As an Enneagram 8, I like to say I operate as a broken 8…not like a car with a wheel that fell of kind of broken, but more like a stubborn mule who could use a self-improvement plan. For a long time, like thirty-four years long, I was certain that I knew the best plan for my life. I knew what I wanted. Yes, I loved God, but I preferred to think that He stayed up in the sky and shined down on the world and let me do what I wanted.
…Until I broke.
When my daughter’s heart failed, I found myself sitting with my husband in a little room in the pediatric ICU, envisioning funeral plots, black dresses, and tears…lots of tears…shed for our little girl that I would never even get to know. The only story that I could imagine and beg our God for was one where our little girl died without pain. Those hours were the most gut wrenching and yet, some of the most prized, because it was a moment when through my tears I had to look into the eyes of my God and say, “I have said forever that I believe all of this to be true. Do I believe it enough to hand You my daughter?” That answer was, “Yes.”
And that is when it broke: my pride, the mistruth that I could write the story, and even my desire to write it. Those hours etched on my soul the deep-seated belief that I trust God knows better than I do.
No matter how things would have shaken out, those hours changed my everything. Over the next three weeks, I saw firsthand God do what only He can do, and the little girl that I was praying would pass without pain was in her carseat on the way home from the hospital. While there was a painful year of uncertainty ahead, with genetic testing and wondering about cognitive impairment, once the decision had been made in the PICU to trust our God, I could stand firm in the fact that He knows better than I do. My small prayers that day not only make me want my God’s plan, but they make me detest my own. Those small prayers showed me that my viewpoint is shortsighted and that I have the opportunity to trust our God, who can see it all. I am confident that on the other side of eternity, either way, I would be able to look at God and say, “Okay.”
For a long time…I lived for myself and my plans and God was a part of my life, even an important part…but just a part. I thought I held the reigns in my hands but in the pass, I found that He had them all along. No matter what the circumstances look like right now or what they may look like in the future…He has got you.
With my trust placed in Him…He is my heartbeat, my reason for breathing, my forever, and my everything. I trust that He knows better than I do. I believe that when you fully believe this in your core…you will find freedom you have never known because your everything will rest in His hands. His grasp is trustworthy, it is certain, and our God is for you.
Now and forever, God knows better than I do. It’s a level of trust that He asks for, and I would be crazy not to hand the God of my everything…my everything.
