Happy Father’s Day! There is something that keeps coming to me each morning as I have my devotions which I haven’t spoken/written. A tremendous hurdle victims of abuse face is trusting God. I’ve skirted around the topic numerous times and talked about hating God, etc. But, in reality, the topic of trusting God is huge. I’ve always known God is eternal and that when I get to heaven with Him, I will be too. That much has never been a struggle for me. It is this earthly life and the fact that God gave man such freedom to choose that makes many abused victims question trust in this God of ours.

As our men get deeper into the curriculum of our Mending the Soul class, this topic of trust becomes more verbally spoken. I recall when I went through my divorce in 1979 a saintly lady in our church wrote me the kindest letter. She said that God must love me dearly to allow me to hurt the way I had been hurt. At the time I thought that was such a bizarre statement. Yet, I hung onto it because the lady who wrote it was one I respected greatly. Today, I realize what she meant.

When I hear the men say the things I use to say I want God to take care of those scars/deep wounds right now so they don’t need to hurt and believe such lies. However, I’ve learned to trust God’s healing process and to not question it. God doesn’t “fix” as I would try to do, He HEALS. And, with the healing He provides deep understanding as to His reason for giving man such freedom to choose. If God didn’t give full choice to man, man would turn around and say, “Well, that God of ours just manipulated me into ‘loving him'”. God didn’t manipulate me into any of this truth. He has patiently led me to it over many, many years. Today, I choose to BELIEVE & TRUST!