My Journey Toward A Trusting Heart

Chapter 6

We made plans to make a trip to St. Joe to visit our Caring First church family. We stayed with our pastors, Steve and Sandy Poe. We were right at home with them, and it was such a great time.

Interestingly enough, there was a baptismal service planned. Krissi wanted to be baptized, and wanted her Daddy to do it! So, she had the joy of being baptized by Mike. It was truly a special time, and a time for rejoicing with our church family.

This was my journal entry following that visit:

“We had a great weekend in St. Joe. There’s no doubt that this is the greatest church on this earth. Sunday was a great day, and 15 people made decisions for Christ on Sunday morning! PTL! God is moving at Caring First, and Mike and I feel so privileged to be part of that ‘happenin’ thing!’

“We had a great visit with the best staff in the world, and had breakfasts and lunches with dear friends. It was good for the people to see Mike, too, and to know he isn’t next to death’s door. We had a wonderful time. My joy was in getting to join my friends on the worship team all day – I really needed that. Thanks, Pastor David! We plan to make the trip as often as Mike is up to it.

“Mike is feeling pretty good. We leave next Sunday evening for Rochester and a Monday AM treatment. He has been on an antibiotic for this bleeding he’s had, and it was looking pretty good about 10 days ago, but here in the past couple it’s shown up again. So, we don’t know what to think. We’ll be sure to ask Dr. Adjei when we see him. Please be in prayer about this. I sure hate to see Mike have to go through radiation again, and that sounds like the next option. I don’t know what God has in mind here, but we are asking for a reprieve!

“We thank you all for your prayers and your faithful email. We love getting all these messages. I am sorry we are sometimes slow to answer personally, but we’ll eventually get to all of you.

“We love you and continue to need your prayer support. This ain’t over til its over, and we do feel the strength the Holy Spirit gives us when you stand in the gap for us. Our prayer is that we can be useful during this time in our lives. I don’t want to look back on it and see that we wasted time or lost opportunities to be used of God.”

During our short visit in St. Joe, we got to spend some time with our good friends, Joe and Deb Arnold, and their daughters.

I met Debbie in 1992, as we were team-mates on a missions trip to Costa Rica. At that time, Deb and her husband, Larry, were leading a home cell group, and we’d attended there a couple of times.

Their girls, Jausta and Jeshua, were a perfect fit with Krissi and Katie. They often played together at our house or theirs, and we just had a great friendship.

In the fall of 1994, Larry was tragically killed. He was trimming a tree for a lady in our church, and one of the branches he stepped out on broke off, sending him about 20 feet to the pavement.

Needless to say, this was a horrible time for all of us. Besides being loved by the Caring First church family, Larry and Debbie were our close friends. It didn’t seem possible.

I remember going to Debbie’s house the next evening, after Larry’s accident. I will never forget the strength and faith Deb had. That she was grieving her loss goes without saying, but she had something that went above and beyond her pain. I could not understand it at all. How could she talk about the goodness of God in the midst of this awful tragedy?

Deb was a great example to me of trusting God. I spent much time with her in those early days following Larry’s home-going, and it always amazed me how she could bawl her eyes out, and still claim the goodness and faithfulness of God. For her sake, I was ready to curse God and die! It just made no sense at all. Larry was a loving and devoted husband and father. He loved the Lord with all his heart. He was a faithful servant to the Body at Caring First.  It did not make any sense.

Who could have known that only two years later, I would be facing a similar situation. And I, too, would have a choice to make. And Deb was to be a source of great encouragement in “my” days of grieving and confusion.

In his book, “When God Doesn’t Make Sense,” Dr. James Dobson relates the story of Jim and Sally Conway, when the life of their daughter, Becki, was threatened with cancer.

Pastor Conway was SURE God was going to heal Becki, and that her leg would not have to be amputated to prevent the spread of cancer to her body. Thousands of people were praying across the States, and around the world. Pastor Conway said to Becki, “You are not going to have your leg amputated. I believe God is going to do a miracle. He said we could come to Him in times of trouble. I am absolutely convinced that you are going to be spared this surgery.”

It was not so. Becki’s leg was amputated. And needless-to-say, this was a crushing blow to her dad.

Through the process of his grieving, ANGER being a very large part of that for him, as it was for me, he said this: “I became deeply aware that there were only two choices I could make. One was to continue in my anger at God and follow the path of despair I was on. The other choice was to let God be God, and somehow say ‘I don’t know how all this fits together. I don’t understand the reasons for it. I’m not even going to ask for the explanation. I’ve chosen to accept the fact that You are God and I’m the servant, instead of the other way around.’ And there I left it….Its either despair, or its God. There’s nothing in between. Our family has chosen to hold on to God.”

One day, while I was wallowing in self-pity, and asking the usual “why” questions: why us, why now, why me, why Mike, why the girls….etc etc etc, I honestly heard the voice of the Holy Spirit speak to me;

“Kim, when you demand answers you sacrifice peace!”

WOW!! I pondered that over and over and over again. It occurred to me that there are psych wards and taverns FILLED with people who’ve had terrible tragedy in their lives, and cannot, or WILL not accept God’s sovereignty in any of it. Their demand for answers has indeed driven them to the point of hopelessness and in some cases, madness. Their minds are troubled because their spirits are troubled. Now obviously this does not mean that every psychiatric case has its roots in loss or tragedy, but I contend that many just might have! And this does not even take into account the miserable lives out there who are merely “existing”, walking through life like a zombie. The pain is too great, too intense. They cannot forgive God. They might be asking Him, “Just who do you think you are?”

Job asked the same thing, you may recall. God listened to him patiently, and finally when it seemed Job had run out of thing to whine about, God came back to him with this:

Job 38:4ff, (my paraphrase) “Do you still want to argue with the Almighty? You are God’s critic, but do you have the answers? Where were you when I placed the sun, the moon and the stars? Were you there when the oceans poured out of the earth, or when the mountains rose to their heights? I don’t think so.” Job replied, “I am nothing – how could I ever find such answers. I will put my hand over my mouth in silence. I have said too much already. I have nothing more to say.”

The New Living Translation commentary has this to say, “God’s actions do not depend on ours. He will do what He knows is best, regardless of what we think is fair…Because we are locked in time, unable to see beyond today, we cannot know the reason for everything that happens. Thus, we must often choose between doubt and trust. Will you trust God with your unanswered questions?”

You know, we are often encouraged, or URGED, by pastors and teachers to seek intimacy with Christ. First of all, you cannot trust someone you do not know. And I also offer that its pretty hard to be intimate with someone you don’t trust. Of course we know the world has its own definition of “intimacy,” but it’s a cheap attempt to achieve something we can have only when Christ is part of it. You can’t be truly intimate with your husband/wife, on all levels, if you don’t trust them, can you? Same with God.  We hesitate to give Him what’s most precious because we are afraid of what He might do with it. That’s where I was, and I had a choice to make. Like Dr. Dobson said, “The Lord does not typically rush in to explain what He is doing.” And, “Clearly the Scripture tells us that we lack the capacity to grasp God’s infinite mind or the way he intervenes in our lives. How arrogant of us to think otherwise!” (permission to quote not secured)

When confronted by the Holy Spirit, I made the choice then and there to accept that “peace that passes understanding.” My dear friend Deb had found it, and I knew in that moment it would be a choice I would not regret.

Some years before all this began, I’d read a Christian fiction novel, written by B. J. Hoff, titled “Storm at Daybreak.” In that story, Ms. Hoff wove in a tremendous truth that struck me hard, even then:

“You try to understand first. The fact is, though, that understanding is not the issue. There will always be things that are beyond our understanding. That’s why is it absolutely vital that we take God on faith and just trust His love – for ourselves and for others…we see today, but God sees eternity. We yearn for our comforts, but He wants our maturity, even if that maturing entails pain. In our search for happiness, we live for ourselves. But God says, ‘die to yourself – live for me!’ Christ has the right to either deliver me or not deliver me, but I don’t have the right to base my love for Him and my trust in Him on what he does for me. He’s already given his life for me. THAT’S what I base my faith on – the Cross. Nothing else.” (permission to quote not secured)

It is certainly true that we all have hard things in life. There are a few that might sail through with only a few minor bumps, but they are the exception. The rest of us face so many trials, losses, hurts…it is all part of life. But all of it comes only with God’s permission, plan and purpose stamped on it. Because we belong to God we are covered with his feathers and his wings. Psalm 91 says, “Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find REST (PEACE) in the shadow of the Almighty.” That’s where I want to dwell.

Dr. Dobson says, “When nothing makes sense, when what we are going through is ‘not fair’, when we feel all alone in God’s waiting room, He simply says ‘Trust me!’”

Like the Conways, I wanted to choose God over despair. In my eyes, there’s just no contest.

But how about you? Do you trust God? Have you given to Him every precious thing in your life? I had to give Mike to God and TRUST Him with the outcome. I wanted to know how the story would end, but he said, “Trust me.” When I surrendered my demand for answers, His peace flooded my soul.

In a sermon titled, “The Dark Side of Love,” Rev. Dan Betzer says this:

“The love of our heavenly father can be tough, hard to deal with. It is the DARK SIDE OF HIS LOVE. God deals with us according to our ETERNAL needs. He will use the scalpel, he will use the deep valley; He will allows life’s thorns to ruthlessly tear our flesh. Sometimes he operates on us without any anesthetic. We don’t like it, of course. We cry out, ‘My God, why have you forsaken me?’ He has not forsaken us at all. He is showing us His love, but a side we know little about. But it remains His love, nevertheless. The question must be dealt with by every listener, and it must be considered by me as well: Am I going to trust God as fully during the dark-side manifestation of His love as I am when the sun is shining brightly? Is He the God of the night as well as the God of the dawning? When He takes me through the valley of the shadow of death, will I fear evil? Or must the sky always be blue and the clouds fleecy? These are the questions I must deal with honestly if I am ever going to be a mature believer. If I am going to truly make God the Lord of my life, then I must know how to accept the dark side of his love as well as the bright.

“You may be going through a tough period in your life right now. Perhaps you think God has deserted you. But that’s impossible, because the promise of God is, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So God hasn’t left you. No, a thousand times, no. What I believe has happened is this: God has decided to take you on an adventure…and adventure into the DARK SIDE OF HIS LOVE. Don’t bail out now. Hang on, dear friend. Weeping only lasts for the night. Joy comes in the morning.”

Again, B.J. Hoff, “Storm at Daybreak”: “We must acknowledge God’s absolute right to do with His creation as He wills. We just learn to trust the Lord’s love enough to surrender our own broken hearts and our searching souls to that love…In the abyss of pain we have to throw ourselves upon the mercy of our God – God can take the bitter dust of our loss and will breathe a new life of faith into being.”

Isn’t it amazing how God brings along those “God-breezes” now and then, to bolster our wavering faith, and to help us find HOPE in the darkest of experiences?

A friend sent me this:

THE PERFECT PEACE OF GOD

(Author unknown)

That abiding sense of the Creator’s strength and care;

The miracle of His life-changing power;

The security of His never-ending love.

It is a matchless gift of hope, consolation,

And joy, free to all through a personal relationship

With Jesus Christ.

How about that? An “ ‘abiding’ sense of the Creator’s strength and care!” That means its with us all the time. It truly IS a miracle, and it does offer security, and hope and consolation and joy! And just think: ITS FREE to all of us through God’s Son. I pick that one: The Perfect Peace of God. How about you? Think about the alternative…