My name is Alecia Rose and I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
I have never quite shared this with you all before because I wanted my blog to be available for anyone whether or not they are apart of my church.
When I decided on faith as the subject of this month, I thought that it was a great opportunity to talk about what my religion believes in and what I personally think faith is.
The problem was when I started learning about faith and I started interviewing other people from different religions what they think faith was.
I wanted a nice little bow to wrap up the month. Make all definitions become one. A perfect ending to this month.
But I never came up with one definition to “rule them all”. In fact, I became confused about what faith is and when I felt confident enough to explain it, I became confused again and wanted to give up. I felt defeated.
Even today, I still feel a tiny bit defeated. I have talked with so many people about faith and have found so many definitions that what I originally wanted to say at the beginning of this month has faded away and I don’t know what it was.
So, I am going to share what I know instead of what I am still learning about.
What I know is that faith is complicated. It is beyond ourselves as imperfect people to have a perfect understanding. What we can understand about faith is what we learn through metaphors and stories.
For example, “taking a couple of steps into the darkness before seeing the light” or “a grain of a mustard seed”.
These examples don’t exactly explain what faith is but can help us to better understand it.
I have a hard time being able to take a couple of steps into the darkness but I can understand then even a tiny mustard seed can grow into a whole tree. Doing little things can help to grow faith.
Stories that are from the Bible and the Book of Mormon can also highlight examples of faith. My favorite being from Mark chapter nine.
There is a father who has such a love for his son that he brings him to Christ. Christ asks the father that if he just believes, all things are possible.
The father then proclaimed, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”
This has impacted me because there are times when I say, “Lord, I believe” only to later say, “help thou mine unbelief.”
With faith, there are many times when I say that I can step into the darkness and then I turn around a few seconds later to say that I’ve found myself afraid of the dark.
Faith is difficult for me. Maybe, that’s why I can’t fully define it. I need my faith tested before I can understand just a tiny bit more of the principle.
I wish I could have said that I know what it is and I’m better because of how much I have learned. I wish that I could say that I am forever changed from this experience of learning about all these different religions.
I do know that I have learned to be a better interviewer and I have learned to respect other religions for the lessons they teach.
It has been interesting learning more about what people believe in and what they think faith is. I know that the people around me have truly helped me to at least understand a bit of what faith is.
To me, faith is a representation of God’s love. Without it, I don’t think we would be able to last in this world as much as we do. God is everywhere and he loves us more than I can dare imagine.
I know that; I love it and I hope to better understand it.
