A few years ago I received a gift....my daughter Isabella. He gave her something too. I don’t know if she’ll ever think of it as a gift though. He gave her Cystic Fibrosis; a genetic disease that makes her mucus thick and her lungs prone to infection. I think the most distinguishing characteristic of CF is that it’s a fight you start from day one and you don’t stop, ever. You don’t stop fighting it because it doesn’t stop attacking your child. You can’t stop her body from producing mucus; it’s a defense that unless you have CF is very beneficial. But for someone with CF that mucus is the enemy. We fight it sometimes 24 hours a day when she is sick. Our arsenal is medicine, food, vitamins, and exercise. I have a secret weapon though, hope. Hope in a God who loves us and wants the best for us.
You can agree or disagree with me, but at the very least it is worth discussing. When you have a sick child you tend to wrestle with these issues. The “why?” question is a given. But lately I have been thinking not only about how I get through the tough times and interpret my experiences but how Bella will. It’s this question that led me to write about this journey. So it makes sense to be upfront about my beliefs. I simply want to present my faith as it is… a normal part of my life. No soapboxes and no preaching.
I’ll start by saying I’m an inquisitive yet skeptical person. I have delved into almost every belief system that exists, found it lacking, and gone in search of something else. I traveled a strange road from Mysticism to Kabbalism. I swung between being a Buddhist and a Rosicrucian. Shamballa meditation? Did it. Tibetan Buddists? Hasn’t everyone followed one? Psychic mind traveler’s camp? Yes I did! It was a roller coaster of different philosophies… some running right into each other…is it possible to believe in the collective unconsciousness and cosmic consciousness at the same time?
I wanted to believe each one of them because I was on a search for truth, or so I told myself. But the funny thing was that I was a Christian before starting this magical mystery ride… so what I was really doing was running from the truth. I ran from my faith when I didn’t have the strength to be different from everyone else. So I spent the next 20 years still being different, but looking for a “cooler” explanation. And when I found a new explanation, trust me; I went “all in”. How many people are serious enough to spend $350 for a set of 23 books written in Aramaic and Hebrew…when they don’t read Aramaic or Hebrew? I didn’t stop there. Could we all just be Aliens? Don’t rule it out. Everything we see is just a hologram? I can’t be the only one who fell for that one. Hey, fluoride really could be keeping us from maximizing our full brain potential, right? I chanted, transcended, went out of body, meditated, medicated….but still in the end, I had to get up and go to work in the morning. It was all empty, and I was always the same.
After a while running stopped being fun. I started to realize I was wasting all my time looking for truth, and at this rate there would be no time to rest in that truth. Then, and I swear I am not making this up…the Dalai Lama told me to go back to being a Christian. I was listening to him speak at the National Cathedral and he was telling us silly Americans that making up religion to suit our needs doesn’t work. The whole point of following something he said was trusting they have the answers you don’t, and this American generation was a little too uncomfortable with that. He said that while it made sense for Tibetans to be Tibetan Buddhists, Westerners could do just as well to choose Christianity. It was the act of making a commitment toward a faith that was important. At the time it made sense. So I walked back into a church thinking I would join the choir, meet some new people and everything would be pretty much the same.
Now, I will say that more than a few years later… I can’t believe I fell for the Dalai Lama’s speech! Because really Christianity isn’t Western and Tibetans need Jesus too! But what the heck, it worked didn’t it? I was back in church again; God had me right where he wanted me. I can clearly remember putting all the pieces back together again and realizing I was a complete idiot. Yes, Jesus did do everything 2000 years ago, leaving me free to stop looking and live. Finally! It is the wild ride I always wanted. It is without regret, or doubt. God comes through. Period!
Everyone has crisis in their lives, and everyone will eventually need a crisis plan. Our family’s fight is CF, you and your family are no doubt facing other issues. My advice is to take the time to find that crisis plan before you need it. I was fortunate; when Bella came along I already knew where the hope and strength would come from. It has made all the difference in the world.
My experience with all these different ideologies makes me somewhat of an expert on dead end roads. I have no doubt the road I am on now is really getting me somewhere. And, like my friend the Dalai Lama alluded to all those years ago…only when you aren’t the one driving can you reach a destination beyond your wildest dreams.
