"Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.” ~Voltaire

Blog number 2 of the day... So I guess I do have something to say. Guess I should've waited a few hours to write my blog. At least this makes up for me missing a couple days.

Here's the topic du jour: What's the harm in believing?

The New Jersey Lottery Mega Millions is $355 million dollars for tonight's drawing. Yes, that's a lot of money. So Boyfriend and I went out and bought 20 tickets. A few phone calls later we found that his mom, his best friend, my dad, my sister, my dad's girlfriend, and several other people on Facebook all bought tickets. And here's the kicker: we all believe we could win. Well, yes, of course we could win. But I actually believe I'm going to.

The odds of winning this jackpot are 1 in 175,711,536. Since we bought 20 tickets, that ups our chances to 1 in 8,785,576. 

But I was thinking, if I lose now, I'm going to be really bummed out. And I'm sure there are many other people who will be, too.

Does it hurt to believe?

I mean, no one will be worse off than they were this morning when they got up, put their clothes on, and went off to work... assuming, that is, that no one spent their entire life savings on lotto tickets. But it'll still feel like there's something missing. Boyfriend is already listing the multitudes of people he's going to give his money to (not even what he'll buy for himself). And in my head I've already got my student loans paid off, and I'm driving a reliable car, living in an apartment that's all my own, and jumping on a plane to a new country whenever I feel like it. So yeah, it'll feel like I lost something if I don't win.

But without believing, where would we be?

When my mom was sick, we had to believe that she would get better, that she wouldn't die. If we'd simply planned on her dying without any faith in her ability to survive, those 4 years would've been much worse than they already were. Faith got us through.

For some people, God is that thing that gets them through the day... the faith that there's someone out there who cares about them and is at their side.

And some people just need to believe that there's a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel; that whatever sorrow or suffering they're going through will someday be over, even if there is no end in sight.

Without faith, many of us would be miserable. Without believing, it wouldn't even be worth it.

So for right now, for the next forty minutes until that drawing, I believe I'm going to win the lottery. That I won't be in debt, that I'll be able to live somewhere I love, that I can repay my dad for everything he's given me and help my sisters live the lives they want and go see the world.

Believing in that is what's going to get me through the next forty minutes, and believing in my own strength and resilience, and the strength of my amazing relationships is what's going to get me through the next forty years. And then some.

So go believe in something, no matter what the odds are.

Hey, you never know.