Touch The Sky

There is a slow, persistent lesson growing in my heart: learning to let my trust speak louder than my trauma. I am discovering that true strength isn’t always found in striving, but in waiting for the promise, and that confidence comes from the steady, unchanging character of God, not my circumstances.

Defiant hope and trust are contagious, but sometimes only forged in the darkness, while sitting in ashes.

In the past few years, I have gained a deeper understanding and comfort in the scripture, “When I am weak, then He is strong,” but this comfort comes at a cost because it requires weakness, yep it means to receive that supernatural grace, His strength, His ability to do what I can’t do, I have to be in a place of weakness a place of vunerable admission that I can’t take the next step on my own, or I can’t trust Him in this moment without His help to do so.  

Even in those places, I know now, God is okay with that, He’s not mad, or afraid that I’m weak, in fact, to openly confess that, I’m following Christ. While in the garden, He admitted to feeling forsaken, even to the place of sweating blood.  He showed me that our Father isn’t intimidated by my questions, my grief, my exhaustion, or my anger. He is comfortable with me in those dark places because it is often there that I learn what it means to trust Him for daily living. Not for the future but for now, not even for next month, but for this very day.

Days before I know what I need, He is already providing it. That is grace; His unconditional love, mercy, and forgiveness, but also His help when I need it, to do what I can’t do. Like trust in the darkness.  

It’s easy to trust God when everything is going well, when blessings flow, and victories come daily… during daylight. Most can do that. But what about the dark times? What about when the outcome is unknown, when prayers seem unanswered, when the loss is heavy and personal?

During my life, I have gone through struggles and trials, but I have never known tragedy as I have in these last two years. The passing of my mother. An ankle injury that left me slowed and dependent. A real estate market that seemed to stall. The loss of funding for our nonprofit. A grandbaby in the NICU for sixty-three days. Constant concern and the desire to help my daughter and granddaughter after the hospital because of the lack of nursing care, and she and her husband were literally exhausted, living on minutes of sleep. She experienced mental and physical exhaustion from insurance battles, the baby’s care needs, and financial strain. My mother’s heart ached to figure out how to help her while keeping my life intact.  My other daughter and her family far away, walking through life’s battles as well, and being so far away, I can’t help. The strain on relationships, friendships, my husband, teammates, and family as I press to maintain a work-life balance. And finally, the unthinkable: the passing of my grandbaby, and the shattering of my daughter’s heart. It may not be Job’s story, but to me, it feels like it.

For years, while in ministry, it was easy to say I trusted God. That was part of my job description, after all. But in the midst of deep loss, could I still walk by faith? Could I still know deep in my heart that He loved me, and boldly say, “I trust You?”

Every day while my sweet grandbaby was in the hospital, I visited her, and we sat together for hours each day. We had a special routine: “Hi, sweet baby, it’s Gmama” and then I would sing our  “Cuppy Cake” song, I could feel her little body snuggle in best as she could, and then I would pray our special prayers and scriptures, and then at the suggestion of the Dr. I would just sing, whatever I could think of, mostly what been playing in the car on the way there.  For some reason, every day, I found myself humming the same hymn. It wasn’t a song I had any special attachment to; I couldn’t even remember the name, and I didn’t know all the words. But one line played again and again in my spirit: “Oh, for grace to trust You more.” At the time, I thought that the trust I needed was for her healing, for business to recover, for stability to return. But I didn’t realize the trust being rooted in my heart was actually for now.

And once again, Jesus ever so sweetly taught me the lesson.  Last week, while listening to a message on trust, the pastor shared a story that pierced me. A family was enjoying a perfect day at the beach when suddenly, a little boy screamed for help from the water. The husband ran in, saved the child, but drowned himself. In a moment, a beautiful day became a tragedy, a wife became a widow, a daughter became fatherless. Out of that devastation, the woman wrote a hymn: “’Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus” and there it was! The song that I had been singing in the hospital.  “

‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take Him at His Word;
Just to rest upon His promise,
Just to know, “Thus saith the Lord!”

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er;
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
Oh, for grace to trust Him more!

Oh, for grace to trust Him more.” When I heard that story, tears flowed from my eyes, tears of sadness, tears of gratitude, and tears of deep revelation. It was the first time I was reminded of the song God had placed on my heart in the hospital. And what deeply moved me is that it wasn’t written by someone offering polite encouragement in my darkness, but by someone who knew darkness, loss, and pain. Years later, thousands are still blessed by her trust, passed down through generations in a song.

And this is what I want: For my trust to be louder than my tragedy. For the message that it is possible, however difficult it may be, to be BIG and STRONG in every moment as we slowly but confidently MOVE FORWARD in life.

The core foundation is that in the midst of all of this, my citizenship is in heaven. One day, I will be called home not because I was strong, but because He was faithful.

My trust is being rooted to deeper levels than ever before. This is the legacy I hope to leave behind: trust that stands, faith that remains, hope that refuses to be silent: a defiant hope, anchored in Jesus.

I want my trust to speak louder than my trauma, for my strength to be found not in striving, but in waiting on the promise.

I want to live out a confident trust that’s anchored in His grace, not in the circumstances of this life. And to trust always in the consistent, unchanging character of God.

At the end of the day, it’s the ONLY unchanging thing there is.

Oh, for GRACE to trust HIM more.