Sincere Faith, reflections on 2 Timothy 1:3-7

A long day. But a good day. My mind is flooded with so many thoughts tonight, important ones, and ones that I must write about or else I will not be able to sleep.

It is 8:00 PM. I have been working, setting up "housekeeping" here in the parsonage since shortly after 7:00 AM. I have worked hard. I have poured sweat; I have bruises on my arms and legs from moving furniture, hauling boxes, balancing on the ladder in the garage on one foot while placing items in the loft. My knees are bruised and sore from scrubbing floors. And, the entire day my mind has been singularly on one idea, one thought: I want my children to come "home". Tears.

Admitted with much shame, there once once a day when I might not have readily said that, as terrible as that sounds. My failures as a mother are numerous, if I listed them here this blog would be the length of "War and Peace". It's difficult to not get caught up in a cesspool of regrets that threatens to drown my thoughts, to not get mired down in a bog of thoughts that overrun my mind, causing my heart to want to say, Give Up. You will Fail Again. But, tears tonight instead because, I am different. I know that those thoughts are not truth. I know what truth is. I know what truth is. I know that I am different. I know that that can not be made up. And I know that God is real. Do I have doubt still? Yes, o how I fight doubt, nearly daily. Even today. Even today in the midst of cleaning, my mind fought against doubt. My mind continually swirls with thoughts, with questions, with arguments, even in the night, even in my sleep and in sleeplessness.....for my mind to be still, for my mind to accept as truth that Jesus says "Shhhh, peace" to me (---to me!!??!! How can that be?); those rare moments are precious indeed.

As I've scrubbed and cleaned and sorted and hauled, I have given much thought on a passage of scripture shared with me, found in 2 Timothy 1:3-7. Tonight, sitting at my desk, a place I have nerdily and geekily claimed as my own, a place to study, to write, to pray, I have opened up this passage in my Bible software and have spent time turning the words over in my mind, writing, and praying much--real prayer I think. Paul is writing to Timothy. I am not sure where Timothy is, I've not taken the time to dig out a resource in order to find out the answer to that question. I am in the midst of studying 1 Thessalonians, and so I know that Timothy was with Paul some, but then sent by Paul, in that case, to check on the church at Thessalonica. But here in 2 Timothy, I do not know where Timothy is, or why he is not with Paul, or the timeline of when this book was written in comparison to Paul's other letters. These are all questions I've written down to look up later. But, for right now, it is the words, the concepts, the language used here in the beginning of this letter that I am caught by.

Paul refers to Timothy as his beloved child in verse 2. He then greets Timothy with grace, mercy and peace, almost as if he is not just greeting Timothy, but that in uttering these words, he is praying them for Timothy, on behalf of Timothy. He sincerely desires Timothy to experience grace, to experience mercy, and, my heart, to experience peace....all form God, God the Father, God Timothy's Father and Paul's Father, and mine? And Jesus, their Lord, our Lord, My Jesus. And I will say, I need grace, mercy, peace. I need peace. And, I will say tonight that I am praying these things for my children. I am praying them for my children as well, real prayer.

I have written much tonight on these verses. These are not nothing verses; they are all very important. They are important to me. Tonight, though, I am struck with the thought that was shared with me, regarding verse 5...."I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well."

The first part of verse 5 states "I am reminded of your sincere faith..." I want that. I want my faith to be sincere. I do not understand faith. I struggle with faith. Faith does not come easy to my mind, to my heart. Faith is defined as "believe and trust in and loyalty to God." It is also defined as "complete trust." Complete trust. To wrap my mind around the idea of complete trust, of trusting God completely, will I ever grasp that? Will God ever look at me and be able to say "You trust me completely, I am proud of you?" I don't know. I am trying. I am trying. But what I desire, what I know to be the truest desire of my heart, is for whatever shred of faith I have to be sincere. To be real. To be authentic. I do not want to be inauthentic. I want to be real. I want my faith to be real.

And then the last part of verse 5 states "...a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well." Of course, of course, of course, I am a LONG way off from being a grandmother, much farther than my friends. However, since I have solidly dogged plans to live until I am at least 73 or older, then the day will probably come that I will be a grandmother. O, my heart. I want this to be me. I want my grandchildren to say of me, "My grandmother Shelly had a sincere faith. And it was a faith that dwelt in her. It dwelt inside of her. It was not show. It was not just for the outside. It was not pretend. It dwelt."

I recently did scripture work on a passage in Jeremiah that used the word "dwell". I found the use of that word to be significant in that passage, because God is saying "I will make them dwell in safety". In fact, here is what I wrote about Jeremiah 32:38:

"It does not say that God will just keep them safe, but that he will make them dwell in safety. And the use of the word dwell. There is much more meaning in the word dwell. Dwell infers a long term state, a nestling down, a nestling down in safety."

The sincere faith that Paul sees in Timothy, the faith that brings him joy even though he is remembering Timothy's tears, or maybe in remembering Timothy's tears, is the same sincere faith that dwelt in Timothy's grandmother Lois, and in his mother Eunice. And, like the Jeremiah verse, dwell infers a long term state, a nestling down. Their faith was sincere; it was nestled down in their heart. They were settled.

I do not think that it can be made up, that in my mind these two passages---the passage in 2nd Timothy and the verse in Jeremiah regarding God causing the Israelites to dwell in safety---would collide together tonight. My life has changed. I am facing single parenthood. Our world has changed drastically. We need, O God, do you hear me? we need to know that we will dwell in safety. And, I need this sincere faith, these small pathetic attempts at faith to dwell in me. For my children. and for my grandchildren.

And I do not think that these thoughts tonight can be made up, because right in the middle of writing this, I had to take a long break to attend to important business. I received a phone call from a kind, generous church member who has made flight arrangements for my children. They will leave Hawaii Monday night; they will arrive "home" on Tuesday. We will be together as a family in time for the small's birthdays next week. I had hoped, I had prayed, I had worked hard all day but I didn't expect it to work out so soon. But it has. So, tonight, sincere joy. We are going to be ok. Things are hard. They are scary. They are terrifying. I often times do not know what to do next, except to keep trying to do the things I know to do, and I fail so often at those. But, we are a family, and God is real, and we have family that love us and are praying for us, and we are going to be good.