Losing My Faith During the Climb

I had a completely different post written for today.

But yesterday, something told me to write this instead.

I kept telling myself that it wasn’t relevant to the news I have to share. I’ve also told myself that I’ve already discussed my frustrations and whined more than enough on this blog. Neither of these arguments, however, could prevent me from feeling like what I had originally prepared was not what I should be sharing today.

Recognizing that these promptings to change course have often led to good places, I guess I will stop fighting it. So here I am, 100% honest and (quite possibly) ready to embarrass myself entirely with my exaggerated whining.

 

 

At the beginning of the month, I spent some much needed time back home in Arkansas with my family. While I had planned this trip months in advance, I had no idea how much I would have needed this trip when I booked the flights.

As it turns out, in the weeks leading up to my trip, I was not in the best of places. Ever since I moved to Boston, I have struggled with purpose. That’s not to say I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I knew that and I still do. I just didn’t know how to get there. After being led so unwaveringly towards Boston prior to my move in June of 2015, at the time I felt that this move was the first of what would be many steps on the path to what I wanted. When I arrived in this city, however, I suddenly found that all of the guidance I had  previously depended on had unexplainably vanished.

I prayed a lot about this… and my prayers often sounded like “I’m here… what’s next?”

But I didn’t get any answers. I even tried making my own decisions, rather than waiting for answers, knowing that often Heavenly Father wants us to decide. But every step I took, every decision I tried to make felt wrong. Leaving Boston felt wrong. Looking for a new job felt wrong. Moving back home felt wrong. And with every new direction I faced feeling wrong, still I fought the only option left to me: keeping the course and continuing to do what I was doing. That couldn’t be the answer… to just keep going? Could it? My life is one that has been built on constant change. On constantly taking a step forward and upward, and I knew my answer would resemble that trajectory. And yet, despite how much I prayed… still I got no answer. By the time my two year anniversary of life in Boston arrived, I was angry.

I was angry with God.

I refused to pray.

I was giving up.

 

 

Ooof, that’s dramatic.

But it’s the truth. Never in my life have I been angry with God. I’ve been angry with people many times in my life… but never with my Heavenly Father. And NEVER have I decided to take my anger out by refusing to pray to him.

But I had had enough.

You know how they always say at church that you should have faith during your hard times, not just when life is great? Well, in that moment, I was the worst offender. In my depression, I was absolutely certain that Heavenly Father was purposefully ignoring me.

And yet, despite my anger, I decided to give it one more try. Before flying home, I said one more prayer. And it was a simple one:

“When I go back to Arkansas, tell me, even if it’s with just the slightest of an impression, whether or not I should move back to Arkansas.”

I just needed some sort of guidance. With low expectations, I kept my prayer simple.

Miraculously, the weekend before I flew back, I received word that a potential project I had been exploring had been given the green light. Maybe God was listening… but I wasn’t willing to bet on it, just yet. And yet, when I flew home, I had the faintest of hopes that perhaps Heavenly Father wasn’t ignoring me… and that maybe… just maybe… he would actually answer this one small prayer.

 

 

 

One of the central themes of Passages is the acorn, and I feel this symbol is entirely applicable in this situation. I clung to that little seed of faith, hoping that at the end of my trip, I would come back with something…

 

And while I was home, I actually received my answer.

It wasn’t earth-shattering… no one screamed it in my ear. But I had a feeling, and when I boarded my flight back to Boston, I found that I once again had hope. I also found that I had come to a few realizations:

The prayers I had been saying, never actually went unanswered. Rather, they were being answered just a tiny bit, every single day. So tiny, that I never even saw it happening. The fact that I have a job that allows me to leave work physically AND mentally at 5 pm every day has been part of the answer. The fact that I have friends who are always willing to model for me whenever I need to create something has been part of the answer. The fact that I, the antithesis of a morning person, have somehow had the energy to wake up at 5 am every morning to work on my photography has been part of the answer. Every choice presented to me, every friendship made, and every new creative habit formed have been part of the answer.

I was just too blinded by my impatience to see it.

While I was back in Arkansas, I shot the next scene of Passages, and it’s funny how much of a “coincidence” it was that I shot the particular scene I did: the very beginning of Chloë’s grand adventure. Thinking back on where I was, and on where I am now, I can’t help but feel that Passages really has become much like a diary for me. Like Chloë in this scene, I am once again filled with hope and ready to see what lies ahead of me on my journey.

 

 

I’m no longer angry at Heavenly Father, thankfully. Recent events have convinced me that He was never actually ignoring me… that he has been answering my prayers all along. Passages and the Green Rider project aren’t just something that Heavenly Father handed me after I threw a temper tantrum and decided to stop talking to Him. They are two projects that He has been guiding me towards one tiny and seemingly unimportant decision at a time. How wrong I was to assume that He has stopped guiding me, caring about me, or answering me.

As a friend recently told me, we often mark our successes and triumphs by reaching the pinnacle of the mountain. What we often forget, though, is that every step up that mountain are just as important as that last step to the top. Every step are individual moments of success that lead us to the ultimate achievement. Every step should be celebrated just as much as our final climb.

 

Like Chloë in the first scene, I didn’t come back from Arkansas to start this next adventure with an undeniably concrete path or some grand answer to my prayers. But I came back full of hope and happiness. I came back ready to start the adventure.

And so, it is on that note, that I want to share a small something I have been working on over the past few weeks: my first ever vlog update! All the work I have put into this image has been my release from all these frustrating feelings I have had lately, and I have found that it has been fun to talk through my ideas with someone (even if it was just the camera). So if you want to see how I created the costume for the Passages scene I discussed in this post, as well as some footage from the day I shot this back in Arkansas, come check it out. I’ll share a little preview here, but you’ll want to visit my Patreon to see the full patron-only exclusive vlog update!

 

https://youtu.be/d9ecd-f_Ocs&w=640&h=385

 

See the full video here!