I’m beginning to see that the word of the year for me is trust. I have been going through life lessons in which God wants me to trust Him. I don’t understand why He orchestrates the details of life as He does, but He never asked me to understand. He asks me to trust Him.

He gave me a visual of that lesson today with my cat Peyton. For the past year, I have been giving her fluids at home for her renal insufficiency. That requires sticking a needle in the scruff of her neck weekly and letting cold fluid drip into her little body. She hates it and cries while I do it. I whisper in her ear that I love her, and the only reason I’m doing it is because I love her and want to make her better. But she can’t understand.

As soon as I finish, she runs away and hides, upset that I would put her through such agony. The last time I took her to the vet and did blood work, he said she is now in end-stage renal failure. And because she hides from me as a result of giving her fluids at home, he recommended that I stop the home fluids so she will trust me in these final weeks/months.

Whenever I get out of my chair, she immediately runs away and hides for a few minutes until she realizes I’m not going to scoop her up and stick the needle in her neck. I began to wonder if she’d ever trust me again.

Today, I got up to do something  and I noticed she didn’t run away. “Peyton, you trust me. Finally.” Then it hit me. As much as it gave me pleasure to see Peyton trust me, how much more it must please God to see us trust Him.

I’m not where I need to be in the area of trusting God, but I want to give Him the joy of seeing me trust Him even when I don’t understand what He’s doing. He knows why, and He whispers in my ear, “I love you. Trust me.”

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD and whose trust is the LORD.” Jeremiah 17:7