Trusting Faith

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." Proverbs 3:5

It's been 71/2 years now since we held our sweet girl in our arms. Lately I've been feeling like it's getting harder for me. Seven years is a long time and I liked it better when I could say, "Just 3 months, 6 months, even a year ago we were taking care of Lauren and kissing her little cheeks." Oh sure, the emotions were flying high back then, but the memories were so fresh. I still remembered how she felt in my arms, how she smelled, and how her tiny cry sounded. Now it is so fuzzy. There are too many other things crowding those memories in my brain. So much time has passed and so many things have happened since then. Several weeks ago, Matt and I were developing some pictures for a project that my sister in law was working on for my parents. After we picked them up, I opened the envelope to see how they turned out. When I pulled out the pictures of Lauren I started crying immediately. Right there in Meijer, I just busted out the tears. I couldn't help it. I was standing there looking at my little girl and she was so beautiful and it had been too long since I had really looked at her. Time is a weird thing and it most definitely doesn't heal all wounds. It's a good thing I know Someone in the healing business.

I was clearing off a bookshelf the other day and came across a piece of paper with a passage I had typed out from a book I had read. I actually read it outloud to the group of family and friends who came to a balloon launch we had in memory of Lauren. It was just what I needed back then when everything was so fresh and it is just what I need to be reminded of 7 years later. Forgive me for not remembering what book or who the author is but here is what it says.

"Scripture tells us that in this life, our view of reality is like a blurry reflection in a mirror but that someday we will see God clearly, as He really is, and we will see Him face to face. Our earthly eyesight is just too imperfect to see down the road far enough for this life to make sense. That's when trust takes over. God doesn't expect us to understand all of life's circumstances. In fact He tells us not to rely on our understanding, but to trust Him. So when you are tempted to ask why or when your heart wants desperately to make sense of it all, remember Proverbs 3:5. You don't need to understand, what you need to do is trust in the Lord. When trust turns to praise and we open our mouths to thank Him for His goodness, something supernatural takes place inside our souls. We find peace and strength. We forget about ourselves and instead focus on the One who holds the world in His hands. When we stop striving to understand and give in to trust, we will see that His mighty hand was at work all along in the thing we thought would crush us."

You see, even though our daughter was born with a chromosome disorder that was, "not compatible with life", and we no longer have the joy of having her with us, God is still God and he is still good. He never promised that we would live lives, void of any troubles or hardships, but that he would be there with us and never leave us. He has walked this road with us and carried us most of the way. He knows every tear I've cried and heard every desperate prayer I've prayed. I have a reason to praise him and I should....and I will.