😍 Do you have Faith? 😍
Hope you are well.
I caught up with a friend of mine this week and we were discussing our teenage children.
She was sharing with me the struggles she is having with one of her children.
We were discussing how she could support her child and she kept getting stuck in comparison to people she knows and their stories.
She started recalling so many stories of people she knew or people she had heard about.
And none of the stories had a good ending – well not yet anyway or not that she was aware of, but who knows.
And she is worried the same fate is in store for her child as well.
She is a good mum – a really good mum and she cares a lot about her children and she always wants the best for them.
And I could see that she just kept projecting the worst outcome onto her child. She imagined that they were going to go so far down the rabbit hole and not be able to come out of it.
It was as if she'd taken the worst parts of every story she heard and made that the story, the outcome for her child.
I could see what was missing in my friend was Faith, a sliver of light to shine through the crack to open up to more light that there is a possibility that they will be ok.
You see we can never ever know what's in store for us, what our story will be.
But the truth is that there are infinite possibilities of what the outcome can be.
However, if we come from darkness, it's really hard for the light to shine through.
Suddenly a message from a book I had just finished came to me in that moment wanting to be shared.
I was very impacted by this book and the author was so inspiring.
This book is called “Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust” by Immaculee Ilibagiza.
The experience she went through in the Rwandan Genocide and how she grew from this experience is beyond any words I could express here.
And Faith is what supported her along the way.
I wasn't sure how my friend would respond to a comparison of her childs situation and the story of a woman who was hidden in a tiny bathroom with 7 other women for 91 days during the Rwandan Genocide.
However, as I spoke to in my last newsletter I have committed to saying what feels right to me in the moment no matter what others think and so I decided to share with her. For me, it was all coming from love. And I knew that was the reason Immaculee wrote this book to share her experience so that may help others in whatever way they need support.
Immaculee wrote that when she was alone with her thoughts and her dark fears she would hear the devil voice as she called it. She would hear that voice telling her that she couldn't possibly survive and telling her all the terrible, shocking things that the killers could do to her.
And then she would pray and immediately she felt love around her and her anxiety eased. So she resolved to pray every waking moment. She was determined to not allow her Faith to be under attack. She knew that there is so much power in Faith.
My friend shared with me how helpful that was for her and I decided to share with my community as well.
Whatever was helpful, I saw a smile on my friends face and she told me she felt much better.
A miracle is a shift in perspective and all anyone needs is a new pair of glasses to see through and a whole new image appears.
I invite you to be curious…
How often do you find yourself thinking the worst in a situation?
How does that make you feel about the situation, life and you?
Do you believe in a higher power whether that be God, Universe or anything else to guide and support you through the challenges of life?
As always, if you feel called to share anything I'd love to hear from you.
Hope you’re having a wonderful day