The Suffering was made glory.

I also know this:

God is there when it is ugly, hard, unexplainable.

God is there when there are tears, sharpnel, ashes.

God was there in the blood. He was the blood. He still is the blood.

I don't have the theologians answer to faith but I have mine.

I have faith because my eyes are blind. Blind to The Way. Blind to the future. Blind to the purpose.

I believe because He births beauty. Even in the ugly, He births New.

And I have hope because there is a cross stained, scars visible and a tomb empty.

Stephanie