By Lois Hewitt

Faith is a funny thing. It’s obviously something you cannot see, like the wind on your face. You can’t hear faith or touch it. It has no taste but it is sweet once you experience it. Sounds like one of the riddles you just cannot figure out.

In my case, faith wasn’t necessary until I had nothing left. I never needed my faith when I was hiding out from God, enjoying my sin.

Sure once in a while I prayed with faith to get me out of a jam I had gotten myself into. Or prayed with faith that the hangover wouldn’t last or that I hadn’t made someone too mad the night before because I blacked out. I played my faith like a Get Out of Jail Free card.

Many of us hit rock bottom or lower and you have the realization you just cannot do this thing called life alone. Then you slowly try to rebuild and heal. You learn to have faith in God, who only wants the best for you.

Over time, you learn more about God and His Son. You see changes take place that you could never have envisioned. Things happen and they are not luck or coincidence. Pieces of your life start to fall into place. Eventually you start to see God’s hand in Your life. It becomes as real as anything you have ever known.

The crazy story of a virgin birth and a man who heals becomes more than what some call a fairy tale…it becomes your life. It makes perfectly clear sense (as far as humans can understand). Jesus is with me always. I sometimes say “we” when I speak of something I’ve done alone.

So this, too, makes sense now. The people who rant and rave against God, who say it is just a fable and swear none of it is true, you just haven’t reached a place in your life where every turn looks like a dead end. You haven’t felt like the pit in your stomach will ever heal. You haven’t been to a place you can’t control but it controls you. It’s in your deepest sorrow, sorrow that words cannot express, that you see the invisible and you touch the spirit of God.

I am happy you have not sunk that low. But you have to realize that most of God’s believers came to Him from a dark place. Our faith in Him is real. So ridicule all you want. Laugh at our naive notions. I get it now. You think Christians are weak.

You couldn’t be more wrong. Every Christian I know has a testimony that would make you faint. We are not some poor saps looking for a way to cope, we are warriors who have walked through fire (albeit, some fires of our own making-but fires nonetheless). Branded with scars visible and not. Faced with a choice to either harden our hearts or release them to God for an overhaul and polishing.

I have seen God take the most beaten person and give that person victory. It may seem unreal to you but until you have experienced the power of God in your life, it just won’t be real.

Faith is a funny thing. You still cant see it but you sure can feel it. The impossible becomes real when God has His hand in it…He is real and that I will shout from the rooftops!