I had the joy of speaking with Craig and Josh on the First15 podcast last week, and they were generous to ask me about my new musical release, an EP entitled Meadow. I can’t talk about any of the songs on Meadow without talking about my relationship with God, and how I experience his love in my own life–so I am grateful to have any opportunity to share. These songs would not exist if not for God’s kindness, giving me little pictures of his heart. One particular picture that has stamped my life profoundly is depicted in a song called Trusted.
As a mother, I get to be my daughter’s safe place. When those toddler tears are streaming down her face for whatever reason, she knows she can crawl into my arms and be held.
These moments where her fear meets my love are the treasures of my life.
While it’s simultaneously heart-breaking and heart-filling, I cherish those moments when she volunteers herself to be closely and intimately cared for. I believe this cherishing of intimacy is just a glimpse of the love God has for each of his children. When we run to him in uncertainty, in fear, in confusion, with our questions and with our hurt–when we fall into his arms and rest there–he grieves with us in the pain, yet he cherishes the closeness. There is God-sized peace in the fragile human heart that knows the posture of utter dependence on the Father. There is perfect strength that floods into the weak soul that whispers in all circumstances, “this is where You can be trusted.”
A friend of mine was recently describing to me the hardest season of her life. She was walking through incredible loss and grief. In adulthood, her life took a turn she didn’t expect and circumstances seemed to pull her back in time to living as an infant in her parent’s home. In such intense grief, she explained to me how she actually felt like she reverted back to being a newborn baby in the careful care of her mother and father. She described waking up in the middle of the night crying uncontrollably, tears streaming down–and her mother would rush in and console her–breathing with her, waiting with her, enduring with her. She described how when the grief was at its peak, she couldn’t walk. Her father literally had to uphold her with his body and move her legs to motion. As she described this to me a few months after the epicenter of this grief, I couldn’t help but notice that there was something new laced into my friend’s tears and into the tone of her voice. It was gratitude. Gratitude for the intimacy she had experienced with her parents in the suffering. Gratitude for the love she felt. That relationship had become irrevocably different and irrevocably closer, and I don’t have to ask her father or her mother to know that they value this closeness with their daughter immeasurably.
Beloved child of God, no matter what kind of soul season you are in, I dare you to fall into his arms and surrender all to him. Little things and big things. You might have to learn how to walk again, but he will teach you. He is trustworthy. I dare you to believe that all circumstances (including sorrow, suffering, and loss) can be bridges to intimacy with the Father – to knowing him more deeply. What would it look like to bury your face into his shoulder today, and relax yours? If trials are opportunities to trust in him and know him, then might we thank God for them, even rejoice in them?
I want to be like my friend. I want to revert back to my newborn instincts in the presence of God. Utter dependence. Total trust. I believe his heart breaks with us in suffering the way a father’s heart should, and I believe he is overflowing with strength and patience to hold us and heal us. May you find that he is faithful to fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13
In case you missed Jillian’s podcast interview, check it out here:
https://www.first15.org/06/23/trusted/
