Sometimes I can’t tell if the ache inside me is purely nostalgia or if it’s an actual physical condition. It’s that moment when you look at your child and, instead of seeing just his limber frame buzzing by within his world of play, you feel the pang of a thousand missed moments lost in the swirl of time, swallowed by your job or other necessities of life that drag you away every day.
I feel that about my faith, as well. I yearn to return to my simpler view, to a time when I could look you in the eye and make a statement of certainty unclouded by the thick lens of changed perspective and experience. The truth is, I’ve lost that piece of me somewhere; I don’t know if it leaked out in hospital halls that still echo in my mind with myriad scenarios of loss, anger, relief, and life, or if I’ve whittled away memories one flake at a time, until all that’s left is a lumpy mass of something, beautiful, even artistic, but much more abstract.
And yet, I still feel hope. I still feel peace when I seek out God in my life. Prayer brings my intangible soul a little closer to its roots, though the words still seem to fall into the emptiness of space. I crave the occasion to make a difference, to help someone feel that they don’t have to close themselves up. I find myself with aspirations to obey God more, to do whatever is closest to the right thing.
So is my testimony lost? Is it muddled? Or is this feeling just the part where I no longer float in the lazy river between youthfulness and age, but instead recognize that I can swim upstream, downstream, or even stop off at the bank and experience more than the view from the center?
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