House on the Rock

We were on month five of trying to conceive. Trapped in a vicious cycle of one negative pregnancy test after another. What seemed to be symptoms of pregnancy were again interrupted by the punch of my period starting. 

Every month of no baby seemed to bring a heavier weight, the more grim and crushing reality that my deeply treasured mother would not be in the delivery room with me like I always imagined she’d be. I would not likely get to see her hold my baby. She would not be around to marvel at the milestones, to answer my desperate calls pleading “what do I do with this child?!” Barring a miracle, I realized my children would never get to hug their maternal grandma. 

This devastating truth could rob me of my joy and consume me, if I let it. And for a several days from August to November, I did. I was flattened by the fact that life is not how I planned it. Things were nothing like I hoped they would be. The valley was darker, harder, and lasting longer than I ever imagined. And there was a long, long way to go. 

I was sitting by Mom’s bedside one October day after returning from some much-needed counseling. The remnants of sobbing still streaked my cheeks, so she held my hand and asked me, “What’s wrong, baby girl?” 

I leaned into her shoulder and wept. I wept over the life we once knew and the future we dreamed of. I wept over the trials, the prayers that seem unanswered, the wilderness unending. I wept that we are here and not in Heaven, that she is sick and I can’t fix it, that nothing in my life seems to be what I would ask for right now. 

And she said, “Cali, you have to trust God’s plan for your life.” 

This is a simple truth. It’s so Christianese it might even seem cliché. I’ve heard this same phrase probably a hundred times. And every time I hear it, I can logically say, yes. That is true. I know that is what I have to do. I know He knows best. I get it. Next question. 

But something about hearing that this time struck me in an entirely different way. To hear that truth from my mom? The woman I love most laying paralyzed in a hospice bed? To hear that from a woman who was power walking four weeks prior and now will never walk earthside again? A woman with cancer so aggressive it had spread to her bones and brain before they could even detect its source? There was nothing cliché about it. It was deeply convicting, and God used her wisdom to transform so much of my life from that point forward.

My mom was not speaking philosophically. She was speaking experientially. With deep conviction, walking the walk while talking the talk. She was living this truth as an imperative: you HAVE to trust God’s plan for your life. A command, not a cliché. For her, trusting God wasn’t an option. It was the only way she made it through every brutal blow of bad news.

If my mom could preach that truth — and not just preach it, but live it — I knew I had to do the same. I have to trust God’s plan for my life. Baby or no baby. Mom or no mom. In sickness, in health. He knows best. His plan is perfect. His promise and provision have not faltered for a moment.

No matter how often we hear it, we cannot let that statement become cliché. It must be our banner. Our reminder. Our source of hope and joy and strength. There is a God, and He has a perfect plan for our lives. It’s not that we ought to trust it or might want to trust it; we have to trust it. It’s the only way we’ll make it through. 

Mom’s example of trusting God in trials was not a facade. It’s not something we shared just to make her look good. It was a deeply-woven, time-tested steadfastness that had been built for years as she has continued to lean not on her own understanding, but on her sovereign God. And now it is an example we all get to follow — in cancer, in hardship, in infertility, in miscarriage, in conflict, in poverty, in wartime, in death. He has a plan that is perfect.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6

We HAVE to trust it.