Young faith is bright and certain. Old faith is something else — quieter, deeper, scarred and rooted. The faith that has weathered seasons is not the faith we started with. This sonnet honors that long testing, and the trust that emerges from it.
The Sonnet
My early faith was bright and ringing strong, A clear assertion, certain of its ground, It made of every doubt a passing wrong, And every question seemed too quickly found. But years have weathered what was once so loud, The storms have stripped me of an easy creed, And I am no longer young, no longer proud, But still — and this surprises me — I believe. The roots have gone down deeper than the bloom, Into a darkness only trust can know, Where doubt and faith have shared a single room, And neither one has had to fully go. So this is what remains: a quieter flame, But one that no late season can reclaim.
Reflection
Faith that has not been tested is not yet faith. It is opinion, perhaps, or inheritance, or temperament. What we call faith only really becomes faith when life has done its work on it — when the easy answers have been stripped away, when the certainties have wavered, when something deeper has had to step forward.
The faith that survives the testing is rarely the same as the faith that entered it. It is quieter. Less interested in winning arguments. More patient with mystery. More aware of how little it knows and how much it still trusts. This is not a diminished faith. It is faith that has grown up.
If your faith has been tested — by loss, by doubt, by years — and something is still here, however small: that is the real thing. The bright flame of beginnings has become the steady ember of endurance. That is worth more than all the noise.
