Today is a day of transparency. I write these posts about hope, dreams, scars, and happiness and find solace in the words. But even the Bible says that faith without action is dead. Faith without being able to put that faith into practice isn’t really faith at all. It’s just pretty words on paper that make me feel better. I’ve been struggling with some decisions that I need to make to put my faith to work. It’s been procrastination, ostrich syndrome, denial, whatever you want to call it. But the decisions that I needed to make were going to cause some level of uncomfortability. Is that even a word? It is now. Flow with it.
Over the last several days, I’ve been faced with reasons why making these decisions was absolutely critical to my future happiness. The longer I postponed making those decisions and effectively putting my faith into action, the longer I postponed my true peace and happiness. If I can talk about the steps to taking risks and finding dreams on paper, yet don’t live it in my own life, I’m a hypocrite.
Yesterday, as I sat in a nail salon full of women with tears streaming down my face, I made my decision. I made the first step. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life putting words down on paper that sound great for someone else but not for me. I don’t want to continue telling you all of these pretty words that make it sound like my head is held high, square on my shoulders.
It’s not. My head is clouded with the uncertainty of what my future will bring once my decision is in full effect. My gaze is sometimes looking down on the ground, with an attempt to shut the world out from all of my shame and heartbreak. Sometimes, as it was yesterday, the wind gets knocked out of my lungs and I want to scream. All along, though, I’ve had the key to shaping the future but I’ve been afraid to use it. What if my decision isn’t the right decision? What if I don’t yield the results my faith tells me I will? What if my decision causes me more pain than I already feel?
But the real fear should be what if the lack of action on the decision keeps me in neutral, in a state without motion forward or backwards? What if I sit around and continue to bemoan my current condition for the next forty years? Is that really living? I can’t be living my authentic self by telling you how to take risks, how to dream, how to shake fear if I am not willing to pursue the risk to the fullest.
Like so many other kids, I owned a Magic 8 ball and I loved that thing. I thought if I could just put my thoughts into the universe and shake that ball hard enough, my future would be made known clearly on a little triangle. I guess, in some ways, I’ve wanted a Magic 8 ball to tell me that I’m doing the right thing. Even though I have been given the peace that passes all understanding for quite some time, I’ve not been confident enough in my own heart to jump in with both feet. I’ve wanted validation from outside my own heart and mind to guide me forward. I’ve prayed and felt like I had the answer but then turned around and questioned myself. Over and over and over. That’s not faith. That’s something entirely different and not of the God I serve.
The only validation that I truly need is from my own stupid self. The world will always question and criticize decisions. They might even call me selfish. But the expression says, “to thine own self be true.” If I’m living a lie, not putting action into all these pretty words, I’m living a big fat lie. Yes, my decision is going to cause some hurt along the way. I don’t think, however, the earth will quit rotating on its axis or the sun will explode. I’m surely not the only person who has walked this journey and I won’t be the last. But I must be true to myself and to the dreams within my heart. Here’s the reality — when we postpone decisions that may hurt others, we are only magnifying that hurt.
I made a few baby steps with my decision yesterday and a few more this morning. I’m putting this decision into action. With shaking legs and uncertainty, I push forward. I don’t have the Magic 8 ball that could prepare me for this journey, no glow in the dark triangles that will ease my anxious heart. One day, I’ll be able to tell the whole story and it will make a lot more sense. We’ll all be able to look at it with luxury of a 50,000 foot view and it will be easy to see how everything worked out. One way or the other, it will work out.
When my Nannie died in 1992, I was given a letter that she wrote me when I was a little girl. For many years, I tucked it away in my Bible and had forgotten the words. Lately, I’ve wanted to pull it out and read it. As I was writing this blog, I had an overwhelming urge to go get it. I’ve shared it below for you. Take from it what you will, but in these words I hear her. God will send me what I need when I need it most. Her forty year old prayers for me are still being heard today. The ripple effect is still in action. Her faith is still in action years after the fact. Pretty words don’t mean much without faith and faith can’t truly work without some action. Her words wouldn’t mean much if she’d spoken them to me as a child and I certainly wouldn’t remember them today. But her action of writing them down on this little piece of paper, have helped to heal this sweet girl. No matter what comes with putting my decisions into action, I will cling to the prayers that I know are protecting me even today.
*Nannie only had a second grade education and learned to read and write with a stick in the dirt.
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