“What’s your word for 2012?” many of my writer friends asked each other earlier this year. “Relationships,” “hope,” “believe,” “joy,” and “perseverance were some of the answers.

Though familiar with the practice of prayerfully seeking a word that would influence the way I live each year, I hadn’t concerned myself with it. I had too much on my plate— homeschooling, being a wife, mom, and caregiver while dealing with a degenerative auto-immune disease…or so I thought until I read my friend, Julie Garmon’s post about “surrender”--her word for 2012.

What might my word for this year be? I wondered as I walked into the kitchen.

Trust. The gentle whisper sounded in my heart.

Trust? Do I not trust enough?

Trust. The word lingered through the day. I fell asleep wondering, but how do I trust more?

Five months have passed since that whisper, Five months of walking along the curves and bends on this road we call life…

When I start infusions for Ankolysing Spondylitis…trust

When I hear that a homeschooling mom of nine crossed into eternity mere weeks after her youngest was born …what does trust look like?

When a friend loses her family’s only source of income…how does one trust?

When a family’s home is reduced to ashes…trust

“Lord, how much is enough?” I swallowed against the lump in my throat. For three years or so iritis had attacked my eyes, but this year the inflammation had spread, affecting my back and other joints, finally resulting in the diagnosis of ankylosing spondlytlits, a degenerative auto-immune disease. As tasks I once performed with with ease—cooking cleaning, teaching my kids, driving, even typing—became a chore or close to impossible—I grieved the loss of normalcy, and struggled with my increased dependence on others. Recent aggressive treatments with severe side effects had further debilitated me.  

“Lord, what’s next on this path? Well, maybe I don’t want to know,” I sighed and slumped against the sofa. As my husband lit the Advent candles and the rest of the family gathered around for devotions, I closed my eyes and gave myself up to the raging question in my mind: “Why, Lord, why?”