Faith 

   Faith is a gift from God.  We cannot obtain it on our own for He is the source.  Only through prayer can we obtain the faith we desire so deeply in our souls.

   Try as we may, we can’t know the kind of faith that will carry us through the hard times, the faith needed to accept whatever comes our way.  It takes trust and confidence in the goodness of God and the certainty that all He sends us is to benefit us in some way, even when we can’t understand it.

   Having faith is easy when things are going as we would like.  Giving thanks to God for the many blessings He gives us is a natural response, just as thanking someone who gives us a present for our birthday or Christmas.  However, our faith is tested when sorrow or pain enters our life.  To thank God even in those times requires a deep faith that goes far beyond a recognition of the good things we receive to include even the difficult and those that may even seem impossible to endure.

   God sometimes allows us to suffer though even His suffering is designed to do one of two things.  It may be a test of our faith, challenging us to have total trust in God, confident that He only wants what is best for us.  I believe that sometimes the suffering we are called to endure is meant to strengthen us. If our faith is as it should be we too will be able to respond Job did,  “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1: 21) even when times seem the darkest.