struggling to trust...

a topic i didn’t realize, until yesterday morning’s prayer session, i’d be blogging about. ‘struggling to trust’. reading this phrase likely ignites something in all of us. we are always going through different things at different times in our lives that require trust. it can come in the form of a situation out of our control or a person we love dearly but for whatever the reason, specific to our individual experiences, we are struggling to trust that person.  it takes such a toll on our lives, often times in ways we are not able to comprehend much less communicate.

i recently blogged in ‘calling all marriages’ about the wrath of boredom and the rampant divorce rate that has grown out of control due to, in my honest opinion, selfish-ness. and here’s where i interject, in case you were wondering…despite my frustration over the downfall of marriages due to a lack of ‘choosing’ love and selflessness—i too fear and occasionally find myself guilty of these things in my own marriage. i can be harsh, cold, aloof, distant, and disrespectful towards my husband when i’m selfishly thinking only about my feelings and my own point of view. i blog as an outlet and a way not only to inspire and encourage others but to hold myself accountable to the things i “preach”.  i am as much a potential candidate for the downfall as anyone else. but today, i’m talking, not about divorce, but about respect and diligence in our marriages, in our relationships for those of us not married yet, and in our overall regard for God’s place in the matter.

if you’ve read any of my posts, you have a pretty good idea of where i stand in my faith. i, Naomi Goodale am a proud Jesus lover. but i haven’t always been able or willing better yet  to say that. i’ve been through times in my life, specifically after graduating college, where i’ve cared more about the approval of friends and perfect strangers than God and  i’ve questioned my entire belief system. looking back i realize, it was only an attempt to run as far away from Him as possible so as not to feel the weight of my sin. ultimately i know that i’ve always loved Him and while his grace allowed me to run, His forgiveness has always brought me back. i can remember being 4 years old and singing myself to sleep-- a song that i now sing to the children i nanny and Lord willing, one day, to my own…

“Jesus loves me, this i know, for The Bible tells me so. little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong. yes, Jesus loves me. yes, Jesus loves me. yes, Jesus loves me,

The Bible tells me so”

He got a hold of my heart as a little girl, and He had no plans to let it go. that i am sure of.  but in all my humanity and flaws…in all my weaknesses i’ve ran. i’ve doubted His love and i’ve searched for His replacement only to discover, after a lot of self-inflicted pain and hurt along the way, there will never be one. there will never be another being, another prophet, another person, that will do what He has already done for me—leaving His home in Heaven at the right hand of God the Father, He came to Earth— God in the ‘flesh’ likes yours and mine, to experience anything and everything that a human might go through, so that He can relate to us as a man. and not for lack of worldly temptation, He was found blameless and sinless as He freely and willingly gave His life. He was beaten, He was spit on, He was disgraced and bled as He  hung there by nails on the cross faithfully praying all the while and TRUSTING  through the intense physical suffering, that it was indeed the will of the Father in Heaven. so we might be found worthy through His sacrificial death and redemption to even set the tip of our toe in Heaven one day and into the throne room of God. there is NO other greater sacrifice that anyone in history has made for this world and for me. THAT is my God.

there is a love  and peace that can only come from my Father in Heaven as i do my best to place my trust in Him. the problem is that we cannot physically see Him. we cannot physically touch Him. we have in our own minds, every right and ‘every reason’ as far as we can see to doubt.

creator and maker of the universe many of us ‘say’ we believe and faith by definition is ‘the evidence of things believed yet not seen’ …but when it comes time to show that we believe, we succumb to worry, fear, and doubt. our feathers are ruffled as we experience the lack of trust in the One who sees further than we will ever see ahead of ourselves. He spoke the world and all within it into existence out of His great and mighty love for us, yet we still struggle to trust that He cares enough about us to know what’s good for us. we want the control. we want the power. we stubbornly choose to walk the tight rope when the couch is two feet away. but He wants us to sit on the couch. He wants us to relax and to pray. to simply know that everything will work out and be ok, because He loves us…because He is the God of the universe and there is no problem to big for Him to handle.

that’s the ‘trust’ part of it when a situation and/or person really is out of our control--whether we are ready to admit it or not. ‘trusting’ is not some string of the same words in the same prayer that has been beaten like a dead horse over and over again. sometimes we do need to continuously pray. but other times, ‘trusting’ may be as simple as giving it to God just once and then committing our minds and hearts to  live with peace in every moment,  just knowing that He has heard our prayer and He will answer. again…He is the God of the universe and cares more about our problems than we give Him credit for.  that’s just our nature. He knows… but ‘trusting’ in God is nothing more than that continuous state of consciousness and deep-rooted awareness of His love for us and His devotion to our needs and heart’s desires.

Proverbs 3:5-6
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;

In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight. ”

i love this verse as it is full of promise…God does not ask us to try to understand what He’s doing and how He will answer our prayers. instead,  he commands us to not lean on our own understanding. that implies, He knows our tendency as human beings. he knows how ‘our own understanding’ can lead us astray and has experienced the same temptations himself when he came to earth as a man. we will attempt to try and ‘figure it out’ on our own because it is our selfish nature…trusting in God really does go against our natural inclination as human beings. He knows that. and He knows we want to decide how we will handle the situation and how we will ‘rightfully’ in our minds,  react to feelings of boredom, loneliness, disrespect, betrayal, and isolation in our marriages and relationships.

He knows that we are ultimately by nature a vengeful breed of beings. we want to feel justified and proven right when we feel wronged. we, especially (hate to say it ladies) us women, want to control things. and our men ultimately just want our respect. they fail to deliver the love, affection, and devotion we are longing for as we fail to deliver the respect and verbal appreciation they are silently desperate for. the communication is lost in our ignorant stubbornness and the vicious cycle continues. we might do ok for a while, but the minute we find our partner failing to meet our expectations again, you know, the ones we have either not verbalized, or have in a less than effective and loving manner. we and then they react the same way as before, and yet once more we are left perplexed as to why and how it is possible that things are not turning around in our favor. we love to be right. we hate to admit when we are wrong…and so we stubbornly reject God’s way of trust and instead paint our own ugly picture of ‘struggle’ in our marriage. but God laid out the guideline for our marriages in Ephesians 5:33…

‘However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.’ 

…my uncle David who married us spoke this verse very slowly as we exchanged our vows and for good reason i realize …

so is it any wonder that God gave women the ‘respect’ command and men the ‘love’ command? and did He not demonstrate in this verse that the two go hand in hand and compliment one another working for one another.  He knows us! He knows our nature as men and women. He knows what we need so wouldn’t it make sense to give and surrender these things to the author of Love Himself?

so how do we evaluate when we’re really trusting God? most of us don’t hear some sort of audible voice speak out from the heavens “well done, you trusting little one!”  if you’re like me, you don’t always feel like you’re trusting. we doubt. we worry. we fear. sometimes we scheme (unintentionally or not)  looking for the ‘ugly’ in others before acknowledging the ‘beauty’. many of us felt hurt and/or neglected as children. we may have baggage that we’ve carried for years without even realizing it and/or acknowledging the consequences it has contributed to our relationships and marriages. the tidal waves then come crashing down and we (not having dealt with the baggage) stand on that shaky ground and get knocked down. when we don’t want to admit that it’s our own shortcomings, we project it on our spouse or significant other.

i’ve been guilty of this myself. it took a while for me to really trust David. i found myself feeling afraid to let go completely. after getting back together with him but before getting married, i was subconsciously dealing with abandonment issues that i thought i had long gotten over since my parents divorce.  i was self-sufficient and fiercely independent…safe. and then next thing i knew we were back together and engaged. i couldn’t have been happier about it, but soon enough i found myself having outbursts with him that would seem to come out of nowhere. i’d find myself pushing him away and being closed off, unwilling to talk to him about what was going on, as i don’t know that i even understood it myself. he asked me one night; “Naomi, do you think that i’m ever going to leave you or stop loving you?” he went on to assure me “it won’t happen so please don’t shut me out”.

i remember giving it to God in prayer as i just bawled my eyes out. why was i treating the man i was about to marry this way? why was i so afraid to completely let him in. i had become vulnerable once again not only to worry and fear of abandonment but to my old independent habits and mindset where i guarded my heart so strong and tightly that “no one would get close enough to  hurt me” … not quite the recipe for marriage…

some of you reading may be nodding your head right now as you may be or have been at one point like me in this regard. and when it comes to trust, respect ought to be bundled up tightly inside. they should function together but they don't always as we fail to apply the 'respect'. maybe you’re in a relationship or marriage (or know some couple that is) where you’ve found that your spouse (the husband in this regard) may have your overall trust, but doesn’t have your respect because of “legitimate reasons” and that simply is not your fault right? maybe he lost his job and can’t find another. maybe he’s lazy around the house not looking for one while you work your butt off. he’s not into the kids the way he ought to be. he’s not tender and affectionate with you. he’s become a failure of husband, a failure of a dad, a failure of man. trust me he knows as you’ve likely said it loud and clear to him. respect. to restate Ephesians 5:33…

‘However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.’

again, it is a command by God when it comes to our marriages. there is no distinction made here to us wives that say “only respect your husband as long as he deserves it” “only respect your husband if he is loving to you”… also to clarify, i don’t see where God inserted, in the verse, the command to “feel” respect for our husbands. No. just like ‘Love’, ‘Respect’ is also an action and not always a feeling. it’s a choice we make to know that we may not feel the respect and that’s perfectly fine, but that we are choosing to BE respectful in spite of that feeling.

 how? we lovingly encourage our spouse or significant other rather than beat them down with all the things they are not doing right. it means, we find things about them that we do appreciate and we verbalize them. we remind ourselves that they are men and if they are ever going to be thee men we want them to be, then it is our responsibility to help them feel like the men they were born to be. we may be in a marriage or relationship that is so south and sour that we really have to dig at first but as we take upon ourselves the responsibility to continue to model the Ephesians 5:33 behavior of a godly wife or girlfriend/fiancé, we start seeing more and more of the man that we long to see him become. and then the ‘husband’ and then the dad…the more he feels respected and appreciated by you the more and more…and more you will feel the security, the commitment, and the love from him grow.

Philippians 4:7
“And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

…DESPITE our circumstances…we continue to pray and trust that things will work together for the good as His faithfulness delivers the peace that we need to get through it.

having my own personal relationship with and trusting God is work enough as it stands like any other relationship that goes two ways…then throw my husband in the mix (as we’ve covered) marriage is work and wow is my work cut out for me.. David and i are learning and will continue to learn how to trust God and keep Him at the center of our marriage as we pray together and carve out the time to do devotionals together. we cannot expect God to be a genie…just saying what we want and then rubbing the lamp. He is not our magician. He is literally our saving grace and without Him in the center of our marriage or in our marriage at all for that matter, our odds of divorce rise substantially.

Jeremiah 32:27

 “Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?”

 …let me answer that. “No” …this includes our ‘on-the-brink-of- divorce’ marriages. NO relationship or marriage is too difficult for Him to mend and repair, so long as we acknowledge that we need Him to and that we are willing to obey His word, in spite of ourselves.

2 Chronicles 16:9a
“For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.”

He loves us whether we love Him or not, or even know Him…His love is unconditional. But His heart delights in showing his strength to those who truly place their hearts and trust in Him!

Isaiah 41:10
“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

...another beautiful promise to us. He will become our strength through the trials of our marriages and He will uphold us…He lifts us up with the strength of his right hand (Jesus) and supports us when we feel beaten to the ground and alone in our marriage…He says “stay” … “stay with Me, pray to Me as I carry you through this”

Psalm 118:8
“It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.”

Jeremiah 17:5
“This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD.”

i believe this can happen in our marriage and become the downfall of our love for each other. we place so much focus on our spouse, maybe even to the point of idolization, and soon enough our ‘everything’  is wrapped up in them. we depend on them solely and practically for the air we breathe. we place all of our hope in them and then when they fail to meet our expectations, because they are only human, we are devastated and we react accordingly…is it any wonder why God says “Cursed” is the man (or woman). we literally curse and shoot ourselves in the foot and heart. this is why His word tells us to…

1 Chronicles 16:11
“Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always.”

Psalm 31:14-15 
“But as for me, I trust in You, O LORD; I say, “You are my God.”
My times are in Your hand;”

…our times are indeed in His hands...all of us are at different points and stages in our lives in the things we are aspiring toward and desiring and the things/people we are having a hard time trusting in. but to know that we have the maker of the universe on our side and backing us in our corner should be more than enough to get us through, and His Holy Word is full of wisdom on just how to do it, so that we are reaping the fullest of joys that He has waiting for us.

David and i decided that Costa Rica (this past January) would be our  last BIG-hoorah before trying to make a baby and as soon as we were back… this girl got crazy! you know what i’m talking about if you’re a mommy already or trying to become one…the minute a woman decides she’s ready for a baby, she wants it in her arms the next day. i stopped drinking coffee, mind you i am a coffee lover and not the sweetest person when i haven’t had my morning cup… i limited my alcohol intake; i started taking pre-natal vitamins; i spent an embarrassing amount of time online reading up on every possible tip that could help with the process. i switched up my diet..yada, yada, yada. so, i have a trip to the gynecologist and she tells me: “You know, if there is a fertilized egg in there, today would be the day you would be implanting” (i.e. if this isn’t already knowledge —implantation is when the fertilized egg has burrowed itself into the lining of the uterus) so of course, there came my very first spark of pregnancy hope and expectation- in the form of someone telling me something that i wanted to hear and clinging to it like a kid to his candy in the candy store.

when Friday roled around and i thought i was experiencing ‘spotting’ symptoms in line with implantation..i really got my hopes up and thought to myself: “yes Naomi!! you are one of the lucky one’s” you know, the ones we’re all jealous of who get pregnant the first month trying…

BOY did it hit me like a ton of bricks when it turned out that i wasn’t. i was devastated. sure, i was entirely unrealistic from the get go…but truthfully, at this point i hadn’t even  prayed and offered it up to God. so you can imagine when His voice and touch fell heavy on my heart to give it to Him…i was bawling like a baby. the realization hit me hard. there’s no  magic pill when it comes to getting pregnant.

David and i are also in the process of buying our first home. it’s a short sale and we’d be getting a STEAL of a deal if the banks accept our offer. it’s been a little bit of a waiting game…and both of us have given it to God in prayer as He knows how badly we want it. in both of these things though: getting into the house and trying to conceive…it’s amazing what He’s done for a control freak like me! as i’ve offered my heart’s desires up to Him and have pleaded for the patience, the peace, and the strength, He’s been faithful...especially after that first month of trying and having the tidal wave crash down the way i set myself up for it to…

i never thought i’d be as lax about everything as i am now. that’s His grace in His answer to my prayers! we are now on our third month of “trying” but i’m SO confident in my God that even though i want a baby now and i believe that i know i’m ready. i believe even more that He has a will for me and that He knows what’s best for me. Only He can see my future and the hurdles that may be just around the corner when we least expect them. same goes for the house. He knows that this is the house we want but we know that He sees all that lies ahead and that if this isn’t the house for us, He’s got one way better up His sleeve, maybe not on the market yet? who knows!?

…He knows! and we need to trust Him knowing and believing with all our hearts that it would be just like Him to bless us tenfold when we lean on Him and entrust these decisions to Him. it sure does take the worry out of worrying! though ultimately i don’t ‘hope’ for this right now, i have managed to wrap my head around the fact that there are so many loving, devoted couples out there who simply cannot ever get pregnant for whatever reason…devastating. i had to offer this up in prayer and say: “Lord, if that will be me or my husband…then so be your will” this is not to say that i don’t know that i am meant to be a mother.. because i know that i am…i am as sure of this as the air i breathe. but if i am only ever meant to be an adoptive mother, than i will praise Him all the same!  i think about the role of adoption in Jesus' own life with his earthly, though not biological father Joseph. Joseph was obedient to God and raised Him with all the love and devotion he'd have given his own biological child....

i know Jesus loves me and i am confident in His love. if i am confident in His love than i am confident in His blessings in my life, whichever form they come in, as i know there will be the joy of my heart. as i allow His will to supersede my own in trusting Him, my heart becomes one with His. our plans might be good, but His plans for us will always be better!

i know that this post was a little lengthier, so if you’re still reading, God Bless you!…and please share this link. God has given me a burden in my heart for marriages as i am learning how much work they are, hence the divorce rate…but join with me in prayer as we battle the forces within ourselves and society that are working against our relationships and marriages. if you’re reading this right now, i’ve already prayed for you and yours' or your's to be. truly, i’m not trying to claim some sort of 'marriage expert' status here…i’ve been married but one year and have a whole lot more to learn ahead of me…but i know enough to know that it has to start by bringing God’s design and instruction to the center of the table. again…

Proverbs 3:5-6
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;

In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight. ”

Be Blessed in His Grace!

With Love,

Naomi Rose