Trouble & Trust

TROUBLE - to disturb the mental calm and contentment of; worry; distress; pains; discomfort

TRUST - confidence, reliance on a thing/person, confident expectation, hope

I have been learning so much about Trouble and Trust while living here in Haiti. And how the two actually go hand-in-hand. Each day brings both Trouble and Trust...actually from moment to moment.

One moment I love it here and feel so fulfilled...the next I hate it and wonder what the heck did I do to my life?

One moment I feel like this is exactly where I belong for this season...and 30 minutes later I wish I were at home in the US.

One moment I am so content in singleness...the next I am so frustrated and sad in being single here.

Trust & Trouble...In what I have been reading, I have found that in the Bible most of the characters have felt this way at some point, if not most of their lives. I wonder, too, how many of us, when all is stripped away, feel like this a majority of the time.

The other day, I was in a lamenting mood and opened to Lamentations 3, a verse I was reading a lot earlier in the summer. I circled all the things I had been feeling:

     - He has walled me in so I cannot escape
     - He pierced my heart
     - He has filled me with bitter herbs and sated me with gall (bitterness of spirit)
     - My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord
     - My soul is downcast within me

I identified with these words SO MUCH! It felt so good to be able to say, "YES, that is exactly how I feel." I am learning that THIS is exactly what God wants...My expression and identifying the above feelings, yet in that trouble, always turning to this (a little farther down in Lamentations 3):

     - The Lord is my portion, therefore I will WAIT for Him
     - The Lord is good to those whose HOPE is in Him
     - It is good to WAIT quietly
     - Let him sit alone in SILENCE
     - For men are not cast off by the Lord forever
     - Though He brings GRIEF, He will show COMPASSION

I am learning to have BOTH trouble and trust at the exact same time. And that is ok. That is good.

I am DETERMINED TO TRUST...and this season is teaching me that determination.