As I chatted with a friend in need yesterday, I was able to walk her through some of her abandonment issues. We are very much alike. She was at the end of her rope with the issues in her marriage and was ready to call it quits.

I asked her if she had received any answers from her prayers about what she should do. She easily spouted off two different thoughts that she had been having, but immediately dismissed them as answers from the past. “What I need is an answer for right now”, she lamented.

I questioned, “But, you thought about those two previous answers in the last few days, right?”

She answered, “Yes.”

I questioned, “And you don’t consider that an answer?”

She sheepishly admitted that maybe it was. She was just so caught up in protecting herself that she didn’t want to listen.

I get that. I get it intimately.

You see, her and I both have great faith, but what we lack is the ability to trust that God will work all things together for our good. We have abandonment issues therefore no one can be fully trusted, including God Almighty. We will push everyone away first so that they can’t be blamed later for letting us down. Our delicate little hearts don’t think they can handle any form of disappointment no matter how minor so we choose misery for ourselves without admitting it. When we look back on our lives, we can spout of thousands of ways we have been abandoned. Maybe millions if given enough time.

The problem in lacking that trust is that we create extreme distress in our lives. We can’t be happy in any moment (good or bad) because we can’t trust that 1- we are worthy of happiness and 2-there is anything better out there for us. We base our most important decisions from the lens of the darkest glasses.

“But, what if He is going to work it out?” I asked. “What if you are going to get the happy ending, would that change your decision today?”

The answer came without a whole of conviction, “Probably.” It hit me between the eyes. Probably? She couldn’t even commit to changing her thought patterns even with the greatest future scenario. In that moment I got my message from God. I can’t change my thought patterns either. But, what if I could? How would I change? If I could really 100% trust Him would I do things differently?

My answer was a resounding, “Yes.” And right at that moment yesterday I made the decision that if I can’t trust my loving Heavenly Father to give me the best that he has, I might as well pack up and head straight to hell because that is where I am stuck when I don’t trust. If I can trust, He can give me all that hath. First I have to believe it, and so today trusting is my focus. It is scary. Real scary.

And now I know why Proverbs 3:5-6 has always been one of my favorites:

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

Paths are plural and way too often I don’t take his paths because I can’t trust that they are better than mine. I’m a fool.

Here is a great message about faith and trust.