What does Faith look like?

One of the prominent themes of Lent, for me anyway, is Faith. We hear the word faith all the time, but how many of us really know what it means to be faithful? We know the story of Moses wandering in the desert for 40 years, or of Noah building the ark based on God's command alone. But that was years ago, and we can't fully relate to Moses and Noah. What does it mean to be faithful in modern times? What does faith in action look like?

To answer that question, I will share with you a story I wrote a few years ago about a good friend of mine. She is one of the most faithful servants of Christ I have ever met, and she continues to be an inspiration to me. Since this story was written, I have gotten back in touch with her, and I can tell you that she has not changed a bit. She is still "Faith with Feet!"

Faith With Feet

CeCe. Everyone at school thought she was completely off her rocker. To say that CeCe was unique would be an understatement. CeCe was a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants, walking example of faith in Jesus Christ. Her faith was so strong, that most of us couldn’t understand it.

My first encounter with CeCe was in Guadalajara, Mexico. I was a sophomore at Bowling Green State University, and I had gone to Guadalajara with a group of university students to live and study there for the summer. On the plane ride down, the other students and I heard murmurings of someone missing from our group. A young woman named CeCe had car trouble en route to the airport and had missed the flight. She was trying to get from Cleveland to Toledo but simply didn’t make it in time. What would become of her, we asked ourselves. We began to worry for her. Would she be able to get another flight? What if they didn’t refund her ticket? What if she missed the entire summer in Guadalajara! Would the school refund her money?

By the time we got off the plane, we were so tired and disoriented that we had completely forgotten about our missing student. We were picked up by our host families, taken back to our new temporary homes, given something to eat and sent off to bed. We all spent the weekend getting acquainted with our host families and trying to acclimate ourselves to the high altitude of Guadalajara.

On Monday morning, my roommate Sarah and I caught a bus to the university, where we met up with the rest of the students, whom we hadn’t seen in 2 days. No sooner had we arrived when a young woman walked up, rail thin but as bright-eyed and spirited as anyone you’ve ever seen. CeCe. This was the girl who had missed the flight. She was here now, safe and sound, and without a single piece of luggage. You see, CeCe had managed to secure a ride from Cleveland to Toledo, but her luggage was at her apartment 20 minutes away from the airport. She didn’t have a ride back to her apartment to get her luggage, so she simply flew to Guadalajara without any. To myself and many of the other students, this was a shocking concept. We wouldn’t have dreamed of getting on a plane to go to a foreign country for 6 weeks without any luggage! But not CeCe. She figured that God would work it out.

And He did. CeCe’s story made its way around to all of the host families and other students, and everyone pitched in to help her out. She received clothing, make-up and other toiletries, even spending money, from the kindness of friends and strangers. Those whom we met on the trip had no way of knowing that this young woman had arrived in Mexico without a thing, because she certainly didn’t look like someone in need—she had received some very nice clothes and had everything she needed. More importantly, I can’t recall a single instance of ever having heard her complain. Not once! She was so happy to be in Guadalajara that she just ate up the culture, left and right. She wanted to do everything, go everywhere, talk to everybody. Her Spanish was rudimentary to say the least, yet when a group of us, all fluent except for her, were too shy to ask for directions, she marched right up to a stranger and asked for directions in her broken Spanish. This girl just loved life, and she lived it as it was meant to be lived—full of vigor.

CeCe and I became good friends that summer. In fact, all of us who went to Mexico together became very close. Back in the states, we continued to get together socially outside of class. I learned a lot more about CeCe. I learned that she had grown up in the inner-city of Cleveland. I learned that she had a hard time trusting white people (though you would never know it, because she treated everyone with respect). I learned that her parents were divorced and that her father lived in Atlanta. I learned that her faith in Jesus Christ was the most important thing in her life. And I saw that faith put into action many more times in her life.

I remember a semester a couple of years after our trip to Mexico where everyone was really busy and we had lost touch of each other. It was a fall semester. The next spring, I ran into a mutual friend of mine and CeCe, a woman who had been to Mexico with us. She told me that CeCe had been homeless the semester before. Something got screwed up with her financial aid. She had her tuition covered, but not enough for rent. Rather than drop out of school, she started living in her car. When it got really cold, she would sleep on the floor of the women’s restroom in the student union. Neither of us had discovered this fact until after her financial aid got straightened out, and she was back in an apartment. We were both furious with her for not letting us know about this problem. Both of us would have gladly let her live with us rather than see her be homeless. But she didn’t want to burden us, and she didn’t worry about herself the way we worried about her. She had God. That was all she needed.

In Matthew 6, verse 25, Jesus says, “[d]o not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

We hear these words and we understand their meaning, but how many of us are able to put them into practice? Don’t most of us spend a good chunk of our time worrying? What am I going to wear tomorrow? What should I pack for lunch? How will I do on my test? Will I have enough time to get my work done? What will the weather be like? Will the lines be long at the store? We anticipate so many future moments not with eagerness or joy, but with dread and worry. It’s as if we simply can’t stand not knowing what lies ahead of us.

I remember back in 1996 when Atlanta hosted the Summer Olympics. CeCe wanted to get a job at the Olympics. She had just graduated college and thought it would be a great way to spend the summer. She would earn a little money, get to spend time with her Dad, and most importantly, get to be a part of an historic event (although just how historic was yet to be seen). She had no running car at the time, and her job at the Olympics was not secured yet, but she was determined to go down there anyway. I remember asking her, “How are you going to get there?” to which she responded, “Girl, I’m gettin’ there on faith!”

Faith. Most would agree that faith is synonymous with believing. Do you believe you can get that job? Yes, I believe I can. Do you believe you can climb all the way to the top of that mountain? Yes, I do. Do you believe your team can win the game? Yes, I do. But there is always that little sliver of doubt. Faith is more than believing. Faith is KNOWING. Yes, I KNOW I will get that job. Yes, I KNOW I can climb all the way to the top of that mountain. Yes, I KNOW my team can win the game.

When Jesus was going around preaching and healing the sick, he gave them the authority to heal the sick by themselves. In Matthew chapter 17, a man approaches Jesus and asks him to heal his son, who suffers from seizures. The man says to Jesus, “I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.” These men to whom the Lord himself conferred the power of healing were unable to cure the boy of his seizures. When they asked Jesus why they were unable to do this, Jesus replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” In Luke chapter 1, the Angel of the Lord, Gabriel, says to Mary, “Nothing is impossible with God.”

I’ve lost touch with CeCe over the years, but I think about her often. I miss spending time with her. You never knew what you were getting with CeCe. In fact, some might call her flaky, but I call her faithful. If anyone I know could move a mountain, it would be CeCe.