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| Optimism |
Faith &
| By: John Pruitt |
| A RESURRECTION OF FAITH by John Pruitt
examine our lives moment by moment, we see that among the many joyously memorable moments in life, there are times of conflict, times of strife, and times of sadness. Until we learn each moment’s life lesson, such times may cause us to question things that we will eventually come to know as truth. Although I feel very fortunate and blessed in my life at present, there was a time when I felt overwhelmed with trials and tribulations. It seemed as if everything I cared about was slipping away from me. I was mourning the loss of a close relative, one of my closest friends had become terminally ill, I had just lost a very good job, and I was faced with the possibility of losing my home. The emotional pain from experiencing so much loss all at once had prompted me to give in to the evils of addiction. I felt as hopeless as anyone could imagine. My only escape was my hobby, photography. As I struggled to cope with the long series of unfortunate events that were happening all around me, disappointment and doubt consumed my soul. I began to question myself on many levels. I questioned my judgment, my sanity, my purpose in life, and I eventually started to question my faith. I questioned my faith in myself, humanity, and I questioned my faith in God. I decided that I needed concrete evidence of the existence of God if I was going to continue to believe in Him as I continued to live in such a cold, cruel world. In short, I needed a miracle. One afternoon, as I was walking through my rapidly growing neighborhood, with my camera, something told me to take a photograph of a construction site; the future home of a new church. Just as the shutter clicked, a feeling of extreme warmth came over me. I felt weak, as if I might faint. I took it upon myself to go home and lock myself in my bedroom, as usual, until morning. After a couple of days had passed, as I was working processing my film, I received the miraculous proof that I had so desperately been hoping for. As the prints emerged from the developer, I was both astonished and amazed at the most beautiful photograph I had ever seen. Just as I had snapped the picture of the church site, a radiant beam of light shone down on the ground before me. Inside this brilliantly beautiful beam of white light, a heavenly messenger revealed its presence to me. My eyes filled with tears of joy as I saw the true “light at the end of the tunnel;” a light of hope, a light of love, a light of God. I felt a tremendous weight had been lifted from my shoulders. At this very moment, all doubt disappeared from my mind. My faith was reborn. As I look back on my life today, I am thankful for the hard times I have faced over the years. Those were the times in which I learned the most valuable of life’s lessons; lessons in hope, lessons in gratitude, lessons in love, and lessons in faith. We don’t need to see God to know that God is with us. His work is all around us. The birth of a child, the emergence of a butterfly from its chrysalis, the blossoming of a flower in spring, help from a kind stranger – these are all examples of God’s wondrous work that we see every day, we just need to take time to notice and to truly appreciate them. |
