Still Sweet to Trust in Jesus
A song recently triggered a memory from nearly twenty-five years ago. Music has a way of doing that. An eighties song brings me right back to dating my husband when I was sixteen. Certain seventies songs take me to riding in the sleeper of my dad’s semi truck and singing along with the radio.
This time, it was an old hymn. The lyrics carried my mind back to when I was a young mom going through a difficult time alongside one of my children who wasn’t even big enough to tie his own shoes. The struggle involved counselors and treatment for anxiety, challenges that added daily strain to his life and concern to ours. I often felt helpless.
Childlike Faith
On that long-ago day, the sound of his voice drifted from his room at the end of the hall to my ears in the kitchen. A song. So typical for the boy who started singing as soon as he could form a few words.
“Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him. How I’ve proved him o’er and o’er.”
I doubt he had much understanding of what it meant to prove something. He probably didn’t know that o’er was short for over either. But amid this storm, there was his little voice, singing about trusting Jesus.
That was the reassurance that carried him—carried us all—through that time. Eventually, the clouds rolled through, and the crisis passed. But the foundation has remained through other storms, as we’ve continued trusting Jesus when times are rough.
Continuing to Trust
It’s hard to believe he’s a dad now, and he’s around the age I was when that happened. Did it seem as if the hard phase would never end? Sure did.
If there’s anything midlife teaches us, it’s that we’ve come far enough to know that there is an upside to every downside. It’s just hard to see the other side when you’re in the middle of the eye of the storm.
I could use a little of that faith today. A lot of things around me feel like the eye of a storm. I’m shattered and broken by humans who are fickle, by their uncaring or inhuman treatment of vulnerable people. Neither the church nor families or quaint neighborhoods are immune to the fallout from cruelty.
The pain is real. But Jesus is real too. And when all the yucky stuff in the world falls away, or even when it all implodes, Jesus remains.
The last verse of the song my little guy was singing goes like this:
I’m so glad I learned to trust Thee,
Precious Jesus, Savior, Friend;
And I know that Thou art with me,
Wilt be with me to the end.
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him,
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er,
Jesus, Jesus, Precious Jesus!
O for grace to trust Him more.1
Jesus, I do trust you.
Yes, I’m glad I learned to trust you. Glad you are with me through it all. Thankful that you’re familiar with sadness and heartbreak.
Help me trust you in this too.
The tagline for the women’s ministry I cofounded a couple of years ago is, “Oh for grace to trust him more.” The day we were asking God what he wanted us to do, that song would not leave me. We sing it every year and every single time, I know it’s part of the mission of our event to encourage women to trust Jesus more.
Beautiful, friend! I, too… TRUST, with faith like a child.
Journeying together!
🩵