Being trained in a Bible-believing family, I don’t even remember the first time I was introduced to the concept of trust. I know that in my Sunday school classes as a tiny attender, I learned about the trust of Daniel, David, Joseph, Abraham, Mary, Esther—and the list goes on.
Trust is the belief that God is good, reliable, and worthy of believing; that He is faithfully working in our lives to guide us to each circumstance, blessing, or trial that He ordains to be good for us and glorifying to Himself.
As I have walked through my faith journey for 50 years, I have learned different levels of trust: simple childlike faith that brought me to salvation, to trust that He would welcome me into His family; trust to believe that He forgives me even when my walk with Him was not what it should be; trust to believe that God didn’t forget me as I waited patiently for a man with whom to fall in love and serve God; trusting Him when learning the hard lessons as we lost our first baby to a miscarriage; and trust when He was leading us to pack our bags and move to the other side of the world to serve Him in a land about which I knew nothing good. About this last trust, the fear far outweighed the reality that I would eventually experience, and I gained friends among the people whom I now call brothers and sisters in Christ.
Another trust in Him that I needed was that of a mother rearing her children in a place where standards and traditions were far from the upbringing in which she was trained. I had to believe that God was still trustworthy, that these changes were within His control, and that He would guide each day and each circumstance. I had to believe that as I trusted in HIM, He would give us the strength and ability to see each day as a new platform to trust.
All of this has formed my trust-journey. I have spent years learning these lessons through my parents’ teaching, my church’s teaching, and my personal walk with my Savior. This has been challenging for sure, but we all are called to learn trust!
New Trusts in my Trust-journey
In 2012, my trust journey began to take a new turn. I was asked to leave my firstborn behind in America to go to college and live as a young adult without me. I would not be there to guide her as she faced hard things. She was adulting—without me! Could I really trust God with my baby? God was calling me to a new trust! With each consecutive child, that lesson was something the Lord retaught me. Each time, it was almost as if He said, “Remember what you learned with the last one? I am trustworthy.” Each time was a new trust.
In 2017, the year was filled with new challenges. My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. In 2018, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with two different types of breast cancer. My father, who has been very healthy, had a mini stroke. This was the beginning of a new journey for all of us in the family. Each challenge was time for a new trust.
As many of us have relearned throughout our walk with God, He is trustworthy. In 2020, God added a really hard test—COVID-19. Our three kids, now all in America, were in jobs where they were considered essential workers on the front lines! My oldest was an emergency room nurse in a trauma center. The other two were in positions where they faced the public every day. Was God going to be able to take care of them without my help? I had to learn a new trust!
This test is still being learned. In the RAN country where we serve, we are still today not able to travel out of the area. If we were to leave, it would necessitate a career change because we would not be able to get back in. We would need to pack all our things and find a new place to serve. This definitely makes my choice to trust much more concrete. I have had to ask myself the question, “Am I willing to risk never returning to this land, just to be able to ‘help God’ with each problem, or do I just trust?”
In 2022, God has brought me to a much greater understanding of this concept of a new trust. In July, I received a phone call that sent my world swirling. My daddy found a mass on his neck. It was something that his doctor didn’t “like the looks of.” It was also something that the referring surgeon “didn’t like the looks of.” As the story unfolded and as each appointment led to the next, words such as “surgery,” “oncologist,” “malignant,” and “radiation” began appearing in our conversations. I now need to claim a new trust! God is able—even without MY in-person help!
Each of our stories changes daily. God does not always take our paths in the direction we expect. We can’t choose our futures, but we can choose to trust in the One who does know, for He holds our future.
We can look back and see that He has always been faithful. We know that without Him, we would fall flat on our faces. We have His love, His guidance, His grace. We can trust in His perfect plan, and when we do, we are able to see His leading, that He desires our good and ultimately His own glory.
Photo by Alex Shute from Unsplash