What is it?

I am feeling a bit anxious lately....the kind where your heart is pounding at 4am. I am praying for these ugly thoughts that rear their heads at that time of day will be gone. I am struggling with the question and definition of faith again. Why is that a battle for me? I want to believe that I have faith, but maybe I do not have enough or the right kind. I know that there is a sifting going on right now in the world of Christianity and maybe God is sifting some things in my heart too. I am wondering what it looks like to have the kind of faith in your heart to move mountains. I know faith is not something that we can conjure up on our own or just magically produce. I smile when I think of that because I remember a sermon Greg Johnson did on the Fruits of the Spirit....he was trying to squeeze fruit out of his body and always made some pretty great faces! Is faith a gift that God gives some and does not give others? I know there are days where I feel I have the faith of only a mustard seed and isn't that what the Bible says we need? I guess I struggle with all this because I feel that because God is sovereign is there any amount of faith that can change the course of what he has already planned? Am I so jaded that I have a hard time believing that my faith can change the course of things? I do know that God can heal, that he is good and trustworthy.....I do not struggle with those truths. I only struggle with the fact that there are times I feel like I did not have enough faith and that is why Pearl was not healed. Are there those that think we did not have enough faith for her to be healed and have we been a bad example for some of those around us? I know that is not true....God did heal her, it just wasn't in the place we would have liked that to happen. She is running in heaven with all those black curls flying around. I want there to be room in my life for a God that doesn't always do exactly as we think he should do. I want to honor his sovereignty and serve him with a whole heart, even when he doesn't seem to make sense. I think sometimes I feel disappointed with how things turn out, but then I am reminded that he does have us engraved on the palms of his hand and has promised to never, no not ever leave us. That is a promise I want to hang onto when I am questioning the amount of faith I have. Even in the midst of the questions my faith continues to be challenged and will grow. I am asking God to give me the gift of faith....not the kind of faith that treats God like an ATM who gives out what we want when we want it, but that kind of faith that trusts him with my whole heart and has enough faith to believe that he has only the best for me....no matter what that is.