Monday, June 2, 2014

What does trust look like?

I've known that God isn't like some Santa in the sky that we can just ask for what we want and then get it.  But I also thought that trusting God somehow meant that it would all be okay.  I might not get what I want when I want it, but that I wouldn't endure major tragedy, loss, or heartbreak.  Obviously since the death of my baby I know that is not true.  But that leaves me with the aching question of what does it mean to trust? What is God's side of this deal?

If I tell one of my kids to trust me and then let their worst fears come true, I wouldn't blame them for not trusting me next time. I really was trusting God in getting pregnant in the first place, and in my pregnancy, and in having to move and get our house ready for the market which was physically and mentally exhausting during a time in my pregnancy when I was already exhausted.  And He let my worst fears come true.  I had a stillbirth.  So what now? What does trust look like?  I have very little faith that He is going to help us with the sale of our house now or that He will help us find a great place to live once we move.  I can't bring myself to pray for little stupid things that I don't really care about  (like the weather or for a house showing) when He didn't intervene in the thing I wanted the most.  So I'm doubting and shaken because before all of this I did have a strong, almost childlike, faith.  I believed that He would take care of everything and I just needed to trust and seek Him first.

And yet in my doubt and pain, I am still turning to Him for the answers.  Yesterday at Mass, I was struggling to form a prayer, other than offering up the longing and ache stirred up by sitting behind one of the cutest little babies ever.  I felt far and distant from God.  But the Gospel spoke of the eleven apostles with Jesus after He had risen.  He took them up to a mountain and it said, "When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted".

These are the apostles for goodness sake! They had seen Jesus raise people from the dead and make blind men see and lame men walk with their own eyes.  They saw him crucified and beaten and dead and now alive.  And yet it says, "they doubted".  And Jesus still loved them and entrusted them with the Great Commission in the very next verse.  If Jesus can be patient with the apostles who witnessed His many miracles and still doubted, surely He can be patient with me.

So I don't know what trust looks like.  Right now it means getting up each morning and putting one foot in front of the other.  It means loving my husband and children the best I can, and it means asking Him my questions and listening to what He tells me.  All I know is trust doesn't look like I thought it did.



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