Fighting for Faith on Foggy Roads: How to Keep Trusting

“Where are we, mama?” Her voice skipped over the backseat and broke the silence I had barely noticed. I weighed her words with my innate mama sense. Her tone held curiosity, making a hint of concern.

The fog pressed thick and heavy around our car. Long past dark, the familiarity of the country roads that lead us home was gone, and only small patches of billowy light from the distant homesteads remained. 

I grappled for a good answer. We should be approaching that old dairy, I think. The Cleveringa’s house on the left and Julia’s on the right, maybe?

“Well…I’m not exactly sure, Brookie,” I offered honestly. The look on her face told me honesty was not the reassuring truth she was looking for. I get it. Honesty is not always reassuring to me either.

Facing Hard Truths

The decade-old mandate from the doctor still echos like it was yesterday. “There is a heartbeat, but nothing looks normal at this point. All we can do is wait cautiously, hopefully.”

“You have lost all your amniotic fluid. Without this, the baby’s lungs will not be able to fully develop. I’m so sorry.”

“The insurance coverage is set up as a maternity package – pre-natal, labor and delivery. We will not be able to offer that coverage for a pre-mature stillbirth.”

I’ve traveled through fog before and have asked some fear-masked questions of my own. Honest answers were not what I wanted. I wanted someone to fix it. I desperately wanted someone to tell me it was all going to be okay.

You’ve been there too I assume. Receiving the diagnosis that changes everything or hearing it from the one you love. The unexpected bill that takes your breath away, the sucker punch rejection, the disappointment that clouds your vision and stops your world from spinning. 

I don’t want the truth, God. My heart is breaking and I want You to fix this.

Trust What You Know, Not What You See

Hoping to ease my girl’s discomfort in the back seat, I told her what I knew about fog. “Fog is a funny thing, Brooklyn. It changes everything and yet nothing at all. The road is still the same road we’ve traveled a hundred times. The houses are still there, it’s just hard to see them. So we trust what we know rather than what we can see.”

I’m pretty sure her 8-year-old attention span expired as I kept on preaching to myself. 

The road guides gently with this solid line on the right, and a dashed one on the left. I’m on the right road, so if I just keep trusting it, just keep moving ahead, it will take me where I am going.

And it turns out that is the way I’ve made it out of fog every single time – trusting the road I’ve traveled in the light, and trusting the God who sees me and uses all things for my good.

God Sees You

Hagar knew this. She spent some time on a mighty messy and foggy road and one day she decided she was done. Just done. She ran. And the Angel of the Lord met her in the wilderness and encouraged her to go back. He showed up and told her the Lord sees and hears and there is good for her back on that hard road.

She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her:

“You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”
Genesis 16:13 NIV

God saw Hagar on the foggy road. He never left her, he always heard her and He saw. 

May we live a faith strong enough to know beyond what we see, trusting that our immutable God, the one who sees, is with us on foggy roads as well.

Blessings,
Katie, I Choose Brave