Sunday 8 December 2013

A Pause in Advent: Week Two - Trust

Writing for last week's pause with Floss, which I only completed yesterday, got me thinking about what great or notable person or events I am awaiting and so I've decided to base my Pauses on some virtues or blessings that my life would benefit from right now. This week I think the next thing I need more of in my life is trust.

I have always found it exceptionally difficult when others do not prove themselves to be trustworthy. This is not to say that I don't manage uncertainty, as my life and work have all been based around responding to and managing uncertainty and effecting change. The kind of trust that I am reflecting on is having the security of trusting, of retaining a personal faith that my life is proceeding as it should be. I think we can underestimate the role of trust in our relationships. Love, in its most encompassing sense, is always held to be the ultimate achievement but perhaps it is a more random or incomplete emotion than it first appears. It seems that it is possible to love someone yet not entirely trust them; however, if we wholeheartedly trust someone then love seems to reflexively coexist. Till I wrote this I didn't even know that I thought this, so there may be flaws in my reasoning on the love/trust comparison.

I am not sure if I really believe that God actually orchestrates events to some predetermined plan as too many awful and inexplicable things happen in life. If he is the ultimate loving architect, or 'man with a plan', then you'd hope he'd have done a better job than create a world where his beloved are condemned to pain and suffering as a way to returning to him for eventual paradise. I can't quite rationalise that aspect. Instead I think that His power and strength is in guiding and supporting us to deal with what we face.

If I reflect over the past year, key events have made it very difficult to see His hand in guiding events or being there for me. I accept that bad things happen but I also have a belief that God places the right people and opportunities in your path as you need them and this belief is part of my trust with God. I have always felt the sentiments in the Footprints in the Sand poem were how my relationship with God worked. Sadly, over this year in particular this trust has been eroded, and it has been difficult not to acknowledge the frustration and hopelessness that have emerged at significant points with little to mitigate them or sense of a shared purpose.

I feel part of achieving or regaining trust needs a corresponding 'attitude of gratitude'. By this I don't mean trite Pollyanna-isms but real, genuine and heartfelt gratitude that there will be a resolution. However, sometime that the constant effort of making lemonade from life's lemons and reframing every disaster wipes authenticity from your life by not acknowledging the true reality of situations which can be just as damaging.

So, in moving forward through Advent this year, I would like to regain my confidence in trusting that my faith in God has simply become rather obscured and that by making time to reflect, to communicate and to create shafts of stillness in which I can hear His love and support that our connection will be re-established. I truly want this to provide hope for whatever follows and to allow me to mindfully find joy in the everyday.

5 comments:

  1. Your third paragraph struck me regarding the topic of " predestination" . I was brought up as a Baptist, Souther Baptist to be exact. That is worth Googling if you have the time. I have re purposd and rethought the idea to make sense, to me. It is this: God sets out a plan, but in the course of the plan, we have choices to make along that plan. Each choice leads to another choice of action, like a tree trunk growing tall with many limbs branching out. If we take or make a choice deviating from the trunk, that is growth, necessary growth. More choice, more limbs growing. The ends of some limbs get pruned, good for the tree overall, but snipping off our bad choices. Did I learn from the pruning? Back to the source, or trunk , or God.

    God's plan, His purpose, is to have us grow. Maybe we will be one of those mighty branches holding up and reinforcing other limbs in their growth. Maybe we will not, our choice. Maybe we will be a leaf ... Remember those pretty, golden craft leaves you sent? Many purposes there, too.

    Why does my daughter living a difficult life in a wheelchair she cannot get in or out of without an aide, who cannot see well enough now because of eye problems, who has bags attached to take fluids away...that person God still loves, if only to provide others with a purpose for their lives. She is sometimes that fragile limb that others hold on to.

    By losing trust, this is a winter time for you, a time to reflect and ponder. Others' poor choices affectus all. We can only strive to make the best option, the most viable option from the menu, our choice.

    I hope this does not sound rambling or preachy, but back to predestination. I do no believe in that concept. We are given free will to make choices. I choose not to listen to or read media that brings me down, just one small choice which would stunt the spirit.

    Thank you for you Pause. It makes me think.

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  2. I apologize for the reference to the golden leaves as I was thinking of Betty when I wrote that, not you. Hope to get to know YOU, too! 😱😃

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  3. Pop over to Angela at Tracing Rainbows ..her week to advent post may be what you need right now.
    Love Jane x

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  4. This post really made me think - thank you. I take my trust of those around me for granted, and just assume it will always be there. I really like what you said about "shafts of stillness" - it's always good to be mindful and live in the moment at times. x

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  5. Woow,really thought-proving.I hope and pray you regain that trust x x

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