A World Without…Me

When my children were born, I couldn’t imagine my world without them in it. As a matter of fact, they seemed to have always been a part of my world. I just hadn’t met them yet. 

I have always seen this world in a constant state of change. Oxymoron? Probably. But I think about the energy we all bring to this world. I see the enormity of what happens when somebody in power abuses the power and that abuse of power affects hundreds of thousands of people.

I see the microcosm of that abuse in parents who alter the course of their children’s lives by abusing their power, too. What choices will those children make and how will those choices affect people around them?

I see how the death of one person affects loved ones who have to live in this world without that person. Everything changes. Everything feels different. The world after that person’s death is not the same world it was before that person died. Loved ones who remain live in a completely different world and have to adjust – everything.

So no short leap of wonder exists between how the world was yesterday, how it is today, and how it will be in the future. One day, this world I’ve lived in for nearly 7 decades will go on without me. I can’t imagine that world either.

How to Tell if You Have Faith the Size of a Mustard Seed

About 30+ years ago a woman I knew was diagnosed with cancer. She thought she was going to die, and she lived in fear every day that what she assumed would happen would actually happen. I remember telling her that if she had some faith, even a tiny bit of faith, she would be fine. The Bible (Matthew 17:20) talks about faith the size of a mustard seed, and I read somewhere that comparing a mustard seed to the period at the end of this sentence would help anybody understand just how small faith needs to be in order for miracles to occur. All these years later, that woman is still alive. 

As the years have passed, I’ve thought many times about faith. When I received a cancer diagnosis in 2009, I firmly believed that I would survive. Belief and faith go hand in hand. The word, cancer, is scary. So many people automatically think they’re going to die; they lose hope and they give up. 

We understand their fears. In these days especially, with evidence mounting that faith doesn’t matter, because the world seems to be crumbling around us, how can any of us find faith if we think we have none? We look at the lies, the deceit, the cruelty, the dangers, and we find no evidence to support the possibility of surviving the cataclysmic events that will assuredly visit us. Our view of this world has dimmed.

And yet, maybe things will turn around. Maybe we are experiencing exactly what we are supposed to be experiencing at this time. And that word, maybe or possibly, is what “faith the size of a mustard seed” means. If we think, maybe – possibly – or what if, we have just introduced into the realm of possibility that what we don’t believe can happen may actually happen. The words, maybe, possibly, and what if, invite faith. We just have to recognize their existence in our vocabulary.

So if, in our minds, in our hearts, and in our spirits, we consider the possibility of other options, without recognizing what those considerations mean, we have found a tiny mustard seed of faith. Faith gives us hope. And when Faith and Hope walk hand in hand, Love guides.