MY LIFE Matters - Winter 2023/2024 - 40

Finding Faith Through Adversity WHEN FAITH IS TESTED
I Was Taught That I Knew
Where My Beliefs Came From
BY ERIN PERKINS, SURVIVOR, ANGEL ADVOCATE
I
am beginning to understand my faith
experience in three different chunks of
time: Before Cancer, During Cancer,
and After Cancer. What I mean is the
way my faith felt; the way I experienced
God and meaning, and the way I sorted out
the realities we all face as humans existing
on earth with any kind of hope.
Before Cancer my walk with God was less
tangible. It was more a set of beliefs passed
down from the Evangelical culture I was
immersed in as a young person in my town
in Southern California at the churches I
attended, and at the extracurriculars I
was pulled toward by my peers; namely,
Bible Boot Camp and Student Venture.
I just tried to find information on Bible
Boot Camp, and I can't, but I remember it
was held in the summer and you had to be
there most mornings around 8:00 a.m. We
studied theology as our leaders understood
it, and it was fundamental evangelicalism,
which also included a lot of sensationalism.
Without a tight memory, I only want
to briefly mention these experiences to
explain why or how I didn't know what
questions to ask to understand my own
faith or the Bible or where the beliefs
passed down to me were supposed to have
derived from. I was taught beliefs matter
by well-meaning, lovely people. I had no
concept, yet that belief was individual and
could not be understood as fact because
it is only fact to those who believe it. And
how do we each know what we believe
unless we examine where these " beliefs "
came from?
I was taught that I knew where my beliefs
came from.
I was taught it was all cut and dry, black
and white, with little to no nuance. Before
Cancer I was still living in that one note
40
MY LIFE MATTERS
FAITH OVER FEAR | WINTER 2023-2024
Me getting confirmed in Lutheran church when i was in eighth grade.
world of faith and belief; believing my faith
came from the Source, God. And what it
was, was very straightforward: The Bible
was taught as inspired truth straight from
God, little to no questions asked. Interpretation
of that Bible happened one way and
was something one could study and learn.
Quips to explain away questions while
sharing the Gospel, or evangelizing were
second nature; they felt genuine and true;
obvious. There was One God-the One
from the Hebrew Bible with the Son named
Jesus. Hell was a real place of torture, and
you would go there if you didn't believe
in that One God exactly as explained. The
Bible was a moral code to take literally and
to make sure you follow all the rules along
the way, these were the most important
things to note. And while I was inundated
in this early 2000s Evangelical Christian
culture, I did feel uneasy at times because
as I read the Bible, I saw so many difficult
things-murder, slavery, starvation, and
entire world destruction to name a few,
and then when things switched in the New
Testament-the accounts of Jesus-I saw
love embodied like no other. And we are
supposed to find that this makes total sense
and is explainable? Just believe!
It's so interesting to me now how many
years this went on. I feel like Jesus, through
the Holy Spirit, (which yes, I totally still
believe in the Trinitarian God-Father/
Mother, Son, and Holy Spirit), was tapping
me on the shoulder all those years.
It was like, " Look behind the show, look
underneath the certainty, that's where you
will find Me, the Gentle and Lowly God
of Sorrows Who-Catches-Every-Tear and
knows your name. "
I was nudging closer to that God when
Cancer was revealed to be possible in my
life as a young mother. And when I got the
vague diagnosis call by my first (terrible)
surgeon, I fell face down, completely dependent
on the belief that what I had said
about God HAD TO BE true. I needed God
to catch me when Cancer pushed me over.
And I felt it happen. I felt nearness. I felt
held. I felt carried. I felt heard, seen, and
cared about. I knew mine wasn't the most
interesting or terrible storyline out there,
but all the same, I knew that the Lowly
God of Sorrows Who-Catches-Every-Tear
knew my name and was with me. I was
certain of this.
My Cancer diagnosis erased all other
certainties about faith, religion, or who
https://www.cru.org/content/dam/cru/legacy/2012/03/Student-Venture.pdf https://www.cru.org/content/dam/cru/legacy/2012/03/Student-Venture.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelism
MY LIFE Matters - Winter 2023/2024

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