3 WAYS HAVING FAITH HAS GUIDED ME THROUGH LIFE.

F A I T H.

Firstly, what is faith? What does it mean?

According to Google, it’s having complete trust or confidence in someone or something.

This doesn’t necessarily mean God or Jesus. It could mean having faith in yourself, a higher power, or having faith in someone else.

We all view ‘faith’ in different ways.

However, in this blog post, I’m sharing what ‘having faith’ means to me, and how it’s helped me throughout my entire life.

My faith is in God.

To some people words like ‘God’ or ‘Jesus’ is a scary thing. Especially in this day and age when there’s so much going on in the world, very few people have any faith in anything or anyone, let alone God.

I’ve never really talked about religion or faith on the blog before. It’s always a very tricky subject. It’s personal, you know? However, I decided to do a blog post on it, because lately, I’ve come across SO many people having a rough time in life. Whether it’s stress, depression, anxiety, work issues, relationship struggles, whatever. I see the hurt in their eyes. I see the struggles they are going through, and sometimes, I just want to say to them, “pray.”

Of course, I’m not here to preach about religion or God or to tell you what to believe in, because again, it’s very personal and a touchy subject for a lot of people.

When things don’t go according to plan, or “our way” we tend to lose faith. FAST. Failure will do that. It’s easy to blame God when things aren’t going our way. We never stop to think if it’s meant to be that way. We immediately get stressed, go into depression, get anxiety, have a panic attack.…instead of having faith.

Faith is deep-rooted. It goes beyond hope. Faith comes from the heart and spirit, while hope lives in the mind. Faith cannot be explained by reason or logic. It is the knowledge, deep down inside, that things will get better. It’s taking the next step when you can’t see the entire staircase.

Some people cannot wrap their heads around faith. They need evidence and explanations, and fail to see the small miracles in life that exist all around them. If you don’t have faith, you will not see those little miracles.

Of course, I’m not judging. To each is their own. This isn’t a preachy post about God or religion. I’m not here to convert you – LOL. I’m simply here to give you another perspective. My perspective. This post is for the open-minded. You may absolutely disagree with this post, and that’s okay. Or you may take a piece out of this post and apply it to your life.

Faith Helps You Discover Your Purpose in Life:

Going through life’s ups and downs can certainly take a toll on us. It makes us question EVERYTHING. Why are we here? Why is this happening to me? We’ve all been there, trust me. It has been years since then, but making the decision to end a 7 year (toxic) relationship was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make. I had to ask myself if this was right for me? We were about to be engaged, and I had to end things. At 28, it’s not the easiest decision to make. But faith had guided me through this tough time, as faith has guided me through a lot of my tough times. It’s faith that gives us that helping hand. It works to guide us in the right direction, allowing us to discover our purpose in life.

The thing is, things will get wayyy worse before they get better. You have to know this about faith…and have faith that it will happen. When I was faced to make this decision, things were bad. Terrible, in fact. It was stressful, depressing, challenging, hurtful, and overall just a difficult time in life.

But, because I had faith in my decision which of course for me, came from above, I knew there was a light at the end of that tunnel. It’s hard to see that light when we’re going through a shitty time. But it was faith that guided me. Whether your faith is in God or in something else, it’s faith that will bring you towards happiness again.

Trust me when I say, everything in life is far easier to get through when we have faith.

Faith Trumps Depression, Stress, Anxiety, and Fear:

It’s all I hear these days. These 4 words: Stress. Depression. Anxiety. Fear.

It’s all anyone ever talks about.

‘How much stress it is to keep up with my bills, mortgage, car payments’

‘Depression because I hate my job and all my co-workers’

‘I have anxiety because I’m overwhelmed at school and can’t keep up’

‘Fear of everything because I’m too scared to take that leap’

Let me tell you something – Fear ends where Faith begins. It’s a quote that I’ve lived by my whole life. In fact, many years ago, I wanted that tattooed on my rib cage as a reminder. But then I remembered I’m a total wuss and having 300 needles jabbing my ribs would probably not be the best for me. I was also extremely low in blood at the time, but that’s a whole other topic. LOL.

Point is, that quote helped me through ALL my fears. (Except my fear of bugs. That’s still a thing.)

When we believe that our lives can get better, like TRULY believe that, we are allowing our minds to move in that direction. And all of a sudden, situations improve. You have to learn to use faith to eliminate stress, depression, anxiety, and fear. It’s not about running away from your problems. It’s merely trusting that your situation will get better deep down inside your heart.

Faith Creates a Pathway to Solutions:

I’ve talked about stress on the blog before and how I’ve dealt with it in the past. To be honest, I don’t feel a whole lot of stress in my life. I never have. I’m not saying this to make you feel like “I’m better than you.” I’m saying this because there is something I always do when I feel even the tiniest bit of stress. There’s a question I always ask myself: “is this situation in my control?”

There are many situations we find ourselves in daily, where things are completely out of our control. So, how do you deal with it? You FIND a solution. Having a bit of faith helps with that. When you get stressed in a situation, your anxiety builds and it’s hard to think straight. So, you won’t really come up with a solution, because you’re too stressed out to think of one. If you allow yourself to have faith (in my circumstance, in God) it will calm you down, and you’ll know that you’re not alone in this. You know that someone has your back and is always with you through your decision-making.

THIS is what has helped reduce stress throughout my life. Faith has created a pathway of solutions to my problems.

I’m leaving you with final words…of wisdom or whatever.

You will always find yourself in ugly situations. Situations that may or may not be out of your control. This is LIFE. What you do in those situation is what makes you who you are. You can either stress about it, go into depressions about it, and have anxiety attacks about it. OR you can just have faith. Faith in yourself, faith in a higher power, faith in God.

I’m hoping this post brought you some peace. I felt it was a good time to write this post because as Christmas approaches, LOTS of people experience stress and anxiety. For me, Christmas is something I look forward to every year. It brings me the most joy and peace in my life, because it’s not about presents. It about family, giving, love, and Jesus.

Let faith guide you through your tough times.

I’d love to know your thoughts on faith. Do you believe? Do you agree/disagree? Tell me in the comments.

Peace and love always, kim.

+ if you liked this post check out my post on Stress, Failure, Rejection.

++ Oh, and 4 Ways I Handle Stress. 

Photos by Andrew B.