A Story of Recovery:
Loud and Clear
Trust God? Sure I trust God! I turn my life and will over to Him every day in my morning prayers. Then life happens and I fall into the old pattern of taking control and trying to fix things or run them my way. I say that I trust God, and on many levels I believe that I do, but deep down I still think I need to take care of things, just in case God doesn’t do it right (otherwise known as my way). I am finally seeing the places in my life where I need to let go, so that I can practice trusting God with every aspect of my life.
A week ago, when my 10-year-old daughter came home from school, she realized that she had lost her homework folder somewhere between dismissal from school and home. She went into a fear-filled outburst. She had homework in the folder that was due the next day. She was so afraid of getting into trouble from her teacher for not being finished. There was also a partner activity in her folder, and she was concerned that her partner would be angry and never forgive her. She cried and screamed as her anxiety about the problem increased. (I had fits like this into my 30s, so I could totally relate to her fear. I also have a lot of my own fears that she is going to struggle with life and with finding happiness, just as I did.)
My daughter had difficulty sleeping that evening, due to her anxiety. Here’s where my lesson in trust came in! I did not enter fear and overreaction with her. I did not let her hysteria infect me. Instead, I prayed for God to help me. Then I prayed with her, asking God to help her relax, get out of fear, and help her find her homework folder. We talked about actions she could take in the morning to try to find the book and how to talk to the teacher about the unfinished homework. Next we talked about the worst-case scenarios and how God (and mom and dad, too) would be with her and would always love her, even if the teacher yelled and her partner was angry. Saying these words helped me trust that God would take care of this seemingly huge problem; that I didn’t have to fix it.
My initial reaction was to drive her 25 minutes to school early the next morning (instead of sending her on the bus), search the school, find the folder, give her time to complete the homework, and then drive another 25 minutes back home again. In other words, my reaction was to try to fix it instead of letting her solve her own dilemma, with God’s help.
My instinct to trust God came through loud and clear. I had to let my daughter face the consequences of life’s mishaps. I sent her to school on the bus and prayed to God to help her take the needed actions to solve the problem. What a relief it was! I even forgot about it for the rest of the day. I even forgot after school to ask her how it went and if she had found her folder!
Of course it all worked out. Someone had found the folder in their locker and placed in on my daughter’s desk. She finished her homework with time to spare and all was well.
Had I taken her to school early, we would never have found the folder in a friend’s locker and her anxiety and frustration would have probably increased. Surprise, surprise—God worked it out better than I could have!
I want to keep practicing trusting God at a deep level. I turn my will and life over to God each morning, and I try to follow my God-initiated instincts, rather than my self-generated reactions. Praying for help and for the next right action will help me along and will remind me to trust God!