Do You Trust Me?

Reflections on faith through sickness and loss

Through the hard things that have happened in my life, there’s only really one question I have ever felt God asking of me. Do you trust me? Not are you good enough, brave enough, wise enough. Not do you know enough or do enough. All God has ever asked of me is trust. Particularly through my experiences of infertility and pregnancy loss, I have felt that question pressing in on me over and over again. God was asking me to trust that he is good, and he is enough. Not that he would grant my wish or do what I wanted him to do, but that he would walk beside me in life whatever it did or didn’t bring. Do you trust me?

Last year, God asked me this question again, in a new circumstance, in a new way. My daughter, who had just turned two, was sick. The infection didn’t respond to antibiotics; she stopped eating and drinking, and so we visited the hospital. She was given the care she needed and recovered quickly. But in the thorough assessment the doctor did, he found that my daughter had a heart murmur.

I remember holding my daughter as the doctor looked at me and told me it was probably nothing but should be followed up. It could be innocent: it could indicate a number of different conditions. As he listed the conditions, my own heart sank, because I was suddenly flashed back to some of my earliest memories. Four years old, in awe of the hospital playroom filled with amazing toys, as I was checked into the children’s ward in a big city away from home, to have heart surgery.

I remember how the doctor’s face changed when I tentatively mentioned that I was familiar with one of the conditions he mentioned from my own medical history. The recommendation changed from ‘you should probably follow this up’ to ‘you should see your GP and get an echocardiogram as soon as possible.’

After a week of medical admin, I learnt that the only place in my city that would do an echo for a child younger than five years old was the Children’s Hospital, but also that they required you to see one of their specialists before they would do any tests.

I was four when they found my heart murmur, and six months later I had surgery. What I had was called patent ductus arteriosus and can be explained fairly simply as a valve in the heart that should have closed at birth, but sometimes doesn’t, causing a leak. They went in, tied it off, and I was fine. I was left with memories of nice nurses and the previously mentioned playroom, coming home to balloons and my siblings being excited to see me.

I also have memories of my parents, coming and going, one staying at the hospital with me and one staying nearby. I think even at age four I was vaguely aware that this was a time of stress and emotion for them. Now I was staring down the repeat of history. Would I be the parent left watching as my daughter was wheeled into surgery? Again, I felt God asking me that question. Do you trust me?

I’ve had a turbulent relationship with health and hospitals. Chronic health conditions, illness, and miscarriages all add up; and since that first time when I was four, I have gone under anaesthetic another five times, for various reasons. Each time, there’s the moment of trust: of trust in the hospital and doctors and medications and the whole system, that they would keep me safe, fix what was wrong, and I would wake up again.

But ultimately there’s the element of trusting God: not that you will be okay and nothing will go wrong, because that happens often. But trusting that you accept whatever happens is out of your hands and in the charge of God. Life, death, pain – all are out of our control.

So, I had been here before, staring down something medical and feeling that question of trust. But this felt different. Trusting God with my life and health was one thing. But the idea of watching my daughter go to sleep and not knowing if she would be okay and not knowing if I was okay with whatever God chose to do, was a whole new level of scary.

When I was pregnant after multiple miscarriages, I feared, daily, the pregnancy ending. When she was born, I would sit on my bed and hold her when it was time to put her down for the night, and I would cry, because I was so scared she wouldn’t wake up. I was terrified of all the things out of my control and all the possibilities of things that could go wrong.

But my worrying could not add a single day to my (or her) life. I made myself sick over all the things I couldn’t control. I tried to control everything I could so it would feel less like I was living in a chaos of not knowing what would happen next. But I still couldn’t change the future.

I was unwell with postpartum anxiety and OCD, so this wasn’t purely a faith issue. But through those experiences I learnt something about faith: trusting God didn’t just mean trusting he would do what I wanted. Trusting God meant knowing I still believed in him and was willing to follow where he led when I didn’t get what I wanted, or what I wanted was taken away.

I had to believe that if everything else was stripped from me, and all I was left with was Jesus, that it would still be enough. That of all the things I have and love and value, none are as essential to me as Jesus.

This can be confronting when we think about this in terms of all the things that make life comfortable: our jobs, our cars, our houses. But when I thought about it in terms of the people I love most, my husband and daughter, it was terrifying. It was like standing on the edge of a cliff and looking down into nothingness. It was like God was saying ‘I am the giver of all good things. Do you really trust that these things are mine to give generously as good gifts, and not as essential as me myself?’

After years of battling health hardships and loss and other points of suffering, I remember thinking during my last pregnancy: ‘If God takes this baby too, how can I trust that he is good? Haven’t I suffered enough?’ It was a bargain almost: God, give me this one good thing I have been asking and praying for, and I will keep trusting you. Give me this precious thing, and I will stay loyal.

By God’s grace, he did give me that child. She is the greatest gift and blessing God has ever given me. But as I sat contemplating a future of hospitals and surgeries, I was reminded again: she is a gift. Not a right. Not an essential. I am owed nothing, not even the guarantee I will get to keep her. Do you trust me? God asks. Do you trust me with the most precious thing you have?

I can’t describe to you the relief I felt when the cardiologist proclaimed my toddler has an ‘innocent murmur.’ No further treatment required. We were promptly discharged from the Heart Centre and sent on our way. My toddler was quite disappointed she did not get to spend more time in the playroom set up in the waiting area.

It was God’s kindness and mercy that my daughter was fine. But I was left facing the question: if she wasn’t fine, would I still be able to trust God? If he took the biggest blessing he has ever given, would I still believe that God is good, and still working for good in the world and into eternity?

In Mark 9 there is a story of a man who brings his son to Jesus for healing. And amid the back and forth between Jesus and this man, this desperate father makes an astonishing statement to Jesus - “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

This man knows Jesus is the healer of all things – even unbelief. Even a heart so broken and sore that trust feels impossible, and faith feels pointless. Jesus is the one who heals that too and gives us faith. We can ask God for help in all things – even help to believe that help is possible.

I think my answer would be, and is, the same. I do believe. I do trust. And yet – I need God to help my unbelief. I need God to sustain my trust. When bad things happen and good things are lost, I need Jesus, the one good thing that will never leave me.

Do you trust me?

I believe – help my unbelief.

In the end it doesn’t matter how much I trust, but who I trust in. A God who supplies all that is lacking – even trust, if we ask for it.