I know this woman who is amazing. She has been sick most of her life with a disease that has kept her bedridden. She had two small children and her husband died, when her first “flair up” occured and she was left unable to take care of her kids or provide any source of income. She is my Grammy, and i’ve never met another person i’ve been so inspired by.
I went to camp Barnabas(a camp for kids with special needs) a couple of weeks ago and met some pretty amazing kids. They are incapable of taking care of themselves they rely on other people to do the most simple things for them. Something about them is captivating and for a long time I couldn’t figure it out (its not just one thing but I’ve decided this is a major one) There is a connection a similarity between them and my Grammy. The same thing that is so beautiful in those children, I see also in her. What is it? Well I have often asked myself the same question, and drawn the conclusion that it is TRUST. They understand this concept of trust that is so foundational for our relationship with God.
When you can’t get out of bed, you rely on people to help provide, to help you, to take care of your kids, to clean the house. There is no independence, just complete reliance.
When you are a child who has CP and cannot control your muscles you rely on other people to help you move and eat and get dressed.
We live in a culture that values the importance of independence….self reliance…a culture that has for the most part advertised the so called “successful” as those that can think, move, talk, breathe, eat etc… on their own. And we wonder why so many relationships fail so many marriages end in divorce. What is it that is missing? Is it trust?
Have we, the “healthy” gotten so caught up in our ability to provide for ourselves that we’ve forgotten how to trust because we’ve never really had to? I have bought into this way of thinking, that when I have to ask for help there is something wrong with me. Can independence become a stumbling block for relationships? Our trust goes hand in hand with our vulnerablity, our honesty. I cannot allow anyone to truly know me if I do not trust them. I have often wondered why it is hard for me to trust. What if it has to do with the fact that it has been ingrained in my mind that independence is the sign of health, and I think to a degree that is true, but trust is a sign of health too.
I have always seen so much trust in people who have gone through difficult things. Mother’s who have seen their children battle cancer, children who have grown up without parents, families who have lost everything. I have seen these people have so much trust in God, in his love and I desire to be like that. I find trusting God to be a difficult thing. I think that the best way for me to learn how to trust God is to learn how to trust people, those that are in my life that Love me. To open up and say “I have problems…I need help” and to trust that my friend will encourage and see me for who I am. To begin to understand trust on a small scale.
We are all the same in the way that we have dissabilities, we have weaknesses whether they are visible to the eye matters not.
I experienced true community and friendship at Camp Barnabas because the authenticity causes you to realize that everyone has problems and the energy that you once spent trying to fix your problems is now directed towards helping other people, and the problems you found in your heart for once really start healing. Was church meant to be like this?
I am inspired by trust, trust that causes us to say, “I can go on because I am not alone.”
TRUST
