a friend named trust

rich kirkpatrick is a worship leader from california who has a blog (found him thru pete kim and ben abu saada - two of my favorite bloggers).

he's got some health issues threatening him (read about them in a series of posts on his blog called "uncertainty") and for some reason his situation just kinda connected with me. i commented on one of his posts with something that i really felt God wanted me to share, and i think it might encourage some of you as well, so i'm gonna share it with you. here goes:

i went thru some similar stuff with my wife a few years back - got very very concerned about a lump in her neck - i got word of it when i landed in africa for a two-week trip. i was very -ok, i'll say it, worried- about it. when she told me about it, i was literally in the airport in johannesburg on a layover on my way to harare, zimbabwe - checking on children's cup operations there in the aftermath of their nations worst cyclone (what they call a hurricane there). i was looking ahead at a little over a week of sporadic access to communications with my young wife who had just given birth to lincoln, our third child. the gaps between times i could talk to her seemed longer than ever - and more frustrating than ever.

to make a long story not quite so long, the second morning of the trip i left my wedding ring at the lodge we were staying at in the middle of zimbabwe. but i didn't notice until we were a few hours down the road. now if you've ever been to zimbabwe, you know that you just really don't wanna be driving through the middle of nowhere at night, so we had a schedule set up that would keep us where we'd always be where we were going to stay the night before night fell. turning around to go back and hope the ring hadn't "walked" was risking a lot - and on a thin thread of any hope of finding the ring.

but dave van rensburg (i really love this guy) was running the show and he turned us around and we went back. i prayed and prayed. somehow all of it tied together in my heart - the health scare with vicki and the loss of my wedding ring. i was just messed up.

well, when we finally rounded the corner of the dirt road heading into the lodge - literally way out in the back part of nowhere - we were met by a young man standing there smiling, and holding my ring in his palm stretched out to me. i was at this point obviously relieved (there's an understatement for you). but then i asked him his name.

"My name is Trust," the young man said.

God spoke to me clearly at that instant. as clear as anything i've ever heard. He reminded me that He could be trusted to take care of the things that matter to me. whether it is an impossible recovery of a gold ring in the zimbabwean lowveld, or the uncertainty of a mass in my wife's neck - He's more than able to handle it.

i hope that encourages you like it did me.

that's not the end of the story - vicki did have to have a surgery, but everything was clear and she's fine today (and i do mean, "FINE"). we've got five kids now and God continues to bless us and i need reminders a lot, but this lesson is one He often points me back to.

God can be TRUSTed.