Rebuilding Trust in God after an Earthquake

 

 

This week we’re still on vacation. And for a few days it’s just our immediate family, myself, my husband and three kids at the family cottage. We’re biking around the island, eating plenty of Highlands Creamery ice cream, and spending evenings at the pool.

Just like last week I’m stepping outside of the Presence Project to keep things simple. I’m sharing a story that captured my imagination and won’t let go. So if I’m honest, maybe this episode is for me but maybe you’ll find it’s for you as well. We’ll explore how we build solid trust in our triune God who never abandons us. Finally, we’ll do a lectio divina on Hebrews 13:5b in the Amplified. (Read the beautiful story of the amplified paraphrase here.)

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A family friend had been rocked by her father’s infidelity. We’ll name her Sharon to keep her privacy. Unfortunately that earthquake later toppled her parents’ marriage. But here’s the thing. Sharon was already married to Mike. (Again. Fake name.) But the earthquake’s reach produced a deep fissure in her ability to trust men in general and her own husband in particular. Sin never affects just one, it has a disaster zone which cannot easily be contained.

The fissure ran right through Sharon’s marriage bed. All seemed placid during the day, but nightmares dug up fear from her subconscious. All was not well.

She was left quaking.

 

 

But Mike decided to keep his prayer book on the bed stand and in the light of the morning he whispered the vows he had spoken over her in the forest chapel five years before. He pulled her close and looked into the eyes just opening to the morning and once again vowed “I take you Sharon to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.”

Day after day after day until the aftershocks stilled.

Our ability to trust can take a hit when we find ourselves close to the epicenter of an earthquake.

Disease. Death. Divorce. Violence. All is not well. We taste the bitter after-effects of the curse and we remember we have been shut out of the garden. We stand outside the gate. Vulnerable. We long for the Kingdom solidified. We long to grasp onto the hands of the Prince of peace, look into the eyes of Love, and find ourselves HOME.

Mom told me the story of Sharon and Mike on Sunday as we were walking home from the pool house. It’s a newish building erected on the grounds where an oyster canning factory had once stood out in a narrow, man made peninsula.

When workers opened oysters, they dumped the shells around the building, one shell at a time, creating something solid. Anti-erosion. New buildings were built as the shells kept filling in.

 

 

Building trust takes conscious work. It takes time.

 

One experience at a time…one truth at a time creating solid ground.

 

Here are three ways trust in God has been rebuilt when my world’s been rocked.

1st

Gratitude builds trust. We’re like the children of Israel in the wilderness, traveling through the world with a sense of scarcity. But after a few weeks of picking up and tasting manna, we begin to believe manna will be on the ground tomorrow. And tomorrow and tomorrow. Trust solidifies as we recognize abundance.

2nd

Remember. Re-experience God’s goodness. Those moments God came through? That experience of God’s peace. Where were you? Go back. The way the body of Christ came through for you. Remember your relief and the joy of belonging. The sense of wonder as you were kayaking at sunset. Go back. Listen to the birds. Watch the colors meld. Hold on. Collect these moments in a rolodex in your mind. Remember. Re-taste. Re-live.

3rd

Listen to truth on repetition. Just like Sharon, each repetition heals a hairbreadth of the fissure. We gaze into the eyes of love, listen to His vow, and we’re slowly enveloped in a sense of safety.

 

Today we’re going to gaze into the eyes of love through Hebrews 13:5b. A lectio divina.

A reading of a vow between God and your soul.

Only you will know how many times you need to hear it before the fissure in your soul is healed.

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Join me on The Presence Project Podcast to be led in this lectio divina:

“for He [God] [b]Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor [c]give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [d][I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor [e]let [you] down ([f]relax My hold on you)! [[g]Assuredly not!]”

 

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