John Kasich

Opinion contributor

Like many of you, I have been in and out of a funk these past weeks, ever since the full force of this global COVID-19 pandemic started to impact our communities here at home. It’s a desperate, dispiriting thing, to see so much suffering, to see so many people fearful for their lives and their livelihoods. Who wouldn’t be feeling down and uncertain about what lies ahead?

Right now, I’m out of that funk, and I’d like to tell you why — and how it happened that I’ve come toblook on this moment from a more hopeful place. The turnaround started when I went for a long walk the other day to clear my head, because I’d been hearing so many negative things from my friends and in the media. I needed to put the world on pause for a moment … to think … to breathe. I walked for over six miles, keeping a safe social distance from other walkers and joggers, the whole time thinking about where we were as a society and where I was with God.

Aligning head and heart on faith

At some point, I called my friend Father Kevin Maney, and together we took a look at this. I told him that what had me frustrated was that it sometimes felt to me as if my faith was in my head and not in my heart. I told him I was worried about the disconnect I was feeling, believing wholeheartedly in the resurrection of Christ and the promise of a new creation and a life after death, while at the same time harboring these feelings of fear and anxiety. The one didn’t square with the other, and this was concerning.

I said, “I worry that I’m a better talker than I am a doer.”

My minister friend thought about this for a moment and said, “It’s normal for us to be afraid, John. We’re born to live, not to die, so our focus should be on living, not dying.”

I thought that made a lot of sense, so of course, I thought about it some more, and then I called my great friend Tom Barrett to get his take. Tom recently lost his wife to cancer. It happened pretty quickly, and as she fought that terrible disease, she never once complained or showed any fear. It was the most remarkable thing, the most inspiring thing. She’d spent 50 years of her life studying the Bible, believing in the goodness of God, and so she was able to accept her difficulties without ever questioning her faith. Not once. So I said to Tom that I wished I had just a sliver of his wife’s courage, just a sliver of her faith, just a sliver of her hope.

Tom said, “Oh, but you do, John. You’ve just forgotten for the moment that God answers our needs, not necessarily when we ask for them to be answered, but when we need Him to answer them.”

Of course, I knew this deep down in my bones, but I needed to hear it. I needed to hear it in a way that might help me align my head and my heart and my faith, and the conversation got me to thinking about how the way we live our lives matters. It’s like it says in the spiritual The Old Rugged Cross, one day I’ll lay down my honors and trophies in exchange for a crown. Because the promise of our eternal future is real, a value I share with friends of many faiths.

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It’s our legacy that matters in the end. It’s the example we’ve set for our children, the impact we’ve managed to make in our community. It’s what we’ve built, not what we’ve gained. Remember, the promise of our eternal future is real. Because we are blessed with a loving God who created us for life, not death. Because it is in times of crisis and doubt that we are pushed to examine our beliefs, and perhaps even to steady ourselves in those beliefs with the good counsel of trusted friends — and the renewal of a faith that’s been there all along.

This is something I’ve thought about for many years. After the sudden death of my parents, I’m not even sure I believed in God, so this has been a more than 30-year journey for me. It’s taken me a while to discover these truths, and I suppose it’s only natural that a terrifying, unknowable pandemic might shake a person of faith from his or her foundation. But I’m writing this to let readers know that this foundation is sound. My foundation is sound, and I hope and pray that yours is as well.

Believer or not, use this time well

You know, during the 2016 campaign, I often leaned on my relationship with Jesus Christ to get through a tough moment. Once, in a packed arena in Washington, appearing before a gathering of religious leaders from across the country, I was not sure what to say to those good people. So I waited in the wings and offered a silent prayer: “Jesus,” I said, “would you just come up on the stage with me so I know you’re standing there?” I did the same thing a time or two before the presidential debates, and do you know something? Each time out, I could feel His presence, and it gave me strength.

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Religion for me is not a mind game I’ve learned to play to help me answer some of life’s unanswerable questions. This is not a workaround or a get-out-of-jail-free card I choose to play when things get tough. No, this is me, knowing with dead-solid certainty that we are graced by the most powerful being to ever exist in the universe, who cares for us, who cares for our families, who cares about what we do and how we live our lives and the footprints we mean to leave behind. He does. Absolutely, He does. And if you come to embrace this truth, as I have come to embrace this truth, you can internalize it and grow from it, and it can give you the hope and strength and confidence you need to get to the other side of even an unknowable difficulty such as this one and to somehow emerge all the better for it.

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Look, I know we all believe in our own ways… or, not. We have our own ideas of faith and the hereafter. I’m not here to judge, and I hope you won’t judge me either. But if for some reason you’re put off by these words, or if the idea of this kind of faith simply doesn’t appeal to you, I’d encourage you to take this time to study and reflect and come to your own conclusions.

People rush through their lives, and maybe they look at the sports pages or their investment portfolios or their work emails. It’s a rush, every day, all the time, and we don’t really take the time to look inward. To consider what really matters in this life and in the life to come. So maybe we can find a kind of silver lining in this moment of pause while we’re self-isolating at home and really examine what we believe and how we mean to power ourselves forward when the lights are switched back on and we return to our regular routines.

Right now, I am in a hopeful place, because I do know we will get through this. And given the opportunity, it allows me to figure out what is really important and where my real treasures are.

John Kasich is a senior political contributor for CNN, the former governor of Ohio and a former candidate for president. His books include "Every Other Monday: Twenty Years of Life, Lunch, Faith, and Friendship." Follow him on Twitter: @JohnKasich