So here I am today: at my favorite coffee shop, sipping my pretty beverage. Kid-free and with hours to spare. Just me and my computer.

And I want to be home.

And yesterday, in my comfortable, safe, lovely home, I complain at Josh—who endlessly chops wood and loads wood and carries wood so that we have wood to burn—that it’s only 68 degrees in the house and I need it to be 71. At least.

And I’m frustrated at the kids because they need me for everything and spill their milk 47 seconds after I set it in front of them and how dare I not let them watch 16 consecutive episodes of Wild Kratts and seem surprised every. Single. Morning. that I expect them to make their own beds… and then I see me in the mirror.

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4 Things:
1.) Josh builds fine fires. Just not hot enough.
2.) Someone neglected to cut Christian’s hair at the time of this photo. It wasn’t me.
3.) Not our house.
4.) They look so innocent…

And I am everything they are. Just a bigger and more tired looking and without the excuse of being seven.

I have to confess it all because I don’t want anyone to think for one moment that they should take my words on this blog as truth just because I’m saying it. I’m not trustworthy. I’m cranky and discontent and I complain and I just want to cry over the spilled milk, darn it.

This one is innocent. Until bedtime.

This one is innocent. Until bedtime.

So trust me when I say I can’t be trusted.

I am so very flawed, I can’t even trust myself.

~

God astonished me with his kindness once, and I’ve hardly been able to write about anything else since.

I’m fascinated by him. I want to know him more. I want to be so familiar with his character that I recognize his fingerprints everywhere I go. And I want others to know him more. And so I endeavor to write about the Almighty.

I. (A peon.) 

So I’ve been studying people who knew God. People far smarter and less complain-y than me. People I think I can trust. And they say that God is good. They say that his ways can be trusted.

David, the ultimate God-lover, said it. “You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees” (Ps. 119: 68).

And I say it too, on this very blog. “God is good!” I shout at you. Always.

And yet.

Yesterday, I opened the mail. There was a prayer request for a family that lives states away. I don’t know them. I don’t know their names. But it asks me to pray. Their five-year-old was killed in a car wreck and they are intensive care.

I don’t know any more about the situation than that, but I know I should fall on my knees to pray and plead to God to hold them close and comfort them as only he can.

But instead, I, the one who says I trust God and that you should trust him too, instead I doubt.

Why, God? Why would you allow this? Are you really good?

And my faith crumbles. I don’t understand.

I thought you were good, God. But this isn’t good. 

Maybe I don’t trust you, after all.

~

This, friends. This is the very reason why you cannot base your faith on what anyone else says, and most certainly not on what I say. If you’re going to read one thing, close this blog window now and open your Bible. Because I can’t be trusted.

I am human, and I am fickle. My faith fluctuates and withers without warning. It’s toppled easily by tragedy. It’s clouded quickly by doubt. And I doubt that I’m alone in that.

I wonder about David when he penned the words above. Was he in the midst of doubt? I wonder if he wrote that God was good because life was knocking him breathless and he needed to remember what he believed. I wonder if Psalm 119: 68 was his mantra. A reminder to himself that the goodness of God is Truth even when it doesn’t feel like it.

God is good and what he does is good, even when I don’t understand.

God is good and what he does is good, even when people die.

God is good and what he does is good, even when life is not.

God is good and what he does is good, even when I am not.

God is good and what he does is good.

Even when I don’t believe it.

~

Cling to his Word, friends.

Don’t take my word for anything. I can’t be trusted.

Study and know your creator. Know his character. Memorize his Word. Store it up and breathe it deeply so that when life strikes, you are ready.

We don’t know what life holds, but we know this:

“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8).

God is good.

Take his Word for it, not mine.

 

What about you? Where in your life are you choosing to believe God, even when it’s hard?