Old Saws, Old Knowledge

I have of sorwe so grete a woon
that joye gete I never noon.


Four years into the recession, my tools are all old and beat.  The bills are mounting and it is harder and harder to make money.  I am, in the ways that count, rich beyond measure.  I have the things I really wanted in life,  a relationship with a good and beautiful woman, I have my son and my step-daughters who remain and are close to me.  If I was younger, it would be easier to believe better times are down the road, but at my age, although I have not given up hope, I know the possibility is there that I am all washed up.  I am highly skilled at what I do and fairly well educated and able, but I cannot seem to get business going again or to get an actual job even though I have spent the last 2 years and much money training to teach. I find my faith, which has sustained me throughout my adult life, is failing me. 

I say my faith is failing me in this sense.  I have reached the point in life when one would expect the bread cast upon the waters would have had time to come back to me.  While in many ways it has, far more than I deserve, there have been disappointments and dreams that remain unfulfilled, and still unanswered prayers after seemingly interminable knocking at the door, and I can scarcely say to others "take the path that I have taken, believe in miracles, risk everything to do what is right, Jesus is the Christ, you must know him".  It seems that most who lived practically, who sought material gain over all else, who put God on the back burner, live more comfortably and securely than I do and even often have more moral authority and respect.  There is no evidence of God, but it was never about evidence, it was always about faith.  What I, early on, believed had the most value: wisdom, knowledge, faith, insight, understanding, and sought with all my heart, I find, in my day to day existence to be almost irrelevant.  So it seems to be a two-pronged loss, I have neither worldly success or spiritual authority.  But I believe as absolutely as ever.