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What Personal Tragedy Teaches Me About Faith

You’re closest to God in the moments you’re most in need

Ryan Fan
6 min readSep 3, 2022
Photo from Tumisu on Pixabay

“Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.” — Matthew 5:4

I haven’t been as vocal and open about my faith as I used to be. When I was a new Christian four and a half years ago, I told everyone and posted on social media about it all the time. And while a lot of people don’t see anything wrong with that, I realized how insensitive and callous I could come off to people who had terribly traumatic experiences with the church, which are a lot of my friends.

I’m not out here posting about loving Trump and celebrating the overturning of Roe (because I don’t like either of those things), but I have been more cautious and tactful about how being super open about my faith or asking people if they want to come to church could come off to people I’ve been really close with.

I still believe, but I’m more private about it. But recently, the experiences of two of my friends who are very public about their faith. They were both my colleagues for two years, and I consider them friends.

And recently, they’ve undergone significant personal tragedy and hardships. One got diagnosed with breast cancer and has been undergoing chemotherapy on and off for years. Another just lost…

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Ryan Fan
Ryan Fan

Written by Ryan Fan

Believer, Baltimore City IEP Chair, and 2:35 marathon runner. Diehard fan of “The Wire.”

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