Come Sit With Me

I have two vital questions that require answers. These questions are for you if you only attend church for Christmas and Easter services or if you find yourself standing at the church doors every time they open.

Consider them:

1.     Do I trust You?

2.     Are You trustworthy?

The first question reveals my own inadequacy and inability to lay down all my doubts and fears and lean heavily on God’s faithfulness. It puts ownership and responsibility on me, my human intellect and soul, to make myself trust Him. It may be an impossible task in the middle of brokenness and hardship. I may not measure up when I am overwhelmed or fearful. I have failed in my ability to trust God often in my caregiving journey, during and after its long road.

However, I realized this week that the second question is much deeper and addresses the fundamentals of one’s heart, so I had to ask and answer the first question for myself over several years before I could dare voice the second question out loud. It was an internal journey over many years as Robert’s medical condition declined. It doesn’t ask me in my human frailties to trust God; instead, it goes to the deepest question I believe every caregiver asks of God at some point in their journey:

Are You trustworthy, oh, God?

The real issue for many caregivers, even when they say they trust God, is if He is truly worthy of that trust? Will God’s plan make sense to them? What if God doesn’t come through?

These may be casual questions for a person seeking answers from God, or they may be the deepest questions someone else asked. These honest questions are not rude, disrespectful, or meaningless for a loving God. They are “I’m at the very bottom of the valley, all hope is gone, and there is no more hope”-kind of questions that God invites me to ask of Him because nothing can separate me from the love of God.

You may have asked these questions of yourself and of God. You may ask them over and over in your caregiving journey, just as I did. And, obviously, I am still contemplating these questions even years later.

The answer I have for you today is that God has proven His love and faithfulness to me even when I haven’t had the answers, and He invited me to keep seeking Him anyway. I didn’t feel any shame or retribution for asking them. In reality, the answer to both questions is: “Yes,” even when I don’t feel it’s true.

God has welcomed me into a conversation with Him outside of my own understanding. I can doubt and still find Him faithful. I can scream and find His comfort. I can run away and abandon all hope and still He draws me close. Running into God’s arms doesn’t require of me any more faith than a mustard seed, or a quiet disposition, or more hope than I can muster up. He only asks that I come and sit with Him.

My relationship with God is fully dependent on my willingness to just sit. I am not capable of understanding in any way the complete caregiving role. So, with no answers to my hundreds of questions just like these, I sit and find my hope in Him.

Need a little hope? Sit right down where you are in the deep waters, and I will come sit with you, there. You are not alone.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)