You Asked me Why?

"Aunt Shirley, why do you believe?"

It was a very simple question, but it was the kind of question that immediately took me to the core of inward parts of me. Important parts. In truth, I had to dig in the treasure chest to retrieve the book that held that answer and then had to blow the accumulated dust from its cover.

But it was there. The answers.

I'd have to start at the beginning. I turned the page where I saw a little girl in her nightgown curled up to the warmth and security of her mother, who was reading her bedtime stories. This one was the Bible for Children.

As she read, the child studied the pictures in the book. They weren't like children's' story pictures. They were the adult kind, some of them frightening. When her mother paused between the lines of the story, she would ask her questions about those pictures. Her mother's voice and her simple explanations would settle any fear she had in her heart. In fact, they painted a picture of a very strong and caring God who never let the characters in those stories down. The ending was always a good one.

Of course, as the child aged and experienced life she wouldn't always find those truths to be so crystal clear. And apparently, the adults around her who composed her family had no headline faith experience, either. Nobody went to church except for maybe on Easter Sunday. But at night, she still said the prayer her mother had taught her...

"Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Watch over me this starry night, and wake me, Lord, when day is bright."

Somehow, that prayer made her feel safe. She believed the Lord watched over her and that there was a Heaven He would take her to one day. But her story was in the bright day and that was often the hard part.

As I turned the page in this dusty old book, I saw an awkward looking pre-teen. I felt a little sorry for her. I could tell she was looking for answers and wasn't too happy in the circumstances of her life. She had very little confidence in the adults that made decisions for her. She thought the decisions they had made for themselves had led to near-poverty and misery in the relationship department.

But one person in her family seemed to be paving a way out of the insanity and that was her first cousin. She was the first in the family to graduate from college. She had plans to travel the world, too. That gave the young teen hope, so she jumped at the chance to go a Crusade her cousin had invited her to attend. This Crusader she wanted to see was apparently very charismatic and extremely popular. His name was Billy Graham.

The modern-day Crusader had a silky beckoning voice that spoke right into the pre-teen's heart as he told of a Savior named Jesus who loved her more than life itself. She had gone down with the first altar call to receive Him as her personal Lord and Savior, to ask Him to forgive all her sins. Then they gave her a New Testament book. There were no pictures inside, but the letters in red were the exact quotes from Jesus, the actual God in the flesh. "Can you imagine that?" the young girl thought.

And, at home, over the next few months, the young girl read the entire book that she had been given, learning the teachings of Jesus and feeling very loved by him, astounded by the lessons he taught. He was her hero and a girl needed a hero, especially when no father was around to be one. God would surely be her protector and friend, as He had promised.

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As I continued to flip though the yellowed pages of the book, it became more of a scrapbook filled with pictures of loved ones, times of sheer joy, times of utter disappointments and heartbreaks, and the memories drifted past so quickly.

As she gazed into those stories, she realized the woman in them had not always walked with God. In fact, she had been angry with Him for awhile. But with each page she turned, she realized that God had never broken His promise to her. It had been she that had looked for comfort and guidance from many sources...any source other than God...but He had never left her. He had just waited on her to call out His Name.

As the pages neared the end, the woman, now old, would need the Comforter more than ever. There is no logical explanation for Faith. But as she buried her son, she held onto it closely and she believed more than ever before...

You see, Alaana...belief is about love. It is love in its purest form. Jesus is the lover of my soul. And faith is believing in that love and reaching higher. I told you I had a place that only faith could fill and it's all we really want or need. That's why I believe. And it's forever!