What to do when your faith starts wavering?

What does one do when one's faith starts wavering? The same thing one does when something that is supposed to be stable starts to waver - shore it up.

Someone else asked a similar question recently - what do you do when you have drifted away from God? Drift right back.

First, what do "waver" and "drift" mean? Does it mean that you no longer feel as tight with God as you once did? Does He feel very distant?

Feelings are not very reliable you know. They can be affected by barometric pressure, the amount of sleep you got, the time of the month, your digestive system, fatigue, stress, any number of things. Often, how you feel and the objective reality do not match at all.

Once, when I hadn't thought about God at all the entire day, I said to Him, "I'm so sorry, Lord. I've been so far from You all day," and He replied, "I don't know about you but I've been by your elbow all day long." In other words, feeling distant from God doesn't mean He IS distant.

There's a saying, "If God seems distant, who moved?" If it was you, then all you have to do is move closer back. He never moves away from us. If saints fervently sought union with God, then believe me, He even more fervently seeks union with us.

But here's another thing: sometimes, God steps into the shadows so that you can plumb the depth of your faith. A young friend responded to that by saying that God doesn't do that; He isn't that capricious. It isn't caprice. To believe in God when He is obviously there isn't faith. It is logic. I think it was Richard Rohr who said: "Faith is not the absence of doubt. It is commitment in the face of uncertainty."

It consoles me greatly that many of the great saints and mystics experienced this "distance" of God. St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila called it the "dark night of the soul." You may have read recently that Mother Teresa no longer felt God's consolations towards the end of her life but she never stopped loving or serving Him. One saint, (it may have been St. Therese) had such doubts that she wrote down the beliefs she doubted in her own blood. I guess what I am saying is we do not lose our faith without our permission.

When I was much younger I told a priest-friend of mine that I had so many doubts, losing my faith would have been as easy as rolling off a log. He said, "That is why your faith is so strong - you have fought for it." Feed your faith, starve your doubts.

A young soldier once prayed, "Lord, when I no longer have the strength to cling to You, just You cling to me." And He will because He does not ever want to lose us.

So there you are:

Feelings and reality do not often match. God may feel distant but He is always right there beside you.

Faith is precisely believing in the sun when it isn't shining; in the Son when He seems absent.

Faith is lost only when we allow it to be lost.

Our faith is as strong as our desire to keep it.

We feed our faith with prayer, the Eucharist, hanging out with faith-filled people, more prayer, the tenacity to hang on to God, still more prayer, looking to the saints' struggles to stay faithful, harassing the Holy Spirit for grace.

Basically, we will fight for Whom we love!

Papa and the Kids (as requested by Gonzo)

Papa was an "old country" Papa. And why not? He was from the old country. He came to the U.S. when he was twenty. We deferred to him, doted on him and took care of him. His word was final. Papa was also big in both senses of the word. When he realized he was wrong, he was quick to apologize. He also forgave. He was lavish with his affection and our children never doubted that he cherished them. But he was also like the nursery rhyme little girl with a curl on her forehead: "When she was good, she was very, very good. When she was bad she was horrid."

Once during an extended period of Papa-grumpiness, someone asked, "Mom, what's with Papa? He's not fit to live with!"

"He's under a lot of pressure at work and he's very stressed."

Annie said, "Okay, you guys, let's make him feel better and make a big fuss over him." She went to the kitchen and began making his favorite dinner. Joe went to the store and bought his favorite ice cream. Mary straightened up our room. Chip started making tea. Rob did a quick job of making the house look extra nice. When they heard the car coming, they all ran out and raced to meet him just the way they did when they were little. But Joe was then 18, Annie 16, Mary 14, Chip 12 and Rob, 11. Two of them hooked their arms around his and led him to his chair in the dining room and sat him down for his cup of tea while another massaged his shoulders. How could anyone persist in being cranky in the face of that?

Watching my children deal with life and people taught me so very much all along, God bless them! I learned more from them than they did from me. Instead of resenting him or holding his dark side and bad moods against him, they understood how it came from a place of internal pain and rose to meet his need to be understood and accepted and loved no matter what. They made no room for blame or accusations, complaints or grudges.

As Bim, my second daughter, once pointed out during a family crisis, "Mom, a good family isn't one where no one makes mistakes. A good family is one where mistakes are made and forgiven and we continue to love, uphold and be there for each other." Amen! Alleluia!