Is My Faith Contingent? (An Honest Conversation with Myself) It's Me, JussKyia

So I'm sitting here today. Just me. And my thoughts are doing what they do — going deep, going wide, going to places I wasn't planning on visiting but here I am. And a question popped up that I didn't expect, and it made me sit with it because I couldn't just brush it off.

The question was: is my faith contingent?

And I had to really sit with that word — contingent. Meaning, does my faith come easier when I can see a way out? Does my trust in God shift depending on how big the problem is? Because I'm about to be very honest right now, and if you judge me, that's between you and God. But I have to tell the truth because that's who I am.

Let Me Set This Up

I always say — and I mean it, one hundred percent — that God is with me. That He will work it out. That whatever I'm facing, He is there, and it's going to be handled. Now, "handled" doesn't always mean it's going to look pretty or feel good. It might be uncomfortable. It might be hard. But it's going to serve a purpose, and it's going to push me forward in this journey. I believe that to my core. That has not changed.

I don't present God with a laundry list. I just don't. I'm not that person. I don't come to Him like, "Lord, I need this, and I need that, and can You fix this, and can I please have that?" No. What I do is stay in continual prayer, which for me looks like just... talking to Him. All day. Like, "Lord, You know that car over there need some attention." Just checking in. Acknowledging. Fellowshipping. That's how I pray.

So with all of that established — here's what happened.

The Food Situation

For the last six weeks or so, money has been — I don't even want to say tight because tight implies there was some. There was none. Like, the refrigerator was looking at me crazy. No groceries. No food coming in. Nothing.

And you know what? Me and my kids ate every single day.

Every. Single. Day. There was a meal. I cannot sit here and explain to you where it came from every time. I just know that it was provided for. And the wild part is — I was not worried. I didn't panic. I didn't cry out, "Oh, Lord, what are You going to do?" I sat in comfort. I sat in assurance. I sat in this peace that didn't make sense given what the refrigerator was telling me. But I knew — not hoped, not crossed my fingers — I KNEW that God was going to take care of it.

And about three weeks in, somebody told me, "Kyia, you need to apply for CalFresh. With your income and your household, you'll probably qualify." So I applied. And a few weeks later — bam. It came through. More than I expected. Got groceries. Amen. Thank you, God. God is good.

And I sat there grateful and comfortable and at peace, and I thought: that was easy. My faith was solid. I didn't waver. I didn't stress.

And then I looked at the OTHER things in my life. And that's where this gets real.

The Car. The Power. The Gas.

Okay. So here's what else is going on. And I'm putting it all out here because if I'm going to talk about faith, I'm going to talk about what my faith is actually being tested by. Not some hypothetical. The real thing.

My car. I've had this car since 2005. It's paid for — thank God. But the registration is expired. The tires are bald. And I don't mean they're getting low. I mean they are BALD. Like, there is nothing there. There are days I can't put gas in it. I only drive locally because that's really all I can do with it. And at any moment — any moment — I could get pulled over and they could take my car. That's just the reality.

The power bill. It has accumulated to about twenty-four hundred dollars. Twenty-four hundred. Not because I'm being irresponsible. Because since we came back from being homeless in 2023, I have not had the income to catch up. It just keeps accumulating. And at any moment, Edison could cut it off.

The gas bill. About six hundred dollars. Same story. Accumulated. Behind. At any moment.

These three things have been hanging over me for THREE YEARS. Since the homeless season. Three years of knowing that at any moment the power could go, the gas could go, the car could go. Three years of living in that.

And here's the thing that even I can barely explain: in three years, the power has never been cut off. Not once. The gas has never been shut down. Not once. The car has never been taken. Not once. I don't even know how. I have not had the money to pay these things. But they have been paid. Somehow. Some way. Every time. For three years.

The math does not math. And that's God.

So Why Is This Harder?

And here's where I got honest with myself today. Here's where the question hit.

With the food — I was at peace. I was sitting in faith like it was a recliner. No stress, no worry, no flinching. And part of me thinks... was that because somebody told me about CalFresh? Was that because in the back of my mind, I could see a possible way out? I had a plan forming. I had a "oh, okay, this might work" sitting in my back pocket. And maybe — maybe — my faith rode a little easier because of it.

But with the car? With the power bill? With the gas bill? I don't have a CalFresh for those. I don't have a "somebody told me about this program" for those. I cannot see the way. There is no plan in my back pocket. It's just... God. And I know God is able. I know He can do it. I know He WILL. But I don't know HOW. And I don't know WHAT I MIGHT HAVE TO GO THROUGH to get to the other side.

And that's the part that gets me. Not whether God will come through — I know He will. But what the road looks like between here and there. What if they take the car and I have to figure out how to get to work? What does that look like? What if the power goes off? What does that feel like in the middle of summer or the middle of a workday? What if, what if, what if?

It's not that I don't trust God. I do. It's that my flesh — my humanness — flinches at the thought of the discomfort I might have to sit in while God works it out. And that flinch is what made me ask: is my faith contingent?

Paul Knew Something About This

And that's when I thought about Paul. I think it's Paul — yeah, it's Paul. Second Corinthians 12. He had a thorn in his flesh. Something painful. Something persistent. And he prayed three times for God to take it away. Three times. And God's answer was not, "Okay, it's gone." God's answer was:

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." — 2 Corinthians 12:9

God didn't remove the thorn. He gave Paul the grace to carry it. And that's what these three years have felt like for me. The car is a thorn. The power bill is a thorn. The gas bill is a thorn. I have asked God to remove them. He hasn't. But He has given me the grace to carry them for three years without collapse. Without the power actually going off. Without the car actually being taken. Without me breaking down.

The thorn is still here. But so is the grace. And maybe that IS the lesson. Maybe God's power is showing up the clearest in the exact place where I have no power at all.

So What's the Answer? Is It Contingent?

You know what? I wrestled with this, and here's where I landed.

No. It's not contingent faith. It's human faith. And there's a difference.

Contingent faith says: I will trust God IF I can see the way. Human faith says: I trust God completely AND my flesh still gets nervous about the uncomfortable parts. Both things happening at the same time doesn't mean the faith is fake. It means the faith is being carried by a human being who lives in a body that feels things.

Jesus Himself — in the Garden of Gethsemane — trusted the Father completely. "Not my will but yours be done" (Luke 22:42). That's perfect trust. And in that same prayer, in that same garden, He was sweating blood from the anguish of what was coming. Perfect faith and real dread. Same moment. Same person. Same prayer.

If Jesus can trust the Father fully while His body is recoiling from the cost, then I am allowed to trust God fully while my humanness gets nervous about what losing the car or the power might feel like. The nervousness is not a lack of faith. It's the flesh doing what flesh does. And God is not offended by it. He made the flesh. He wore it. He sweat blood in it. He gets it.

What Three Years of Receipts Tell Me

And here's what I keep coming back to. Because this is not theory for me. This is my life.

Three years. The power has never been cut off. The gas has never been shut down. The car has never been taken. Food has always been on the table. I don't know how. The numbers don't add up. The income has not been there to cover these things. And yet — here I am. Lights on. Gas on. Car in the driveway. Kids fed.

That is God. That is tangible, documented, I-can-look-back-and-point-to-it evidence that He is faithful. And if He has been faithful for three years when I couldn't see the way, why would He stop now?

He wouldn't. He won't. He doesn't operate like that.

And Here's the Part That Even Surprises Me

I look forward to it.

I know that sounds crazy. But I actually look forward to the challenges. Not because I enjoy discomfort — I don't. But because those are the moments where I get to see my heavenly Father actively, tangibly working in my life. Those are the moments where He shows up and shows out, as my grandma would say. Those are the moments where I'm sitting there with no solution, no plan, no way out — and then God does something I couldn't have orchestrated, predicted, or explained.

I learned this during the homeless season. And one day I need to tell that whole story because it ties into everything. But the short version is: the hardest season of my life produced the clearest, most undeniable encounters with God I have ever experienced. And I would not trade those encounters for all the comfort in the world. The comfort was temporary. What God showed me in the fire was permanent.

So yes. In my humanness, the discomfort is real. The bald tires are real. The twenty-four hundred dollar power bill is real. The nervousness about what might happen is real. But in my spirit? It is glory. All of it. Every bit of it points to a God who is faithful, who is present, who is providing in ways I cannot explain, and who chose me — chose ME — to walk through this with Him.

My Final Word

No matter what happens next — whether the car gets taken or the power goes off or something I haven't even thought of yet comes around the corner — I can look back on my history with God and I see one thing. One unbroken, undeniable, consistent thing:

He has always come through.

Always. Not on my timeline. Not the way I planned. But always.

He has provided more than I expected. He has shown up in ways that don't make mathematical sense. He has been faithful in a thousand moments that nobody saw but me and Him.

I have no fear. I have three years of receipts that say my God does not fail.

And whatever is coming next? Bring it. Because I know who's coming with me.

God is faithful. God is true. God is real. The Bible is true. And Jesus is alive.

It's Me, JussKyia! My Personal Blog — jusskyialifestyle.com Jesus Unveils Scripture Simply