Crossing the roads of life.

A friend of mine recently told me that his biggest problem is his lack of faith. Lack of faith. I find this is a problem with a lot of people I’ve met lately. And I notice too that the people who have the biggest problem with faith are the people who have the biggest problem with trusting other people. They don’t want to get close to anybody because they are skeptical of other people’s motives. They stay away from words like “love” and “forever.” They don’t really believe that such concepts exist.

These people seem to only want to trust themselves. But too often I find that these are the same people who seem to be royally screwing up their own lives. They push away anyone who tries to care about them and they turn to substances to fill the ever-present void in their hearts. Essentially, they become addicts, enslaved to their own less-than-fulfilling passions. And then they have to ask the Dr. Phil question: How’s that workin’ for ya? Guess what, people – it’s not!
Sometimes I tell people the stories of my life – my choices regarding residential moves and growing my family and they tell me I have extraordinary faith. I am flattered by the compliment, but faith comes easily when you trust that another person truly does have your best interest in mind. If I picture myself as a child taking hold of my father’s hand as we cross the busy street, faith is not something to struggle with. It’s simply a matter of trust. I trust my father to lead me across that intersection and see that I safely reach the other side. It’s as simple as that.

Too often, we expect ourselves to reach the magical age when we will have all the answers in life. For me, it was twenty-three. I thought, “Surely, when I reach twenty-three, I will know everything there is to know about life.” Well guess what? When I reached twenty-three, I was a newlywed expecting my first child, terrified that I didn’t know any of the answers for all my all-important questions. Then I thought, “Maybe when I’m twenty-seven, I’ll know everything there is to know.” When I reached age twenty-seven, I was the mother of three children, trying to follow my passion of writing, not really knowing where I was going and having only a slightly better clue as to how to handle it all.

Over the years, I became friends with many other moms, women of all different ages, and I discovered something quite amazing: nobody has all the answers. There is no magical age of omniscience. We all are continuously bumbling through life, doing the best we can with what we have inherited, what we have experienced, and what we have studied. Many times, we just have to trust. We have to trust that all will work out for the best. We have to trust in other people. We have to have faith. We cannot make it alone.

Too much love? Never.

Someone asked me yesterday, "Is there such a thing as too much love?" No. Never. Love is as infinite as the universe. We have to know what love really is though. Loving a person is wanting what is truly best for him as well as what is best for myself. It does not mean allowing myself to be used or mistreated. It is not in a person's best interest to be allowed to act selfishly.

Think of it in a parental manner. Parents lovingly deny a child many things which they know are not good for the child. They do this in an effort to teach self discipline and discernment. Also, when a child misbehaves, a parent lovingly chastises the child in an effort to prevent the child from larger troubles later on in life. Love is justice as well as mercy.

Sometimes we give and give and receive nothing in return. It is in those times that we are tempted toward bitterness and selfishness. We think, "What good is love anyway?" But if we continue on in love, it is then that we experience passion. It is then that we suffer with love. When we suffer with love, we want to pour out our lives for the sake of our loved one. We ache with longing that that person might be fulfilled.

That person is then seen not as someone for our own purposes, but as a wonderfully made creation. He is a son, a brother, a father, a comrade. She is a daughter, a sister, a mother, a companion. Love sees through pure eyes and expects nothing but hopes for everything in return.