This time I de­ci­ded to go straight to the point and write about what is re­al­ly the most im­por­tant mat­ter to me. I will write about faith. And this time I will not be ab­le to give ra­ti­o­nal ar­gu­ments to back up my views and opi­ni­ons. Pon­de­ring and re­a­so­ning are some of my fa­vo­ri­te pas­ti­mes, but I will put them asi­de for now. They do not be­long here.

I al­so wrote about faith when at­ten­ding a cour­se where the par­ti­ci­pants dis­cus­sed their own li­ves. Those texts were not sha­red, so I on­ly wrote to my­self. I could the­re­fo­re be comp­le­te­ly open about things.

The cour­se le­a­der used the con­cept “spi­ri­tu­al life”, which co­vers both re­li­gi­on and ge­ne­ral spi­ri­tu­a­li­ty, such as cre­a­ti­vi­ty, views about the pur­po­se of life and ot­her pro­found con­si­de­ra­ti­ons.

I wrote that I am a be­lie­ver and have been sin­ce child­hood. Faith is the foun­da­ti­on un­der­lying my life, so that I do not need to car­ry and sup­port eve­ryt­hing by my­self.

I be­lie­ve that my af­ter­li­fe will not be de­fi­ned by how good I have been or how suc­ces­s­ful­ly I have avoi­ded all things evil. I could ne­ver re­ach such le­vel of good­ness. God has ta­ken care of that on my be­half.

We were al­so as­ked to write about our spi­ri­tu­al cri­ses. The thing that first came to my mind was the time when my men­tal re­sour­ces dwind­led. I al­most ran out of faith. I kept qu­es­ti­o­ning why God had gi­ven me such a he­a­vy bur­den.

Yet, at the same time, pra­yer and con­tacts with ot­her be­lie­vers be­ca­me very im­por­tant. I felt that pra­yer brought God close to me, and when I went to ser­vi­ces, there were no de­mands made on me.

I ex­pe­rien­ced anot­her cri­sis when a dear per­son died. I even doub­ted if God and he­a­ven even exis­ted. Or was it all just sto­ries to give us hu­mans the strength to live, have ba­bies and work?

On one of those dark days I was due to keep Sun­day School. It see­med an im­pos­sib­le task to tell the child­ren about he­a­ven. We star­ted Sun­day School. I lit a cand­le, and we sang a fa­mi­li­ar song. I said a short, child-like pra­yer: ”Dear He­a­ven­ly Fat­her, come to be with us in this Sun­day School.”

The child­ren loo­ked at me trus­ting­ly. That cal­med me down and hel­ped me be­lie­ve that Je­sus was there with us. He was right there in our home with the child­ren and me.

Af­ter­wards I thought that the ene­my had at­tac­ked me when I was weak and grie­ving, al­most lost.

It is not fas­hi­o­nab­le these days to talk about faith. Nor is it ea­sy. But I do not re­mem­ber much talk about faith even “in the old days”, ex­cept in Sun­day School and ser­vi­ces. The pas­tors in church al­so tal­ked about God and Je­sus, but that was so­me­how dif­fe­rent and more dis­tant.

- Why could we not talk about faith in the way we talk about the ot­her as­pects of life? Where do you live now? How are you get­ting along? Have you been tra­ve­ling? Have you had the strength to be­lie­ve? What kind of a car do you have?

- I’ve been suf­fe­ring from flu and musc­le pain. My faith has been weak, but I ha­ven’t da­red to give it up, as I don’t know any bet­ter al­ter­na­ti­ve. I thought I would take a break and go so­mew­he­re warm with my friends. We could lis­ten to on­li­ne ser­vi­ces there. I hope life will treat you well. And be sure to to keep yo­ur faith.

Even at the risk of being con­si­de­red overs­pi­ri­tu­al, I thought I would write about faith. Com­pa­red with faith, tit­les and deg­rees, sta­tus and pub­lic es­teem, sa­la­ry, hou­ses, fur­ni­tu­re, wis­dom, know­led­ge and un­ders­tan­ding are unim­por­tant.

Text: Mir­ja Heik­ki­lä

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal fin­nish blog post here.