Have you taken your leap of faith?

"Lord, I don't know that I can understand this, I can't explain it all, but I'm choosing to believe in you."

This is a statement made by Sheila Schuller Coleman, daughter of Robert Schuller, founder of California's Crystal Cathedral, to explain what happened when she decided in college to stop questioning her faith.

When she made the decision to believe, she said, that's when "everything fell into place."

Can you recall a time when you've questioned something, perhaps your own faith? What happened? Tell us your story.

Here's mine:

It happened right after my then-husband told me he'd been living this secret life, had been cheating our marriage, had abused our wedding vows. He hadn't been acting in a cherishable way. He told me many things that I did not understand or want to believe.

I felt dumbfounded.

Not this man. Not my man. He was the happy-go-lucky guy. Nothing ever bothered him. He never got upset. How on earth could this be a guy who would abuse the relationship he had with his wife? This was not a man I thought would do something to hurt his family. He would not lie. He would not cheat. he would not steal.

This was not a man who would behave in such a distasteful way. He just wasn't.

Yet, he'd said he was. He said he'd done terrible things, the least of which was cheating on me with women. He'd even been with men.

I didn't want to believe it.

So for the next several months I worked hard at believing the reason he'd told me all of this terrible news was that he wanted it to stop.

I decided to trust in him.

But he wasn't being honest. He was, instead, being deceitful. I soon found myself not questioning him, but questioning myself. I kept telling myself that he had told me his story so that we could work things out. He wanted to free himself of the pain he was suffering. I kept telling myself that he was in such a vulnerable place that he did need time away. That's why he moved out, I rationalized for him. I kept telling myself that he was going to come back. I kept telling myself that I wanted him back.

But I didn't.

I knew better. I knew deep down that the we I thought we were was over.

But what I wanted, what I needed, was for him to be honest with me, so that I could stop pretending that all was going to be well. But he wouldn't come clean any further. It was as though he'd said more than he'd meant to, and now he wanted to pretend that he hadn't.

Finally, the day came that I took a leap of faith to trust--in me again. It took a lot of praying, but I finally reached that day.

I invited him to breakfast to call him on something he'd said. And things happened just as I expected. While he ordered his bacon and eggs, I simply ordered coffee. When the waitress left our table, I asked him the question I needed to ask. When he hemmed and hawed, couldn't be honest even then, when he couldn't--or wouldn't--tell me what I suspected he really wanted, I decided to speak up for myself. But I didn't need words.

I dropped a few dollars on the table, excused myself, got up, and walked out the door.

When I made that decision, I let go of whatever fear I felt beforehand. Fear disappeared, and I was able to walk away with my head held high.

I could let him live his lie, but I knew--I realized--I didn't have to live it, too.

I walked away, and I never looked back.

That's the story of my leap of faith.

What's yours?

Obstacles in the news

Turning obstacles into opportunities.

Based on the recent news--Michael Jackson dies and may have done himself in with some kind of anesthesia, leaving behind a legal swamp of concerns about his children, debt and finances for the family and lawyers to sort out; Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) announces an affair, as does Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC); there is talk of a sex video involving former presidential candidate John Edwards and the woman with whom he is expected of having a love child; Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) announces she'll step down from office this month, just halfway through her first term; and the least newsworthy, in my opinion, Jon & Kate Gosselin are getting divorced--it seems there is a lot of need for this right now.

Consider, for a moment, that there are real live families involved in each of these circumstances. The stories behind the "news" stories--all of which, for the most part, are none of our business--are tragic. All I can say about them? Given the time needed, I hope the families involved work everything out to their satisfaction.

But it does make me think. I have lived and survived through many of these types of situations. I know many others who have also. None of us likely wanted to have to deal with the pain or the shame. But it was what it was. We had to find ways to cope.

I used my bike, for one, and it was a very important part of my healing. But a bike won't work for everyone.

To turn an obstacle, such as the death of a father, the betrayal of a husband, or the break-up of a family for whatever reason, into an opportunity is not an easy thing to do. It requires:

• the slow adjustment of attitude,
• some kind of compassion for yourself and others,
• a lot of patience,
• belief in yourself,
  
• and the rebuilding of trust, among other things.

And what does it mean, anyway, to turn an obstacle into an opportunity?

For me, during the time I spent dealing with a betrayal of my own husband, turning that pain into something that was no longer painful meant I had to be able to see beyond the tragic circumstances.

Turning your obstacles into opportunities can can be as simple as that. At the very least, it's where you must start. Without that kind of faith--and I do believe it is a spiritual faith--you could very well stay in the fall.

Here, we do not stay in the fall. We get back up. We brush ourselves off. And we figure out the next move. We decide we can--and will--do that for ourselves and for those around us who care about us. In our own time, of course. No one else can determine that but you.

So if I were advising any of these families above, I would tell them if healing is to be in their future, they should start first with the understanding that, if it does not involve death, the tragic part of the circumstances need only be temporary. You can move beyond it.

With faith--wherever you may find it--you can begin to move your burden further away from you, one step at a time.

With faith, with the ability to see beyond a misfortune, you'll be able to do things such as:

• Look for books and information that may help you understand your circumstance and the people involved in it with you.
• Look for ways to avoid hiding under the covers, even if it means watching black and white movies long into the night, just so your mind is focused on something other than your personal pain.
• Take a walk or ride a bike, allowing yourself to work off some of the stress. Maybe not for very long at first. But if you keep at it, you'll have the energy to push yourself harder.
• Reach out for help, realizing you are not alone in your grief.
  
• Do things that sound off-the-wall, overambitious, or out of character to to others. It doesn't matter. If you think it'll work for you, then that's what you must do.

You might try, for instance, taking an improvisation class or applying to law school. I did both of these things, and I chose them for one reason--I needed to rebuild my self-esteem. Anyone faced with tragic circumstances needs to do that, because tragedy affects who you are at your very core. It can turn your view of life upside down, and you need to find ways to right it.

If you think standing up on a stage, in front of strangers, and acting as if you are a monkey climbing a tree won't do anything for your self-esteem, you'd be wrong. If you make yourself take part in silly things like that, or crazy things, like take the LSAT (exam to get into law school) while you're in the midst of a painful divorce, you will certainly be on your way to recovery. It's brave to test yourself in this way. Be brave. Show yourself you have it in you to be brave, to force yourself past a difficult moment in life. Think beyond the norm for you.

And as far as these two things above go, you can't fail. Acting, which is what improv is, is more like play. Who fails at play? There's no right or wrong there. As for the LSAT, you might not get the best score on the test (if most of your time spent studying involves tears), but it's not a test you can fail. You can do poorly on it, and you might not get a score high enough for the school of your choice, but so what? You don't fail it. And the diversion from what else is going on at home is good reason to chose to do the extraordinary. No matter the outcome. It's actually the diversion that's important.

At least that was my excuse.

What I'm saying is that what's happening in the news to these public figures and/or celebrities is happening to us regular people as well--daily. Though it all seems so ugly as reported in the news, we'll likely never know if there's a positive outcome to these stories. The happy endings of sensationalism rarely plays out in the news, but hopefully there will be that. For you dealing with yours or for someone you know who is, just know this: There are ways to turn what might seem like a challenge too tough to bear into a challenge to overcome.

You just have to find it for yourself, experiment with different coping mechanisms: reading literature, signing up for classes, attending workshops, therapy, journaling, riding a bike...

It will, indeed, take a belief in yourself, just the tiniest at the first. It will take time. And it will take two now all-too-familiar words. But within the realm of your own definition, you can do it...

Beat it!

(By the way, I did not link to any articles about the stories/people mentioned above, because haven't you read enough about them already?)