When I bump up against feelings of hopelessness, when I face an immovable mountain of doubt or when I know for sure that I don’t know for sure, it is only because I know God is reliable and trustworthy that I keep on truckin. 

      Step by Step

Before I believed that God was much more reliable than myself, I used to rely on myself because, self was all I had to help me survive the suicide of my father. 

Dad’s death affected everyone in my family. It sent Mom into an emotional spiral that incapacitated her mentally emotionally. She was unable to think straight for herself, let alone lead, guide or counsel any one of her seven offspring. She could not give any comfort or assurance to any of us. 

Unlike the Welcome Wagon that used to personally greet new people who’d just arrived in a community, there were no suicide support groups, grief counselors or parish priests that knocked on our door to ask, “Can we help you with your grief?” 

Back in the 1970s, suicide was not a topic that was discussed inside or outside the home. It was too shocking, outrageous and mortifying. It was best to forget about the incident. But tragedies, though they are not talked about, can never be forgotten. And I never forgot that my Dad ended his life on purpose, but in remembering, I never found any peace either. 

Having a tragedy in my history did not make my life fun or easy. Instead, it was quite difficult to put my feet on any particular path other than simply surviving. 

I was thirteen at the time and in junior high. Some days I made it to school, other days I’d skip school and walk to the cemetery and sit beside Dad’s grave. I hoped and waited in vain to hear from him telling me that he loved me, that I was special or that everything would be okay.  

The older I got and the longer Dad was dead, the more suspicious I grew of others. I hated facing the fact that at one time, I’d trusted Dad and then he left me. I came to the conclusion that since Dad, who should have been trustworthy had proven to be untrustworthy, then no one was worthy of my trust. 

Living with such a perspective changed me and not for the better. I lived on guard, ready to defend myself from the real and imagined hurt that results from forming relationships with others. I desperately wanted to be a happy person, but I was mostly angry and my anger made me mostly unhappy.  

It was a miserable way to live and I’d nearly convinced myself to end my misery by ending my life. After all, I reasoned, Dad had done it, so maybe suicide was my destiny as well. But it wasn’t. Instead, Jesus intervened offering me an immediate, actual, and first hand relationship with Himself. Crazy, but true.

Every journey by faith begins with a first step of faith; believing God’s words when he says, as he said to me, “You can choose life.” 

Choosing life instead of death was my first experience of agreeing with God and since then, I’ve kept on agreeing. I now have a long history with conceding with God, and the more I concur with him, the more I believe that what he says is true. 

He tells me that nothing separates me from his love, that he will never leave me or abandon me and that he really has my best interest in mind even when it feels contrary. 

Why bother to keep on truckin? Getting to know the length, width, depth and height of God, who is infinite, takes an eternity. To quit too soon means we lose out on the next good thing he intends for us.