The Beginning: An Exercise in Trust

The Beginning: An Exercise in Trust

In March of 2016, my 7-year-old daughter, Bean, was doing what I call the “frog” exercise where you place both hands on the floor and put your legs around them and balance. She’s about as graceful as I am (read: not very!) and she got my attention to show me what she could do! I looked up and was impressed with her agility. No sooner had I looked away, she had fallen face down on the rug.

I quickly checked the extent of the damage to her beautiful face. Close to the side of her left eye, where the skin crinkles when you smile, was a large lima bean size mark of very tender skin. Luckily no blood was shed!

Several days later, a rather thick scab had formed. She kept her hair long and didn’t like having me pull it back or put it up, much to my dismay, and so each time she brushed her hair out of her face with her hand, it would get caught on the edge of the scab and looked as it was starting to lift.

I asked her one evening if I could take a look at it and see if it was indeed lifting. Well, you would have thought I was going to attack her with a rusty saw! She hated even having a hangnail removed! I assured her that I was just going to lightly touch it with my finger and that was it! She begrudgingly obliged. I told her that I could just remove the loose part of the scab with the cuticle trimmer and let the rest continue healing. She wanted to sleep on that idea.

The next morning, I asked her if she was ready. She wanted to eat breakfast first. Fair enough! Then she wanted an ice pack to numb it. Sounds good! Then she wanted to get dressed. She likes to stall! I told her it wouldn’t be numb anymore and asked her to please just let me take care of it.

I was a bit frustrated by now. You see, I only had her best interest at heart. I wasn’t going to hurt my precious, little girl. I love her so much and didn’t want to cause her any discomfort. In fact, what I was trying to do was FOR her comfort.

My daughter tells us, all the time, that she loves us. ALL. THE. TIME. As she ran up the stairs, I hollered out to her “You say you LOVE me, but why don’t you TRUST me?”

In that instant, I heard those words in my ear as if God had said them to me Himself in a loud, booming voice.

Let that sink in for a moment…

I know that when I am parenting my child and I say something that resonates so clearly that it’s meant for me. God is a parent, too. Not just to Jesus. That is why He is called Abba Father. He, as well as other parents, give their children free will to explore and do and be. We don’t have to love Him, or His commandments, but He loves us anyway. He wants what is best for us. He has plans for us. He knows how it will turn out in the end. Whether you are a parent or not – we have all had experiences, good and bad, and we know what comes from them.

God was parenting me in that moment. We say we LOVE Him, but do we TRUST Him? Did you ever think how they go hand-in-hand? That day, He was asking me not only to LOVE Him, but to TRUST Him, too. I knew some kind of lesson was coming, but I didn’t know what, or when, or how drastically it would change my life.

Do you love Him enough to trust Him no matter what?

Proverbs 3:5 ESV Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.