Memories of Trust

Mary’s Monday Musings

Memories of Trust

            My husband and I enjoyed a college memory this week. As college students, we had gone on a double date with friends to eat supper at a different college in a nearby town. We rode in the back seat of our friend’s car for the thirteen mile drive on the connecting highway. My date and future husband suddenly grabbed me in a big, tight hug and held my head pressed into the hollow beneath his shoulder. For a mini-second I thought, “What’s this? then the crunch of metal accompanied by the car’s wild rocking told me what my hidden eyes didn’t see. We were in an accident. I hadn’t seen it coming, but Roger had. As soon as we were safely stopped, he told me he didn’t want me hurt by the impact or cut by broken glass. Hence the sudden ‘affection’ of putting himself between me and possible harm.

 

No one was hurt, only the car, but that was a happy turning point in my relationship with my handsome date. I not only escaped harm, I knew I could safely trust this fascinating young man to protect me and to put my interests ahead of his own. Trust forms a solid foundation for a marriage. Trust is also an important foundation for our relationship with God. He wants our trust and we want to trust Him, knowing that is the route to peace. Circumstances, however, can make trust a challenge. The world bombards us with worrisome situations. War, the country’s debt, the threat of an Ebola pandemic as well as our personal concerns combine to assail our determination to trust God. One remedy is to deliberately draw on memories of a time when God protected us. If we put our mind to it, we can each find an occasion and, more likely, many situations when God intervened in our life and blessed us. Remembering these times, talking about them, even writing them down builds our faith and our trust in God. In the beginning of 1 Samuel 30:6, “David was greatly distressed.” The later part of the verse informs us David “encouraged himself in the Lord.” David remembered the times God had looked after him in the past to encourage himself for his present. We, too, can use his strategy to grow in trusting God.