What faith can do?

     I have a very good foreign friend coming from America. He is pretty faithful to God, a very standard and religious Christian, who deems God the most important thing in his life. He chooses faith over anything else. In his mind, people without it are nothing but bodies that can walk.

    I’m not a God believer. So sometimes, I am thinking maybe I am a person of no faith at all. But after finishing the movies Cold Mountain, I realize that faith is not only the religion you have, but more of a kind of attitude towards live, a way of living.

    Cold Mountain tells the classic and beautiful love story between Inman and Ada during the American civil war. The war ruins everything. It is cruel, taking away not merely many innocent lives, but also kindness, tenderness, goodness of human. For most people, as they are cursing the damned war, they are more appreciating the precious and unchanging love they have for each other.

    However, what I see from it is the faith they both have on themselves and on each other. They both firmly believe that in someplace and somewhere there is someone waiting for them. They must come back for them. Therefore, Inman risks his life getting away from the battlefield regardless of being shot dead as a deserter. It doesn’t matter neither which side will win the war,

    nor what will happen to him because love he has for Ada is beyond everything. With that love, he gets over every difficulty encountered on the way back to Cold Mountain. He could have been killed, fortunately, every time with a narrow escaping. That’s what faith can do.

    Thing is no better for Ada, especially after the death of his father, which tends to be a big blow to her. She relied on her father so much before that she doesn’t know what to do on her own

    now. At last, she has no choice but to turn to others for help, which is the last thing she wants to do. Life seems dark and hopeless for her, if one more blow, she may be completely defeated. But she surprisingly get though all these and even resist the temptation from another man, just for a promise she made that she would be waiting for Inman to return. It is the faith that her lover will surely be back that makes her stick to the promise to the last minute. Faith is something that gives her strength to confront plight, a beacon that leads her to Inman’s side, and a torch that shows her

    the road to happiness. That’s what faith can do.

    Now days, some older say that the new generations like post-80s and post-90s have no faith

    at all compared to their generation when they firmly or even blindly believed chair Mao and socialism, which I strongly disagree. We have faith that hardworking is necessary to success. We have faith that good deeds shall be rewarded anyway. We have faith that good life is not given, but gained. Faith is an amazing thing. As long as you believe something and are willing to struggle for it, you are having it. If you have faith, can success be far behind?