things i know about Faith...

Faith...a word we here all the time, used in so many different ways. Faith in oneself... is the best and safest course." Michelangelo... Faith is building on what you know is here, so you can reach what you know is there.Cullen Hightower... Keep the faith... I have faith in you. There really are so many. But i wonder if we understand the words we are saying.
I think back to my Sheila and how very often I used that word. "Baby, our faith in God will get us through." "Of course she will be alright, I have faith." "I have all the faith in the world in you. You will do fine, baby." All statements of faith that I said more times than I care to count to and ABOUT My Sheila. But it is the understanding of the word that made it all right with my world.
I was raised in a wonderfully christian home. My father was an Elder of the church and he preached for many years. Faith was always a very big part of our growing up. We prayed for people, animals, situations and anything that was sometimes bigger than us. I don't claim to always know why the prayers of faith worked. I only know that they DID work and I continued to and continue to believe. Believe is the meaning of the word faith. I found that by believing that things would go well, normally they did. 15 times doctors came to me and said Sheila would live. They didn't know who they were dealing with nor of OUR faith in God to sustain her and keep her alive. I always believed and walked away smiling as I knew that she would be alright. When someone would say to me,"Do you think she will make it this time? And 15 times I said "Of course she will make it!I have the faith for both of us."
The truth in it all is she was alright for 20 years longer than the doctors said she would be. I saw her wake from comas after months of sleeping. I saw her walk for 50% of our life when doctors said she never would again. And through it all, we took our faith with us and watched her heal time and time again. The last time she was in the hospital was such a long time. She was terribly sick again and had just woken from a coma again. Supposed to stay in the hospital for another 3 weeks, suddenly the doctors came to me and told me to take her home. I did just that and for 8 days she was with us. She saw all of the family and smiled like she always did. This time, she had a trachea and I cleaned it and helped her with it each and every day. She woke on the seventh morning and said something didn't feel right to her inside. I rushed her to the hospital where after many hours the doctors did emergency surgery. An hour or so before that, i was going out to have a cigarette and she touched my hand and asked me not to go yet. Still believing and never faltering, I stayed at her side until she fell asleep again. When they took her to surgery I smiled at her, we said I love yous and still... I believed I was simply waiting for them to correct the problem and away we would go again, back home. When the surgeon came out tooooo soon and said he could not save her, I fell to my knees crying and begging him to try again.
I remembered a question asked of me a few days before this happened. I was asked if I thought she would live through this last ordeal. I answered unlike I had ever answered in my life with her. I said I wasn't sure and prayed God to do what he would but not to make her suffer any more. And then I realized that from the moment the doctors had said "take her home", that God had taken over. My faith had not wavered ever nor had hers. It was time and we had our last few days together. In his grace, he took My Love the way she so deserved to go to heaven. She slowly over a few hours, went to sleep. Her last words were "I love you, always... I don't hurt now."
Her faith had taken her through 24 years of life and living and smiles and raising her girls and taking care of her husband and her home, in spite of all she battled daily. What I know about faith
is this. With out it you really have no where to turn and no one to turn to when it gets "bigger than you." To have faith, to believe no matter what life tosses at you gives you a place to rest. It is a word we use without thought sometimes and yet it is one of the most...if not THE most powerful word in the universe. So when you tell someone you have faith in them or to have faith, you really are giving them the greatest encouragement and the greatest compliment as well as the best advice you could ever give.
It gave me 24 years with the most precious lady any man could be blessed to have in his life...