131: believing/faith/hope

I'm working through the topic of believing/faith/hope right now. Isn't it funny how a friend can say something, and you read something in a novel, and another person says something or you hear a song, and all of a sudden God has directed your thoughts toward one thing which you are now grappling with? Well, that's what happened.

I'm not going to write a whole blogpost on it because I haven't even gathered my thoughts enough to write about them (and sometimes I write to see what my thoughts are, and I'm not even that far yet!). But I do want to share one quote. It's from a novel I read over the turning of the new year. I bought it  when my mom and I went antique storing the day before Christmas Eve. It's by Frances Hodgson Burnett (Secret Garden, right?), and it's called The Dawn of A To-morrow. It's about a man on the verge of committing suicide (pleasant topic for a novel, right?) and about the little beggar girl he meets and others who change his way of thinking.

One of the characters, Miss Montaubyn, has had her life transformed by . . .  the Lord? Quaker sentiment? Child-like faith? The book seemed more Quaker-like than Biblical, but it made me think. And here is what Miss Montaubyn says, quoting the lady that told her about God,

"'"[W]e've all been thinkin' we've been believin', an' none of us 'as. If we 'ad what 'd there be to be afraid of? If we believed a king was givin' us our livin' an' takin' care of us who 'd be afraid of not 'avin' enough to eat?"'"

Really, it's not a new thought, but I've become so realistic in my thinking, I wonder if I need to go back to having some unrealistic faith.
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