An Article on Faith

I got on facebook this morning (cause I am a time waster) and I came across an article on faith that a high school friend had recently written. We weren’t that close, and honestly we haven’t had any reason to speak, see, message, text each other in almost a decade (yes it has been that long), so we’ve lost touch, I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what they are doing for work, what they majored in, etc but I clicked the article, and the article was great. As I mentioned we weren’t close, maybe I should rephrase that, we were kids, and kids don’t tend to talk about things that matter, so the subject of faith rarely if ever came up over our multi year friendship. I will also admit that my high school years weren’t my best faith years, I struggled to separate the people at church from the doctrine and really didn’t find my own testimony until I left home and was able to see that the Gospel wasn’t just the girls I went to church with that were never going to like me. So the topic of faith rarely came up with my high school friends, except when the self proclaimed atheist friends I had would bash religion and people that went to church. Not my finest moments but I would usually stay quiet during those conversations, I didn’t know what to say, how to ask why there couldn’t be something more than just this, why the idea of a god, let alone a merciful God was absurd, so I stayed quiet. And looking back many of my friends, except the vocal few, remained pretty quiet during those conversations, thinking and looking back now, it may have been because many of their families were active in their faiths as well, so like me they were silently questioning why the basis of our faith and really who we were was so absurd.

When we were about 17, it came out that many of my friends were Catholic. I don’t think that it was a big secret before, but it just wasn’t something we talked a lot about. But the school year we turned 17 they prepared for their confirmation (I hope I’m saying that right) and we found out who was Catholic. The friend that wrote the article was one of the ones that turned out to be Catholic, and not only that but a fairly devout catholic, something no one had really known before. But the article I read today was about how faith in Jesus Christ has had an impact on their daily life. It was refreshing. Refreshing to know that there are people outside my faith that see their relationship with Jesus Christ as central not only to their life but to who they are as a person. Refreshing, that people in my generation are taking their faith seriously, that they incorporate those beliefs and practices into their daily lives. And refreshing that some of the people I grew up with struggled to find their faith during those religion bashing conversations just as much as I did. So 9 years later, I am pleasantly surprised, surprised that people can be better than I thought, surprised I am now a grown up and the people I grew up with are too, and surprised how important faith is to so many people. Life is good!