What reaffirms your faith in Islam?

I got this link in one of my emails; a question asking "what reaffirms your faith in Islam."

http://community.beliefnet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13666

I like some of the answers where one of the posters quoted Ali r.a. as saying

Asked about Faith,Hadrat Ali said,"Faith is experience by the heart, avowel by the tongue, and action by the limbs"

and another poster said that for him/her, Islam was both emotionally and intellactually appealing.

But I guess it is personal...each one of us has to go through our own personal experiences. For me, personally, I think reaffirmation must be a constant thing. That is the very reason that when Muslims pray, they have to recite the shahadah (testimony) that they bear witness there is no other god but God(Allah), and that Muhammad is His messenger.

So what reaffirms the faith? Consciousness of GOD, of oneself, of the relationship between us and GOD. "Worship Allah as if you see Him, and while you see Him not, verily He sees you." Basically, if you can worship God as if He was right in front of you, it means to you He is real, not an abstract idea...which unfortunately I still have not been able to achieve. When a thing is real, then you react differently. It is like knowing your own parents as opposed to being an orphan and just hearing about them. Yes, in both cases, the parents existed but in the latter, there is a quality of "unreal" to it.

So this constant consciousness is difficult to achieve and sustain. God be praised, there was a few times when this consciousness struck me and I really can't describe the sense of awareness when that happens. The word 'awe' barely scratched the surface. But the rest of the time, it is a struggle. Yet, if it were easy, would such a journey be cherished?

It is this struggle that is a reaffirmation of the faith...when one gives up this struggle, then one gives up hope of getting close to God and faith withers. As long as the struggle continues, I truly believe that faith continues to blossom.

Peace, if any of these words are wrong, they reflect only my limitations.