Keeping the Faith

Okay so after reading my friend's blog (read it: http://mikkiwright.blogspot.com/), I got to thinking about this phenomenon that so many people call Fate and so many others call God. I think that to an extent, everybody believes in this energy that goes by so many different names in different cultures, religions and New Ageisms. It's innate. Some may say that this is just because as humans, we can't bear to accept that bad things happen to good people for no reason: we need to justify this by saying that it is all part of a bigger plan, that good will come out of it because "what's meant to be is meant to be" and "there's a reason for everything". Others will argue that it isn't merely a defence mechanism developed to deal with the unfairness that is life and that it is a natural human desire and as we all know, a desire cannot exist if the desired does not.

Whatever it is, faith in it is hard to keep up. It's fine when things are going our way. When we aren't stressed out about our workload or social life and our family lives are all harmonious. It's when things aren't so good that our faith in this energy wavers and letting yourself doubt like that can be dangerous.

For example, the name that I give to this energy is God but I'm the first to stand up and say that "God" is just a term coined by a linguist somewhere, however many years ago and that it means exactly the same as all the other names given to it: the specifics of my religion aside, the energy form that I believe in is the same energy form that a reader of The Secret by Rhonda Byrne believes in, or that an orthodox Muslim believes in or Pagan witch believes in - as much as nobody likes to admit it, this energy is all just one and the same thing! It's just contained in different "truths" and it's up to us to pick and choose which truth is the most likely to be the true one.

I am certain that God exists. I would bet my life on it. People say there can be no proof of God but there is. My proof that a God exists is found in the amazing changes that have happened in my life since I started praying for them. I have felt the peace that only God can give and have seen the dramatic effects on my life and on other's lives as a result of my prayers.

This ties into fate and how "there is a reason for everything". Two years ago I was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. I'd suffered with these illnesses for years before I plucked up the courage to see a doctor and even for months afterwards as medication and various forms of therapy proved ineffective. At the time I wallowed in self-pity, selfishly wondering why me? Why do I have to go through this when I am doing everything I can to overcome it? I started to get even more depressed the longer time went on and it seemed like there would never be light at the end of the tunnel.

However, it was then that a friend of a friend who I'd never even met before contacted me on Facebook and suggested that I meet up with her and one of her friends. They were both Christians, a religion that I'd previously thought old-fashioned and silly, but upon meeting them and hearing the stories of the miracles that God had done for them, I agreed to read the books that they gave to me. After reading them, I was overwhelmed by the argument for there being a Lord and I prayed, crying, begging to be healed of everything that I was going through. I went to sleep and when I woke up, I can honestly say that I was. I was not only healed but I was actively happy. Family members who didn't know what had happened said I was "glowing", my confidence soured and I can honestly say that I felt complete and at peace for the first time in my life. This was not a placebo effect. If I was going to succumb to a placebo effect, I'd have done it when the doctor ordered me to take 10, then 20mg of Citalopram a day as I genuinely believed at the time that medication was going to work. It didn't. God did. If it wasn't for those terrible years, I would not have found faith. There was a reason for my pain.

SO many other things have happened since then (this was in May) that I won't give examples of because they're all one and the same.

A more recent example is university. Originally, I didn't intend on going to Salford. I applied here, as a last resort, to study Psychology. I only did it because I was told I may as well have 4 choices instead of 3! Up until around April or something, I was all set for going to MMU. I'd emailed them and changed my application to study English instead but hadn't bothered to contact my other three choices because I was so set on studying in the centre of Manchester. Then my best friend Connor asked me to come to a Military History open day with him at Salford uni. I nearly didn't go. On the morning, I nearly cancelled because I really couldn't be arsed (I was ill, in a bad mood and generally hating everything haha) but I dragged myself along and we went to the open day. Salford blew me away. I don't know why. The building we had a lecture in was falling down, the city of Salford itself is a shit hole and I was hearing all about a course I wasn't even vaguely interested in! The other people on the open day all looked weird, I didn't like the lecturers and I had blisters on my feet but I just felt a strong feeling that this was the place that I was supposed to be and so I rushed home to to UCAS to see if it was too late to change the course I'd applied for, only when I logged on to UCAS, it had already been done! There are a LOT of different English courses and, out of nowhere, my application had been changed to the specific one that I wanted. I phoned up to see why it had been changed and they couldn't tell me: they had no record of who had changed it or why.

I took this as being a good omen and applied for accommodation. In the first week of September, after not hearing back from them, I phoned up to be told that I hadn't been made an offer of accommodation. I was heartbroken but was told there was nothing that could be done so I left it. A religious family friend who I've only ever met once in my life before then popped round out of nowhere, saying that she had a strong feeling that she needed to see me. I told her about my worries and she said that she'd pray for me and that I needed to have faith that there was a reason for this disappointment and that everything would work out okay. I tried to have faith, even though it was hard, and sure enough, it worked! I got a phonecall saying that a place had come up in Castle Irwell but it was with third year Erasmus exchange students. Grateful of anything, I took the offer and moved into my new flat. And hated it. Nobody spoke to anybody: it was dead. I only saw 4 of my housemates because everybody stayed inside their bedrooms all the time. It was horrible. Again, I started to feel low but as soon as I stopped worrying I got another phone call saying that a place had become available at Horlock Court which was my first choice!

I moved in and can honestly say that I am so happy here. One of my flatmates, Becky, is already one of my closest friends and the rest of the guys are just brilliant. I've had some of the best memories ever with them and out of all the people I've met around Horlock Court, I can honestly say that I wouldn't prefer to be living in any other house. You can say that this is coincidence but is it? If I'd have been granted a place right away, I would have been allocated into a random house rather than the one that had the first person to drop out. And even if I had moved into this house, things would not be the same as they are now. For a start, I wouldn't be with my boyfriend as he was a completely different person in Fresher's week and not somebody I'd get involved with. I also wouldn't have hung around with Connor and his flat mates as much as I did when I wasn't living here and who knows how much we'd have drifted if we had ditched each other the second we got to uni?

Either way, things worked out FINE, and they have worked out fine every single time I've been down. No matter how bad things have been, there has always been a reason for that. Even now, I'm feeling shitty. I've got stuff going on in my family that I don't see being resolved, I'm really stressed out with my uni work and plans keep getting cancelled last minute which leads to me having anxiety attacks as, however weird this may sound, I can't stand not having social security and I hate it when I feel like everything could crumble. So yeah, I won't lie, I've been experiencing feelings that I thought were long gone and it's all stemmed from insecurities about my current social life, friendships and family issues. Last week I broke down and just cried with my mum for hours, feeling at rock bottom again and she couldn't make me feel better, she couldn't solve my problems.

And then reading Mikki's blog, I thought, do you know what? There is a REASON for this. Things WILL be okay. Things always are. I just need to have faith in my friends, my family, myself and my God because if I let that faith crumble then I will just regress into that pit that is depression and who knows what consequences that could have.

See, fate depends on your own actions as well. It can hand you certain cards which you ignore. I have a choice right now. I can accept that things aren't ideal at the minute but focus on enjoying the good times and rest assured that better times will come, or I can stay in my room, feeling like shit and not talking to anyone and as a result pushing away all the people that I'm terrified of losing anyway! THINK. When times are hard, do not sink into those habits, the drugs, the self-harm, the agoraphobic depression. Don't do it. Stick a smile on and go out there because if you don't things will only get worse and might not be fine. Fate can hand you cards but you've got to work with it by relaxing and taking life as it comes.