Faithful Sunshine

Life is complicated. I think we can all agree on that. For some, the focus is on the day’s schedule—work commitments, lunch with friends, dinner with the family. Some struggle just to make ends meet while others battle in their attempt to get the biggest bang for their buck. Priorities are not always well defined—or followed through. All too often, we lose the day to life’s petty pressures. I think that surviving each day involves a blend of patience, respect, and faith. On some days, I don’t feel as though I have any of those ingredients! Those are the days that I try to remind myself that I’m human, so perfection is only a dream. No matter how well we appear to get through each day, I believe that there’s more to it all than just the daily motions we go through. I think we each stumble into random moments along the way; moments in which our inner thoughts delve into a tug-of-war between our assumptions of what life means and the reality that we really don’t know. In our efforts to make sense of it all, some of us are compelled to fill in the blanks and justify our own guesses. For us, life has to make sense, in our own terms. But maybe we don’t need to guess. Maybe we don’t need all the answers. What’s so wrong with just having a little blind faith? Instead of simply trusting in blind faith, so many of us seem to be blind to God’s daily blessings. We tend to fluff things off as simple coincidences. Why is it so hard to simply trust in blind faith? Why is it so important to justify our own interpretations? Maybe it’s okay to just believe.

The first time I recall falling into such deep thoughts, I was only about six or seven years old. From town, the drive home was seven country miles in the backseat of a Plymouth Scamp. Back then, there were no seat belts to confine. Air conditioning was an open window. I remember feeling the warm night air on my face as I leaned my head back against the corner of the car window. I could feel the vibration of the road. I could hear the crickets. I could smell the country air. Across the field was a sea of yellow flashes of lightning bugs. I tilted my head up and got lost in the starry, moonlit night. The view was utterly beautiful. The sky was crystal clear and full of faraway lights. There were so many stars. Some were brighter than others. My mind tried to process. How did the stars get there? Why are they there? They seemed endless. I strained my eyes to see as far as I could. On that particular night, my thoughts began to wander as I stared intently into the summer evening sky. Time seemed to stand still—or more bluntly, time didn’t seem to matter. My young mind couldn’t comprehend how endless it appeared. It was like a snow globe but without the plastic barrier. I began to feel as though I had floated up and away into it. I was no longer riding in the car, but I was up with the stars. I felt infinite. No words can truly describe what I felt. No words can do justice to what I felt.

It was so long ago, yet I vividly remember that evening and the feelings I felt. But the feelings were becoming more intense—overwhelming—especially for such a small child. So much so, that I felt completely disconnected from my own body. I felt as though I was no longer in the car. It was an odd feeling that I had never felt before. Those feelings startled me, and I glanced away to look around inside the car. I looked to my right to see my sister in the back seat with me. Next, I looked at my mom in the front seat, and then over to my dad, who was driving. I didn’t say anything to anyone. Instead, I rested my head back into the corner of the open window and looked back up into the sky. I wanted to go back. And I did. Oddly, as overwhelmed as I had felt, my heart felt full. It was pure. And it was real. I knew He put all the stars in the sky. I knew it was God. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that—I just knew it. And I was happy. My thoughts continued to swirl. I wondered why I was me—and why I was here instead of somewhere else. And I wondered why I couldn’t see God. Yet I knew He was with me. He was with me. I was deep in my thoughts when I noticed that the car had slowed. As the car turned, the night sky shifted, and I abruptly heard the sounds of the gravel hitting the car. We were home.

I was just a little girl, so my thoughts didn’t linger too long after running inside the house. But I never forgot that night either. I still recall it in great detail, at a level that you wouldn’t think memory would allow. And although I didn’t solve the mysteries of life that night, it was one of the few experiences in my life that truly touched my soul. That moment was what I call an “I got it” moment. I truly “got it” that night. Of course I grew up and built up the normal cluttered debris of human chaos that everyone else tends to collect. But through the good and the bad experiences of my life, I’ve always blindly hung on to my faith and the belief that there is more to life than what we can see.