I Don't Trust God as Much as I Thought I Did...

“See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are ever before me.”

Isaiah 49:16 (NIV)

Have you ever read a verse and thought to yourself: “Part of that applies to me, the other, not so much”.

Yeah, me either.  Except for this one.  Mainly, because I wasn’t wrapping my brain around the wall part, but something in my spirit pricked every time I read it.

Anyone that knows me at all, will tell you that I’m an independent-get-it-done-yourself kind of woman.  The women in my family are just known for their “I can do it myself” attitude.  We’re strong, self-reliant, and hard working- and proud.  Boy, are we ever proud.  We never show weakness and we most certainly do not ask for help.  Needing help is a shameful thing.  Showing weakness is a shameful thing.  Owning your mistakes, that’s right, it’s a shameful thing.

The fact that I can be transparent at all, is a freaking miracle.

I was brought up with the mentality that you should never, ever depend on someone else to do anything for you.  You should never depend on anyone to take care of you, because they will fail you every time.  Countless times have I heard the advice from my mother, ‘Pamela, you can’t depend on any man to take care of you because as soon as you do, he’ll leave and you’ll not be able to take care of yourself.  You just can’t depend on them.”

Add that on top of a tumultuous childhood of instability, an adolescence of verbal and emotional abuse from someone who was supposed to take care of me, and marrying a man who was just not capable of taking care of anyone but himself and here we are.

So let’s get back to these walls…

“Your walls are ever before me.”

To be quite honest with you, I didn’t even realize that I even had walls before the Lord.  I didn’t even realize that there was any part of my heart that I didn’t leave open to the Lord.  Turns out, that’s a lie.

There are wounded parts of my heart that I’ve made off limits to not only God, but to myself.  I locked them away and forgot about them.

However, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times at least- sooner or later, every truth comes to light.  There is nothing hidden in the dark that doesn’t eventually make it’s way into the light.

It did for this weekend, and this weekend was hard.  I am in the process of learning how to become financially stable- I’ve struggled all my life with not having enough – not having enough money, attention, love, affection, sex, nice things, whatever it may be, just not enough.  I’ve tried every which way I could to have ‘enough’.  I’ve spent money on worthless things to try and feel like I had enough junk in my home; I’ve stayed in unhealthy relationships for far too long so that I could have ‘enough’ affection and love; I’ve had more friends with benefits than I care to admit out loud to try and make myself feel like ‘enough’.  Here’s some revelation- until I let God heal those deep, dark, wounded parts of my heart, there will never be ‘enough’ of anything because I’m attempting to fill a bottomless void.

SO as I come to this gut-wrenching revelation at the help of a good friend who’s trying to help me get my finances in order- I recognized that I there are things that I need to forgive God for.

I needed to forgive God for not giving me parents that were able to provide for me when I really needed it.

I needed to forgive God for not protecting me in all the ways I felt like He should have.

I needed to forgive God for taking things and opportunities away from me that I thought I deserved and I needed.

I needed to forgive God for withholding from me all the promises He’d given me- a husband, a family for instance.  The truth is though- if the man that God created for me, the one He’s promised me, walked into my life right now, I wouldn’t trust him.  I’d always be waiting for him to let me down, to hurt me.

I needed to forgive myself for not trusting God to be my provider; for so arrogant and thinking that I could take care of everything on my own when that hasn't worked for me thus far.

Then, I had to let the Father come in and heal those deep, dark, hidden wounds of my heart.  That’s still a work in progress.

I believed the lie that God couldn’t be my provider for every area of my life and in doing that, denying that God can’t be God all the time, I’d robbed myself of so many great opportunities for God to show off in my life.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve said that I wanted God’s best, that I wouldn’t settle for anything mediocre or sub-par from God- I want everything that He has for me.  In order to receive that, I have to let Him be God.  I have to let Him be my everything and I have to trust Him to be that provider.

I have to stop being self-reliant.  I have to accept that in reality, I have no control, I have no say in how things go in my world.  I have to lay down my own will to have things my way.  I have to trust that whatever God wants to give me is His best, not mine because let’s be honest here, my best is filthy rags compared to His best.

I’m still processing and I’m still being submissive and several moments throughout the day, I have to stop myself from trying to figure it all out and trust that He’s at work and it’s for my good.  I’m a logical person so it’s hard for me to trust an illogical God. 

I have to trust Him.  In all things, in everything, in every minute detail of my life and of my heart, I have to trust Him.

Like I said, I’m still letting God reveal the hidden parts of my heart- the parts that are still tucked away behind those walls- the ones I thought were hidden from Him, but He states it so clearly- my walls are ever before Him.  He never stops thinking about them, He’s just waiting for me to give Him the permission to bring them down.

I don’t just want them to come down, I don’t just want Him to crush them, or tear them down, I want Him to obliterate them.  As painful as those wounds are, and as painful as I think it will be to let Him heal them, I don’t want any part of my heart guarded from Him.

The other great part of that verse, my name is engraved in the palm of His hand- because He loves me that much.

He is my healer, and He is my provider, and He is a good, good God- there is no one or no thing that has the capacity to love me the way He does.

I want my heart to be laid open before Him, because it is all that I have and I love Him so much that I want Him to be the God of my life, to be the King of my heart.

Besides, it’s not like anything or any part of me is hidden from Him anyway.  He sees the darkest and dirtiest parts of me and loves and delights in me anyway.

How could I not trust a God like that?

I’ll leave you with this- trust Him.  Forgive Him if you need to, forgiveness is not about feeling like it, or being in a place where you think you can, it’s a command, and it’s for your own good.  How much of the goodness of God are you missing because you’re holding on to something painful?

Embrace the healing.  He is for us.

Be blessed.

~Pamela