“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6

Bonnie walked into the Intensive Care Unit, carrying a box of Krispy Kremes for the nurses. Everyone but me seemed to know this tall, lovely woman whose spouse was being treated at the same hospital where my husband fought a terminal illness.

One day I arrived to learn Jerry had been moved from Intensive to Transitional Care. He lay in the bed nearest the door, in a room with a man neither of us knew. Walking into the room, I pulled the curtain between the beds. As I sat by my hubby, I saw Bonnie enter the TCU, obviously looking for her own husband. She walked all the way around the unit and entered our room.

“Is that your husband?”

“Yes … and yours?”

“Yeah!”

She walked past us to George’s side. Quietly, holding Jerry’s hand, I began to sing “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” Seconds later, from behind the curtain, I heard an alto voice join my soprano. Bonnie’s and my heart bonded during our husbands’ illnesses and subsequent deaths.

George was developing a significant medical breakthrough. While Bonnie had worked with him, the inventiveness was George’s. But the Lord took him home with his work incomplete.

Bonnie stepped into the gap with George’s partner. She often told me, “Carol, this is so far beyond me. I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. But I keep telling the Lord, ‘I’m out of my league here. Please show me the next step.’” And He did. The process is getting closer to providing its life-saving properties. Bonnie is an example to me of stepping out in faith, going far beyond her comfort level, trusting in God’s promise to guide her.

Hebrews 11:6 tells us that “…without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”

Bonnie’s sacrifice of faith is one aspect of being pleasing to the Father.

After my first husband died, I went through a crisis of faith. What if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead? What if everything I believed was a lie and I would never see Jerry again? After several weeks of darkness, God reminded me of Peter’s response when Jesus asked if the disciples would also turn away from Him. “Where else would we go, Lord? You alone have the words of eternal life.” With that scripture, God lifted my spirit and restored my hope.

God isn’t pleased when I think I can “do life” on my own. He’s not impressed with my abilities or depressed because of my inabilities. Rather, it is often in my pain and authenticity–when I acknowledge my deep need for Him, when I throw myself on His mercy and grace, that Christ meets me and is pleased to respond.

“Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In ALL your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6

Where do you need to trust, thereby pleasing Him?