Just Trust and Believe in God … What A Concept!

Today I have been reflecting on the goodness of God and how, even though we may not trust or believe in Him, He is always waiting to bless us. I love Hezekiah Walker’s song “I am Grateful” because it always penetrates into my spirit.

“I am grateful for the things that You have done
I am grateful for the victories we've won
I could go on and on about your works
Because I'm grateful, grateful so grateful just to praise You Lord
Flowing from my heart are the issues of my heart, is gratefulness…”

Whenever I hear this song I have to praise God for all of the blessings He has provided for me, even when I did not deserve even one blessing.

I remember as a child hearing my parents’ say that blessings come if we trust and believe and  that God will always bless us with our needs when we need them and He sometimes even bless us with what we want as well. Throughout my childhood I had a hard time understanding this concept because we were poor and I thought the things we had were because my Dad worked very hard and I did not see God helping my Dad very much. Also I could not see God blessing us with what we wanted when we barely had what we needed. I remember a time in my young life when I gave God a break worrying about us because I “reasoned” that there were too many people on the earth and that’s why He did not have time to bless us or me. It was many years before I could understand the “blessings coming to those that trust and believe” concept.

As I came into teenage years I tried to understand where God fit in because my life was chaos and I certainly did not see Him helping to fix anything that was happening to me at the time so I just stop trying to trust or believe that God was concerned about me. I believed that there was a God and that He was relatively good and a little bit concerned about everyone else – just not me.

When I was 21 years old I had a still birth and I truly understood in my spirit that God did not care anything about me because He took my baby girl and the doctors told me I probably would not have any more children – EVER. All I could think about was that God had taken away my ability to have children or grandchildren. Other than being born, I could not perceive what I had done to deserve to be treated so terribly by a supposedly good and loving God.  It was very difficult after that to put all of my trust in a God that could care less and my lifestyle pretty much portrayed my choice to limit God’s presence in my life; however, I wasn’t a total heathen and I prayed for what I wanted, not for what God wanted for me or for what plans He had for my life. I prayed for a good man to be my husband and I prayed for children, especially another little girl. I still did not understand the “trust and believe” thing, but God has a way of showing up when we think He has completely turned His back on us.

At 26 years old I married a good man, found out that there were physical issues that could be treated with surgery and at 27 years old I birth our first son with only a few complications. The doctors again said that I might not have anymore children. Twenty-two months later, my husband and I had our second son. I was very happy for my sons and they have been a joy for me however we did not have anymore children because I did not have enough faith that God would continue to bless me and I just decided that I was not suppose to have girls … so I limited God’s blessings through my unbelief.

As I said God has a way of showing Himself and showering us with blessing even though we don’t deserve them. In 1994 my niece was born and I have had the privilege of helping to raise her for the past eighteen years. My sons, who are grown now, have given us four grandsons. My oldest son remarried in 2007 and through that union I received a beautiful daughter in law and a precious GRAND DAUGHTER as well as two more grandsons and now a great-grandson. In May 2011 God blessed us with another baby granddaughter who is the first birth girl in my and my husband’s lineage for three generations.

So even though I thought God had forgotten me during my childhood … and even though my baby girl died before I got to know her … and even though I never had the pleasure of raising a little girl that I birth and even though I had little faith in God - He blessed me beyond measure and this (along with other) triumphs in my life has shown me what “trusting and believing” in God really means - because sometimes - God’s life plan for us just may not be our plan - but His plan is always a sweet Blessing.

“Flowing from my heart are the issues of my heart, is gratefulness…”

     Written originally 9/10/2011 and revised 1/25/2013

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