She says this to me last night, like it’s supposed to mean something to me. Like it should somehow be comforting. Have faith. My mom knows better, but she says it anyway.

It doesn’t comfort me. In reality, it annoys me.

I don’t. I don’t have faith. I don’t see how saying that in a situation is very helpful. I don’t see why bad things keep happening to good people. How I’m supposed to have faith that it will just somehow turn out okay. How I’m supposed to believe that there is some grander plan. How I’m not supposed to just think that it all sucks and life is unfair.

Why can criminals and crackheads have babies that they will just abuse and neglect and eventually leave broken for someone else to deal with, but good, honest, hard working, caring people can’t seem to have a baby to save their life?

How does praying for something, like people surviving the earthquake in Haiti make any difference? Isn’t it more effective to give money, to give blood, to try and help in some way? Is praying better than sending money for food? Does it feed starving kids? Does it make people stop bleeding or able to climb out of the wreckage? No. It doesn’t. THIS, what my friend Stacey is doing, is something that helps. Something that makes a difference. It may seem small, it may even be small in comparison to the whole picture, but it makes more sense to me that just having faith.

How is it some grander plan, for Heather and Mike to have lost Maddie? They are amazing people. Great people who deserved better. They deserve that baby girl they had last week, so much so. She is a great gift to the world. Beautiful baby Annie. However, they deserved Maddie too. Annie deserved Maddie too. They are good people, who deserved both of those baby girls. THIS, their foundation in Maddie’s name is something concrete that helps.

How does faith help? How does prayer help? Why do people say it like it should help? Doing, acting, helping in concrete ways helps more in my eyes.

How am I supposed to have faith, when Anissa had a major stroke, after spending years fighting with everything in her to save Peyton? It’s not fair. It’s not something that makes sense to me.

Have faith? I’m supposed to have faith that my life will one day make sense? That somehow I will someday find it okay that the only man I’ve ever loved, the man I still love, no longer loves me?

I’m supposed to have faith when my great auntie, the one I told you about earlier this week has to have a double mastectomy on Monday? How is that fair? How is any of it fair? How does having faith help any of that? 92 years old and she should have to deal with this too? It’s not fair. It’s not right. I have no faith. I don’t believe that she did anything to deserve this. I don’t believe that it’s some greater plan.

I do believe in her. I came to that conclusion last night. I don’t have faith. But I believe in my Aunt Bernice. I believe she is strong and stable and one of the greatest women I’ve ever known in my life. I know she will be okay, because she plans on being okay. Because she plans on spoiling her two newest great-grand-children when they are born in March. Because she plans on going on a Disney cruise in Spring 2012. Because she’s stubborn enough for me to believe she will make it. I believe in her. That’s all I’ve got to hold onto in that situation.

The funny thing is, I believe in god. I do. I don’t however, believe that god is some big guy in a chair, dictating what we all do and what happens to each of us. I believe in free will way too much to buy that. I believe that something happens after you die. I don’t however, know what that is. Do I believe in heaven and hell? No, not really. But I don’t believe that you are dead and that’s it. I believe in angels. Might seem silly, but I do.

Besides that though, I don’t know what I believe in. Just blindly having faith that it will be okay? Not something I can do. I will worry every single second between now and next Monday afternoon, when I hear that she came out of surgery okay. Because that is all I can do. That and let her know that I love her. That my kids and I adore her and love her, today and forever.

Have faith, she tells me….well sorry, but I don’t. I can’t. It’s just not that easy for me.