by Natalie Belisle

For years, I thought I knew what it meant to have faith and trust in God. I knew God's word: it said that God was trustworthy and faithful. Yet once I left behind my life in Chicago to reinvent a new life for myself in academia, God exposed my deepest fear.

Before arriving in Madison, Wisconsin, three years ago, I had romantic visions of what graduate school would entail. It would be a refuge from the restless years I worked as a writer and public relations professional. I gleefully contemplated my new life, envisioning myself soaking in the melodious words of my favorite Latin American and Caribbean writers. I would acquire knowledge. I would leave with a Ph.D. and live the idyllic life of a literary scholar. I was certain that God was calling me to bring a much-needed voice in the secular world of postcolonial literary studies.

Nonetheless, those carefree dreams about academia were slowly eclipsed by the visceral reality of alienation. What were supposed to be fanciful days of reading on my sofa turned into lonely nights in my tiny efficiency. In my small quarters with too much time to think, loneliness set in, compounded by the reminder that I had left behind a stable job and a real life.

Meanwhile, back in Chicago, my friends were turning thirty and entering different seasons. It seemed like every week I received notices of engagements, nuptials, and newly purchased homes. They were living adult lives, while I, staring at thirty, was regressing back to college living in my Cracker Jack apartment. Overnight, my indissoluble joy strangely turned to painful mourning. The unshakeable faith and confidence I once professed were replaced by the destabilizing reality of unbelief. In my solitude, God exposed my faithlessness. I did not trust God. I did not believe that he would provide for me to fulfill my calling as he had provided for others in their callings.

Ironically, this revelation came not through my intellect but through the practical matters of everyday living: food and money. The obsessive worrier in me began thinking about my future. As the summer neared, I did not know how I would support myself. I wondered how I would survive with such a meager pittance that is a graduate stipend. Consequently, I questioned the calling I once embraced with certainty. I was past the age of relying on my family for financial support. The obsessive worrier in me began thinking about my future. In all of this, it did not occur to me that, for every calling, God equips us in every way.

I had spent nearly thirty years steeped in the church, yet I did not trust God. I could recite Scripture by heart from a tender age. As an adult, I was deeply involved in evangelism ministries where I shared the Gospel with conviction, telling others that they should entrust their souls to a God, who, in the end, I wasn't even sure I trusted. I watched my grandmother, who led me to Christ, live by faith for me. Still, I had never learned to live by faith for myself. God was everything I never had: a father, a husband, and a positive male figure. He also represented everything I didn't trust, but he was asking me to deposit my fears to him in the most unimaginable circumstances: alone in the wilderness of academia, in a strange land. Through all of this, God began to speak to me through Isaiah 54. There, God promises Israel to be her husband and her redeemer. A faithful husband will go to the limit to protect and provide for his wife. God showed me that, for the time being, he was my faithful husband.

Yet, I must admit, reading Scripture did not restore my trust overnight. God, in his infinite grace, worked through my fear and distrust. He began to show me in tangible ways that his word was true. The provisions that came into my life during my first two years were nothing short of miraculous. Out of nowhere, I would receive calls and emails from business associates who knew my work, requesting that I take on freelance writing projects. God provided for me just when I needed it. When my provisions for the season were met, God seemed to go temporarily silent, and I would resume my cycle of worry. I was still in the infant stage of this thing called trust. Then God, in his abundant grace and favor, would begin to move once again, this time during the summers, with job opportunities that gave me enough to live and eat. Today, he continues to provide for me through fellowships. During moments of self-doubt, these provisions continually reaffirm my calling here.

God became my God in a way I had never understood in Chicago. Now, when I tell someone about Christ, it is not merely a textbook, intellectual discourse. It is the reality of a God whom I have seen and known.

I am reminded of the "trust walk," a game I played during a youth retreat. In this game, one person is blindfolded and must place their trust in a person they barely know to lead them safely through muddy, rocky terrain. This journey through academia is a continuing trust walk through the dark and rocky places of my heart and of life, through the valleys of loneliness and distrust that may haunt me at times. I still believe God has a calling for me, although now I understand it as something greater than the pursuit and acquisition of knowledge or a Ph.D. For me, graduate school has been a journey toward unshakeable faith. I look forward to the resting place where God is leading me at the end.

Natalie Belisle is a doctoral student specializing in contemporary Caribbean literature and postcolonial studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also passionate about theology and spirituality and hopes the redemptive aspects of her faith can be brought to bear in her discipline. When not reading, Natalie runs, dances salsa, participates in online cultural forums, and enjoys many laughs with good friends.