Faith

I was told that my grandmother started buying Christmas gifts for her grandchildren in January. She didn't have much money, and she was a widow, so she worked by ironing clothes for people, and she would buy things on sale when she found them.  She died in October, the year I turned 7, and in her things were some gifts she'd bought for the family for the upcoming Christmas.

Mine was a mustard seed. 

Do you remember those? People usually wore them on a necklace. My dad gave it to me and said his mom bought it for my charm bracelet. It was supposed to be my Christmas present that year. The silver hoop is still there on my bracelet, but the little crystal globe with the mustard seed inside it, fell out long ago. I remember being sad when I realized it was missing, I was a teenager at the time, and it was a connection to my grandmother, and also to her faith. 

Faith, a different "F" word. One that asks us to trust. To believe. I have struggled with it in my life. Maybe you have too. For awhile, I struggled with it a lot, yet the more I did, the more God found ways to teach me to rest in Him.

On those days when my struggle was the greatest, He would draw me to rest in the words in the Bible on faith and trust, and the promise of the One who is leading. He knew I would struggle with the decisions and heartaches of life. The little ones and the big ones, and He said, "Trust Me, put your faith in Me, I will not forsake you, and I will lead you on the right path."

Most of all, He'd remind me that He loves all of us and that He gave His Son for our sins. There is nothing greater I can rest in than that.

As I'm growing older....okay, let's be honest here...growing old, I'm learning that the purpose of my life is to point the ones I love towards God's faithfulness. Not my own faith, because it's weak and at times, wishy washy, but His faithfulness, which is never ending. His faithfulness never changes. It never gets weak or wishy washy, and if there is one lesson I'd want my children and grandchildren to know, it is that God is always faithful, ALWAYS! Trust in Him.

Jesus mentions having faith as small as a mustard seed several times in the Bible, and then explains the enormous things that can happen with that tiny amount of faith. I don't think I want to go around moving mountains or uprooting trees (Matthew 17:20 and Luke 17:6), but just reading that humbles me and makes me realize how small my faith really is. Yet even then, He gently reminds me in His Word that it is in Him that I need to trust, not in the mountains that can be moved or that remain unmoved, but in Him alone, because this life is really HIS Story anyway.

"For we live by faith, not by sight." 2 Corinthians 5:7...it's a verse I need to remember daily.

I know I haven't been here in a long time. My life is different now, yet nothing has really changed, because I know my Savior lives and He is always faithful. I hope you know that too.

Many blessings to you,
Marcia