Last week I went and worked at a church camp as a cook / photographer. While I don’t currently consider myself a Christian, I still thought a lot about faith and what I put my faith in. It’s a subject I have been considering a lot in recent months, actually.

Before, when I thought I was leaving for Russia, I spent a lot of time thinking about how my decision to go all came down to faith. Looking back at those articles and writings now, I can’t help but laugh at how right and wrong they are all at once.

It is frankly preposterous to think that we know exactly what we’re doing and where our life is heading at any given time. To say that our lives have been heading in any given direction for x amount of time is irrelevant. What matters is what happens — in your life, in your head and in your heart, and how those three things combine into decisions and actions.

I thought Russia was the biggest step of faith in my future and in myself that I could possibly take. But I was wrong. All the same though, it was Russia that helped me to see just how much I love and value Randy. Without being faced with a decision that was entirely mine, it would have taken me much longer (and possibly would have been too late) to realize what I have with Randy.

I have never doubted the existence of a god that loves us, cares for us and has some sort of plan for us. Whether I have called it, him, or her “god” or “the universe,” the concept has been the same: someone or something making order out of chaos. It’s something that I simply cannot help but believe in. Without some higher power or thing out there to guide things along and give some things a push at times, it seems that our lives would be somehow meaningless or useless. And I just can’t believe that’s true.

Faith is a mysterious thing. It’s not being afraid of what lies ahead, more than anything else, I think. Whether it be something you expect or don’t expect, it’s being ready for whatever may come and able to handle it no matter what. Faith, I feel, is believing in your ability to handle any given situation.

I can’t count the number of times I have heard this verse (paraphrased): “If you have the faith of a mustard seed, when you tell the mountain to move, it will jump into the sea.” The point of that verse was never the idea that you could literally make a mountain move, it was always that if you have faith in yourself, in your god, in your future, in your friends, in whatever, then what you have faith in will happen because your actions and attitudes begin to reflect that faith, if it is real.

It’s no secret, really, that Randy and I have been discussing marriage on some level since I made my decision not to go to Russia. But at camp, somehow or another, Randy reached a point where he wasn’t scared anymore — where all the details in what married life is about faded away — where he had faith that as long as we were together and acting as a team, we could get through anything; that the important thing was for us to be together. He rode home with his oldest brother and I rode home with his sister-in-law, and both vehicles had conversations about marriage.

But we both talked about it with other people, who, in the end, can’t stop us from getting married, but all the same, are people who (considering their family structure) should be consulted.

Talk about faith. Either one of us might, and likely will, fail the other at some point over our lifetime, but that isn’t the point. The point is that we have faith in each other and in our relationship that we can resolve any issue. We have faith that our relationship is founded in love, but is all the same so much more.

Realizing that I have faith in wherever life may take me is one of the most freeing things I have experienced in my life, and, somewhat ironically, is something I have only discovered after releasing myself from the bounds of a specific religion.

Randy has asked that our specific plans remain close to the chest until things begin to get put in motion. So you can ask, but I might not tell. :)