Joseph M Marion

What Faith Knows

True faith is not the absence of the night,

nor a life untouched by grief or fear;

it is the quiet choice to seek the light

when no clear answer seems to appear.

 

It is the strength to hold an aching heart

and trust the hand we cannot see—

to believe that even in the dark,

the Creator has not abandoned me.

 

Faith is more than words we say aloud,

more than pages left unread;

it is walking humbly through the crowd

with love and courage as our thread.

 

It is listening for the smallest sign,

the whisper hidden in the rain;

it is knowing that a life divine

may grow through hardship, loss, and pain.

 

Faith is taking the road few choose,

the narrow path that climbs uphill;

it is refusing to surrender or lose

the purpose placed within the will.

 

It is doing what the heart knows right

when the world insists we turn away;

it is carrying truth into the night

and choosing goodness day by day.

 

Many move through life with open eyes

yet never truly stop to see.

They chase the noise beneath the skies

and miss the quiet mystery.

 

They overlook the gift of breath,

the morning sun, the chance to mend;

they fear the shadow known as death

and forget that every road must end.

 

But faith can live in something small—

the hope of waking with the dawn,

the grace to rise each time we fall,

the strength to keep on moving on.

 

Faith does not promise we won’t break,

or that our sorrow will be brief;

it teaches us, for mercy’s sake,

to carry doubt without losing belief.

 

It is trust when we are weak,

love when the heart has little left;

it is the courage still to seek

the sacred in what life has kept.

 

The world may grow remote and cold,

forgetting words that once gave peace;

but faith can keep the flame upheld

and help the soul refuse to cease.

 

To read, to learn, to listen well,

to ask what love requires of us—

these are the signs by which we tell

that hope is still alive in us.

 

And when at last our journey ends,

when every earthly breath is gone,

faith says the Lord will still extend

a hand beyond the final dawn.

 

For faith is trust. Faith is love.

Faith is the courage to endure.

It is believing, even when

the path ahead is not yet sure.

 

Without faith, life may still go on—

a motion without meaning or aim.

But faith gives purpose to the dawn

and turns an ordinary life into flame.