Will my rope break?

Today, when I was dressed, my carer asked me, "How has your illness affected your faith?" Oh, crikey! as Billy Bunter would have said. But it was a good question.

"Well," I replied, "it's got thinner. It's like a rope that was fat, with lots of strands, and now it's thin, but it's not less strong. I think it will still hold me. Before a lot of the strands were made by me - such as being useful, doing things for God, like being a vicar, praying. Now those strands are fraying. For example it find it very hard to pray."

"Really?"

"Yes. When I hear of good friends with terminal cancer, I really don't know what to ask for. I can't find the words to pray. I just feel upset."

"Isn't that the best kind of praying?" asks my carer, who doesn't go to church. "It's honest." He's not wrong. I continue musing. I agreed.

"Are you worried about the future?" he asks, meaning the inevitable shutting down of my muscles.  

"I don't think I am," I reply. "There's a difference between worrying what might happen and worrying about what will happen, isn't there? The first is understandable; the second is pointless.

"Although my strands have frayed, what's left are God's cords and I reckon they are utterly reliable. It's a bit like abseiling with a safety rope. Even if you let go of the brake rope, you're still safe. Of course," I admit, "I don't know what I'll feel when I can't speak or do anything for myself. Maybe I'll think differently then. Maybe my faith will give way."

"I don't think it will, somehow," is my carer's comment.

"I hope not. There's a great verse in the Bible: 'If we are faithless, He remains faithful' (2 Timothy 2.13). I might let go, but God won't, because that's his character. That's where my faith has got to now."

 Our conversation had to end as my legs were locking up and I needed to move towards the lift. So off I tottered hanging on to the rollator. Oh yes, and at some point I'd commented that my faith was less cerebral now, less a matter of ideas or doctrines. I didn't doubt God's existence or his love, but I didn't understand it at all. There's much more mystery about God and everything than I'd ever imagined. And somehow I'm comfortable with that too.

I love this picture from the National Geographic. I trust I'll be as free as that when I am left entirely suspended on the rope of God's love.