Where Facts End, Faith Begins

I am not a morning person. In fact, I may be the person for whom snooze alarms were invented.

Two Saturdays ago, I was lying in bed, delaying the inevitable, and berating myself for not jumping out of bed to greet the new day. My husband does it. My daughter does it. I, on the other hand, am a big fan of "five more minutes."

Just before I eventually got up, I realized what was keeping me in bed. I felt overwhelmed. I hadn't been feeling up to par, I had a lot to do, and I'd been sleeping poorly due to worries that resurfaced during the night. Most were small, day-to-day issues, and a few were pebbles turned into boulders by time, stress and a pinch of paranoia.

It finally occurred to me that in order to conquer these fears, I had to get out of bed. As I lay there wondering what conquered fear, I realized the answer was two-fold - facts, and faith.
Most of my fears could be minimized with a little research. Armed with the facts, I could face the fears and move forward in a direction I was in control of, which would shrink the fears to a manageable size.

But at some point, the facts would not be enough. Lacking a crystal ball, I'm unable to predict where exactly my path will lead and so, at some point, I need to let go and have faith. Faith that I've found the right facts, made the right choices and gotten on the right path. Beyond that, my own control ends, and I need to leave it to God. Where facts leave off, faith begins.

And that's enough to propel even a snooze-alarm-addicted, non-morning person into the day ahead.