Faith and religion are two very different things. I’m not always sure that I would consider myself religious – to me, the word religion conjures up images of awe-inspiring cathedrals, rituals rooted in tradition, formal clothes, and the sound of many different voices coming together in song. Though I appreciate the idea of religion, enjoy it from time to time in the company of loved ones, and understand the comfort that it brings to people, it’s not the right thing for me.

But faith is a different matter entirely.

It’s strange. I struggle to see how anyone lives their life without any sense of faith. We enter every day blindly. We may have some expectations or an idea of what may come our way, but we’re all experiencing our lives with an element of faith. Faith that we’ll get through the day more or less in one piece. Faith that the sun will rise and set, that the Earth will keep spinning, that we’ll all get another day older together.

And it even seems that people will put their faith in having a bad day. They have faith that the world will throw them a dozen curveballs, that they’ll have to dodge falling pianos and black cats crossing their paths. It’s cool. We are all entitled to believe what we want!

I wish we could all find great comfort in believing that we’re living the best life for ourselves. In that way, the choices we make will take us further in that direction, and the things that are beyond our control will simply be somehow contributing to a brighter future.

I have several friends under extreme stress – from financial worries, to unsupportive job conditions, to a general discontentment in life. And I want to write this to them, to let them know that even though it seems like one disappointment after another keeps coming, the fact that they keep getting up each morning and doing their best will make them stronger in the long run. That though it’s impossible to know for certain, I want them to have faith that the world will get better, that their lives will get better, that their situations will improve.

Often, life doesn’t go as planned. But if we look at what we have, and find a way to celebrate whatever joys we can find – then that makes the darkest days brighter, and can help us learn to trust in something bigger than us.

As my friend Lisa likes to remind me: “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”

I have faith in that.