Faith.

There’s a road I drive up to get home at night sometimes. It’s not very well lit with dense woods on both sides. Part way up the hill I have to make a left turn onto a side road that drops down the hill. The side road is not very well marked. It’s angled in such a way that you can’t make a right turn onto it if you’re coming from the other direction (down the hill). If you didn’t know the road was there you could drive right past it and probably not realize there was a side road.

So, when I make the left turn there’s a moment when I have to trust the road is actually there. It’s dark. I can see a reflector at the edge of the road. I can see a small curb in the middle of the road. But I can’t actually see the side road I’m about to turn onto.

I have faith though, that the road exists. That when I turn left and drop down the hill there will be a road to support me. I’m not driving off the hillside into thin, dark, densely forested air.

So far, the road has always been there.

If I were my own best friend, and I were feeling curious about the idea of faith, this is how I’d try to describe it to myself. It’s driving up a hill on a two-lane, poorly lit road at night, then taking a left turn onto a smaller road you can’t see very well, and trusting the road is there. Trusting something is going to support you. Hold you up. Get you through whatever it is you’re working through. Faith.

I am grateful the road is there. Every time. I wonder if this is what faith in a higher power feels like? Knowing the road will be there to support you every time you make a turn in life.