On Trusting Him....

So far, 2011 has brought me ample amounts of anxiety and fear. I am ashamed to admit this, but at the risk of sounding pitiful, I am terrified. I have fought through the last two days to uphold my dignity and not crumble into a puddle of tears. I have succeeded in that I alone have witnessed this puddle in my own bedroom on my own time.

I am fearful because the last two years have brought so many unexpected and at times, detrimental, changes to our lives. I look forward to 2011 and cannot see how any of this will change. Here I am, blessed to be carrying our second child, a sweet boy, and yet I am scared of his arrival in just a few months. I am unsure of how we will make it. I am fearful that I will not be good enough to handle two wonderful kids, a marriage, three part time jobs, etc. I have a foreboding that I will simply crumble beneath the pressure.

I look at all of the plans we have made over the past two years...plans to rescue ourselves from the financial pit we are in. I look at how hard Chris is working, the terrible hours, the laborious school work. I see how little time we have to focus on our marriage. It all just comes together to make an indecipherable picture.

This is the source of my anxiety. How can I look forward with hope when I feel so much fear?

I guess the answer comes down to who I believe Christ is and what I believe His feelings towards me are. The easy answers do not apply here. I am searching deep within my heart to find my true, authentic answers to these two questions. Who is Christ? What does He feel for me? Tough questions. But, I believe my peace resides in the solution. I believe that my ability to get out of bed tomorrow depends on these questions.

For now, I resolve to pray and read. For, surely, God has entrusted us with a special set of circumstances for a purpose. Surely, there is an end in sight, one that provides us security and peace? Because, if this is not so, I will not make it. I cannot endure a life where God's plan is simply to allow us to be put on a ledge and left there for no reason, for no determined amount of time. This simply cannot be.

So, trusting Him has become an actively difficult matter. My love for Him endures, but my ability to trust without second thought is lost. Gone. How shameful, right?

How can I look to my Savior and have a second's doubt? When it has never been so in my life before? Who have I become that I cannot see the sovereignty and grace of my God as enough?

The truth is that I know these things are enough. I know that when I take time to look around, at my husband and daughter, at my family, at the things we own, God gave them all to me out of His love and grace. Undeserving of any of it, I count these blessings with heavy weight. But, most of all, His grace and my salvation are steadfast. They are not dependent on my fears or on my circumstances. He stands firm as always, and I am the one faltering. So, I continue on this road with my fear strapped on tight, but also with a thread of hope that, despite myself, God will do a huge work in our lives. That He will make the path known at the right time, and that along the way, He will cover us in love and mercy.