Strength Faithened

You know those times when the connection between your brain and your mouth is momentarily snapped? You end up saying things like:

“Will you stow to the gore and get me some ghosted rarlic?”

Hopefully you’ve said something similar and I’m not just a weirdo English major who’s read Shel Silverstein’s Runny Babbit too many times. (Well, I am, and I have. But let’s move on.) Generally, linguistic slip-ups like these just fing a smile to my brace. But one particular instance of this “Runny Babbit talk” stands out in my memory as genuinely important.

If I remembered who said it, I’d give them credit, but I don’t. All I remember is that I was in a religious setting and someone, quite by accident, used the phrase “strength faithened”. Of course they’d meant “faith strengthened”, and that’s how I took it at the time. But the Runny Babbit enthusiast inside me stowed the original words into one of my mind’s numerous fandom boxes.

Fast-forward a few years. I’m living on my own, hundreds of miles away from my parents and childhood home—supposedly a big girl. Yet I’m in my parked car bawling into the steering wheel.

Nothing earth-shatteringly awful had happened to me or any of my loved ones for a very long time. I was healthy, financially safe, and surrounded by great friends. But I had some questions I felt only God could answer that I felt weren’t being answered, despite the fact that I’d “done my homework”. So I was ticked.

I gave the longest, wettest, ventiest prayer I can ever remember giving that night. I’m not proud of the things I said. After listing my woes and frustrations and questions and crying enough tears to fill both my car’s cup holders, I finished with the following summary:

“I feel like I’ve always been a pretty strong person—always been able to keep going when things got tough. I’m still trying to be strong, but I feel like that’s not getting me anywhere. I can’t go on like this.”

I returned to my apartment with no more answers than I’d started with and went to bed. The sleep brought me a little peace and a lot more sanity; I woke up ready to view the previous night rationally.

So I started thinking. I remembered what I’d told God about trying to be strong. And then to the top of my mind floated that Runny Babbit-esque phrase: strength faithened. But why? As I let my brain keep sifting, pieces of my prayer echoed back to me. One word stood out in each of them:

“I know You’re wiser than I am, but you don’t seem to understand what I’m going through.”

“I know You want what’s best for me, but it doesn’t seem like you’re giving me what’s best.”

“I know I’m supposed to be learning and growing, but these experiences don’t seem to be helping me.”

Did I really know the things I said I knew? I searched within myself, but didn’t have to ponder long—I knew I did. I'd known them for years. That was part of the problem: each of those truths was a given, so basic, too simple. How could they possibly help me with my complicated problems? That’s when an image unfolded in my mind, and I realized how hard I'd been making things on myself. .

I saw my questions or burdens as a boulder blocking my path, my personal strength as a lever, and my faith as a fulcrum. With every “but” in my prayer, I was choosing to ignore truth. I was kicking aside my faith and trying to be strong without it. And that was about as effective as poking a boulder with a stick.

Without faith, my strength was useless. The only way I was ever going to move the boulder was by placing the lever on top of the fulcrum—in other words, letting what I believed be the foundation of my power. I needed my strength faithened.

So I went to work. Instead of dismissing the truths I'd known since my childhood, I clung to them. I repeated them to myself every time concerns threatened to overwhelm me. It didn't work immediately. But when I chose again and again to actively trust what I already knew, every “but” eventually became a “so”:

“I know You’re wiser than I am, so you must understand what I’m going through.”

“I know You want what’s best for me, so You must be giving me what’s best.”

“I know I’m supposed to be learning and growing, so these experiences must be helping me.”

Things were still hard. I still didn’t have the answers I wanted, and I didn’t like living without them. But my path had been cleared.

And so, with strength faithened, I move forward.