Trust

It is hard to know whether you truly trust someone or something unless that trust is put to a test. I say I trust God, but does my life really show that I do? I am examining myself to see whether it’s true and each day I think I have to reevaluate. Trusting God does not mean that all things in life go your way or that God is going to make only great and wonderful things happen to you. Bad things do happen to “good people.” People who love God and follow him are afflicted and pained and touched by tragedy all the time. Of course good things happen to them too, but until something unfathomable happens to you, those tragedies always happen to “other people.” As I walk around the LSU lakes each week, I am always struck by the groups of college girls walking or running together and I love their carefree and untouched smiles. Who knows how each of their lives will be touched with beauty and tragedy over the next ten years?

I thought that once the first trimester of this pregnancy came to an end, I would have some big weight lifted off of my shoulders and I would feel more able to trust God that whatever happens with this child, He is in control. I think I really meant that once the first trimester ended, I would feel more at ease that this pregnancy would end happily. While I am getting more excited about a new baby by the day, I am too aware that anything can happen at any time. The threat doesn’t end with a live birth of a healthy baby. I read a tragic story of a seven week old seemingly healthy boy who suddenly died in the night a couple of weeks ago. Toddlers are lost in accidents; children sometimes do not come home. I think God is opening my eyes to this reality that life can’t be controlled and it has helped me have a greater understanding of what trust means. Trusting God and especially trusting God with my children means that I relinquish my false sense of control; I lose those defense mechanisms that “protect” me from all the possibilities and allow myself to love and know that no matter the outcome of anything in my life, God is working these things together for good. How? I wish I knew, but for now, I just believe.

As I pondered how to trust God with this new life and with the life of our sweet Caroline, I was struck by the image of God putting his son in this world, letting his child go into a world that would hurt him and reject him and kill him. He had to let go of him to save us and all that he is asking of me is that I trust him, who loves me and my children more than even I do (which I can’t really fathom, because, well, I really, really love them), that I trust them to him. It isn’t even really a comparison when you look at it like that. He gave his son to the world that he knew would not accept him, and he’s asking me to entrust my children to him, the lover and creator of their precious lives.

Do I struggle each day with trust? Absolutely. Without question, it is a choice I have to make multiple times in a day. Each time I make it though, I think I love a little more, a little better, and fear a little less.