Trust

There's this Smalltown Poets song called 'Trust' that I liked when I was about ten, and just remembered a few months ago. I still like it, and I keep unconsciously singing it.

It quotes an old gospel song that goes:

"Come, every soul by sin oppressed;
There’s mercy with the Lord,
And He will surely give you rest
By trusting in His Word."

 - John Stockton

And every time I get all overwhelmed and smack into that brick wall, I remind myself, "It's going to take some trust".

In trying times

Drat. This "In Trying Times" is copyright, and I know nothing about those rules.. I can't find it anywhere online and sadly probably nobody has ever heard of it. It's by Kenneth A. Puls.

Anyway, basically...  How foolish is it to despair when we know God's making all things good for his children? We flail around blindly in anxiety and worry, but if we could only see the way his hand is working everything out, what hope and joy we'd have. We need to ask for forgiveness for all the flailing and faithlessness, and ask for grace and joy and peace.
Because if we ask for good things, God will give them to us. As Psalm 43 says, "Send your light and truth to guide me / to your holy dwelling place."

Equal under the mercy

 No matter what he does or has done, it’s not enough sin to keep him from the love and justice of God. I can let God work in me, and show the same grace and forgiveness. I love him for his heart, for his true self; no matter what he’s done, because just like I have, he’s run to God for refuge and God’s taken away his sins and pursuers – just as he’s done for me. There is no difference between us because of the nature of the particular things we were saved from –I have no spiritual or any other kind of superiority over him. In fact, his courage and tenacity in facing his sins outweighs mine by a long shot.

It's going to take some trust

Search me O god and know my heart. Test me, know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.  Give strength to your small one. Bless me with peace.

Oh I love him so much. So terribly. Once when we were in Z, we were going out somewhere, and his sister said “When are you coming back?” he jokingly answered, “Never”.  And just while we were smiling at that and walking out, it just flashed through my mind with a very shivery thrill just how amazing that would be. I went through the whole story, in just a few seconds.  Just to not stop driving, to keep on, into the sunset as it were. You know how it is in fiction. They stop and wake up some pastor to marry them, and live at some cheap little hotel. And of course you don’t even have to think about it to realize what a stupid and suicidal way that is to start out a relationship. But why does it still give me that same feeling? Probably because love is rather stupid; very stupid, everyone knows that. It doesn’t make the craziness lessen at all though.

And so many times I could have made any sort of awful mistake and was only held back by God’s hand. It is nice, being in love, who couldn’t enjoy it? I love it, and I’m planning to enjoy every bit of it. But, the thing is, it’s very hard to make tremendous life-changing decisions in this state. I hardly know what’s up and what’s down. You know? 

I feel like everything would be better if he was here, and I could talk to him about it. But would it really? Of course I need to talk to him about it and discuss lots of things, but having him right here will not help me think more clearly. 

I know there are things to work through. I know we are not out of the woods yet. But if we’re on the right path and the right things are being done in the right direction, then I should not feel unsettled and apprehensive about it. It should be a lot easier for me to have peace about it all. But I do feel apprehensive. I feel like something is not right somewhere. Definitely not peaceful.

I need to make sure that it’s not just my own fear and wavering that’s confusing me. I know that I really have no cause to fear any sort of awfulness I might end up in. God is my refuge and strength. Even if the one I love is outrageously unfaithful and sinful and dishonest, the lord of hosts is with me – the God of Jacob is my refuge. I don’t need to fear what this world can do to me. He can clear everything completely up – no mess – or he can wrap up every inch in messiness, and my security will be the same in both cases. No more of a reason to fear, and no less.

The thing is, maybe it will be done away with. But it’s not very likely. I can be pretty certain that by this next year he’ll have been unfaithful, and I will have had to forgive him. And probably he will have lied – about anything, something little, not connected with his problem, and I’ll have to forgive him. Another year, several more – all that falling out of in-love-ness and being Intentional. And in those years of marriage, how many times will he have to tell me that he fell again, again, again… If we have kids; there’s another worry to add to it. I can know this, for sure.

Yes. I am really going to have to clean up my act, as it were. I am not that sweet forgiving person. I am the one who would make snide remarks and put him down and make him feel like a disgusting bit of garbage. I’m the one who would end up killing herself out of sheer desperation. I’m vengeful and hurtful. I am not kind and forgiving and slow to anger. But – and this is weird – if I realize all that nastiness is an enemy, and hate it and ask God for asylum, then he will not only protect me from all that awful stuff, but he’ll make me able to be a conductor of his forgiving and goodness and wisdom. He’ll clean me up and shine all that through me.

And I need him to keep picking me up and dusting me off. A lot actually. Because I’m a lazy kind of girl who doesn’t even do a tenth of what she ought, much less what she knows she can.

So…?

I haven’t really got a conclusion here, have I? But it’s like Grandpa’s attitude about that bedroom set we have to find a place for. It’s fine right now, when we need to move it, we’ll decide where it’ll go.  Really, I just need to ask a few questions this weekend, and once I know the answers, then I can plan another little step, and so on. I like to know my plans way in advance, so maybe this is a little, little, lesson in trust.