I got good news this morning. My dad is doing a little better. Clear head. Breathing a bit deeper. Still on oxygen, still has a ways to go, but hopefully we have turned the corner! My mom is slowly gaining her strength at home also. Relief is a small word to describe how I feel. 

This has been a hard week. I feel like I'm living in a overdramatic soap opera that just never stops throwing crazy curveballs at my head. 

This week has been about living with the fear that your loved one might die. And how do you respond? How do you live? I don't have a pat answer. I know for myself I have spent a lot of time on my face before God. And I have found it to be a place of surrender. A place of trust. God, I don't want my father to die. Our family needs him. We aren't ready for this. But at the same time, hands open, not grasping. You love him, you know the plans you have for him. And they are good plans. I trust your plans. 

That sounds like it was something simple. It wasn't. It was a battle of the mind to be in that place and stay in that place. I'm exhausted. Last night I climbed into bed at seven and checked out for the rest of the evening. 

But this morning I woke up with a praise song running through my head. Hopeful. 

It makes me wonder about faith. The bible says that without faith, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Why? (This is not going to be a doctrinal/theologically complete answer, just my thoughts.)

I think about my marriage. How important trust was at the beginning of our relationship. We both felt like we knew the essence of who the other person was. And we trusted that person. When we first got married I did not have the long history and deep knowledge of my husband that I have now. But I chose to trust him. And over our almost twenty-two years of marriage, he has proved to me that yes, he is trustworthy. I didn't make a mistake to trust him. But at the beginning, I had no way of knowing what the future held. I just trusted him. Because I loved him. And that trust was tangible proof to him of my love for him. 

Maybe it's the same with God? We sing songs about how much God loves us, but how do we show that we love God? Maybe by trusting him? Saying, I believe you are who the Bible says you are. And I love you. And I prove that to you by trusting you. Having faith. 

I don't know. It's a thought. 

I do know that going through these hard situations grows my faith. My trust deepens. And it's not that I trust that God is going to turn everything out the way I want it. It's that he proves over and over again that his Presence is enough. His Grace is sufficient. He is truly all that I need.