A Little Faith Goes a Long Way!

Belgium’s monumental win today in Round 16 of the World Cup, which ultimately resulted in Team USA’s sad loss, brought to mind the old adage that has served me well throughout my life: “Keep the Faith.”

Keeping the faith for this "fight to the finish for the quarterfinals" game was quite difficult, after it lapsed into extra time. Belgium rallied with goal attempt after goal attempt, which was neatly thwarted by our fabulous man in the goal, Tim Howard. It wasn’t until there were thirteen minutes left in playable time (talk about lucky!) that Julian Green arrived, fresh off the bench, to take an enormous risk that led to a goal for Team USA. It was that movement, which was gutsy and electric, that gave new hope to both fans and team members alike. I know I was practically shrieking when he scored. Twitter was abuzz with the validation that hope was certainly springing eternal.

Alas, his attempts were not matched, as his teammates sought to merely stay in the game for another few moments. Several plays were made valiantly by our boys, but the win was not meant to be, for they were sorely fatigued. The saving grace here is that, though clearly outmatched, Team USA proved themselves worthy, and were spared from a shutout final score. Keep the faith, indeed!

What all of this means is that you basically have to take chances in Life, to have faith that those risks are going to work out. Apparently, Mr. Green and Mr. Howard understand that quite well – their risks on the field led to one of the most exciting games in World Cup history.

“Keep the Faith” is something that we offer to someone going through a difficult time. When I was a child, I used to wonder what the word “faith” really meant. I knew a few classmates named “Faith”, and I knew that the word meant “to believe”. But what did the phrase actually mean? Did it mean “to believe”? And if so, in what would I believe?

I remember wracking my young brain, with no luck. I asked my mother what “faith” meant. She responded with, “Faith is your religion. We’re Catholic – that’s our ‘faith’.” I didn’t buy this one for a second, especially because there were so many different dogmas out there. “Keep the Religion” didn’t seem to fit, and it sounded kind of weird. I kept searching.

As I went on in my spiritual journey, I found many hymns that professed “walking by faith and not by sight.” This sounded closer to the truth to me; walking in the belief that you would find whatever it was that you were looking for, without the use of one’s physical eyes, kind of sounded otherworldly, and for a very long time, I truly believed that this, in fact, was what “faith” was. Whatever it was that I was “looking for”, I somehow knew that I’d find it in my heart, not by physically looking at it.

After a time, this belief didn’t feel quite authentic, either. I abandoned it and began to search again for what “faith” actually was.

I came across what “faith” means to me, quite by accident. My first pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage, and I was devastated. However, I always believed that I would have a family, and I could actually see it come to pass, in my mind’s eye. When my husband and I found out, half a year after the miscarriage, that I was pregnant again, I began to find faith in the fact that this pregnancy was going to be a fruitful one. When I began to bleed spontaneously in my sixth month and had to go out on disability, I still held fast to the belief that the little one that I carried was going to come into this world, if I had to drag her here myself. At the end of a very long nine months, I gave birth to my beautiful daughter, and I realized that my faith is what carried me through it – the belief that I was going to have this child, come Hell or high water.

“Faith” came back into play, several weeks after her birth. Pyloric stenosis had made my baby ill, and she clearly was close to death when I threatened her pediatrician with a malpractice suit if he did not admit her to the hospital where I had taken her, post haste. I held fast to the belief that she was going to not only survive a very risky surgery, but she was going to thrive afterwards. I believed, and she recovered with flying colors. Several other little health bobbles in her life have clearly led me to the understanding that by holding strong to my belief that it would all work out somehow, that which did not kill me made my belief system that much stronger.

Faith helps me to believe that there will be another sunrise in the morning, that the planes that fly through the atmosphere will continue to soar and not topple to the ground, that the spring would surely follow the harsh winter that we endured this past year. It might sound Pollyannaish to think such things, but we are not guaranteed a tomorrow. We are given the moment. And in the moment is where faith resides.

Sometimes, even when we believe the hardest, things do not work out the way that we wish them to. For whatever explanation is offered, a storm still causes devastation. Teams may fail to clinch a title. Someone dies. However, this is never, ever a reason to give up our belief in the intrinsic good. Even in the face of defeat, and especially in this instance, faith is more important than anything.

Faith buoys us through the harshest of situations that Life can throw at us. I have been through more health crises than I care to count, but if I looked at every single one of them and gave up, I would not be able to help another through a similar circumstance. Faith is what lets us know that there is a silver lining to that gray cloud. It helps us to believe that, even if the tide of our lives is out, the wave always comes back to shore, and our lives are set to improve. Life cannot help it – it is a series of contrasts of good and bad. Without one, you could never appreciate the other.

And so, even though Team USA lost to Belgium today, there is a bright spot in this darkness for sports fans the world over. A valiant effort was made, and a fantastic game was witnessed by all. The members of Team USA will go on to make more fantastic plays, more fabulous saves and will continue to thrill their fans again. Right now, they get to relax and enjoy the rest of the series, before they have to recommit to practice and drills. There should be no sad faces, folks – they played by keeping the faith, and they certainly went further than anyone might have ever dreamed they would. It’s that faith and determination that makes us as a people stronger than we ever dreamed possible. Keep the faith!