Trust.....

       My daughter's are still young enough for me to get away with using them as illustrations, so I figured I would take every opportunity I get.  The following is one of my favorite stories from when Cadence, our oldest daughter was just a baby.  I call this, "The Everest of the Sippie Cup."  I was in graduate school, and had been in class all day, returning home around 10:00 that evening.

       Cadence was around 6 months old, and at the end of a p[articularly long and stressful day with our little bundle of joy, Katie had gone to take a shower and left Cadence with me. This would typically be fine except for the fact that Cadence had just awoken from a nap.  We were still working on building a more regulated schedule with her sleeping and feeding, and at this particular time, she was quite hungry. To compound the severity of the situation, at night Katie preferred to nurse Cadence because she seemed to sleep better. (Katie knows this, and is clearly enjoying the longevity of a hot steamy shower.) Now, at that time we had just moved to an occasional sippie cup of juice as a snack at various points throughout the day, and I thought this would serve well to distract her and hold her over until my most beautiful wife finished her increasingly elongated, seemingly (at the time) eternal shower.  So, I got the cup out of the fridge sank back into my recliner and proceeded to offer the sweet fruity sustenance to my daughter as her screams easily reached a double forte in volume. My offer was quickly declined with a series of squirms, grunts, and even more screams. In my frustration, I gave up and decided to just let her scream about it for the (hopefully) few minutes left of Katie's most wonderful shower, and set the cup on the end table next to my recliner. (Here's where the story gets interesting)

The cup is red, and looks like one of her toys which quickly caught the eye of my screaming daughter, in which case she decided she did want it but only if she could get it herself. The following series of events happened about 3 or 4 times in a row. Cadence would try to grab the cup that was just out of her reach, and after a few seconds I would try to lend a hand and get it for her.  How silly of me!  This only resulted only in squirms, grunts, and even more screams. Finally, she got the cup (on her own) and she was happy. And the screams subsided and turned to smiles, giggles, and deep concentration. Except now, she needed to figure out how to move the sweet fruit sustenance that was in the cup, out of the cup and into her mouth. And the process began again. She began to suck on the handle, and I would try to turn it over in an effort to help. I should have learned by now, but this was an obvious insult which only led to squirms, grunts, and even mores screaming. At one point, she was even sucking on the bottom of the cup, and looked at me with a very confused look when nothing came out. Finally, after about 30 minutes, she had the cup turned right-side-up, and was happily sucking the sweet fruity sustenance of the apple juice and was quite content. The road leading to this point was a rocky one. Any time I tried to help in any way, or touch the cup in any way, only resulted in squirms, grunts, and more screams. But if she did it herself, she was perfectly happy.........until Katie walked around the corner and Cadence recognized her as the source of her evening meal.

       If Cadence had simply trusted me, she would have had the pleasure of partaking in that sweet, fruity sustenance that lied in wait within the red cup.  But, instead she was determined to do it on her own.  Granted, she did learn a valuable lesson from doing it on her own, however, I would have much preferred to help if she would have let me.  

       Trust is the most expensive entity in existence!  It can take forever to earn, but can also be lost in an instance.  In 1 Kings 17, Elijah has been instructed from the Lord to travel to Zarephath and live for a bit.  When he came to the town he meets a starving widow gathering sticks at the gate of the town.  Weary from his travels, Elijah asks the widow for a drink and some bread to which she replied:

"As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug.  I am now gathering sticks so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die"

       The widow, striving so hard to be frugal with what she had left is on the brink of starvation.  To her, this is nothing more than a weary traveler asking for her last bit of bread.  

       Elijah responds:

"Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me al little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son.  For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth."


We always have a choice.  Much like Cadence struggling with the sippie cup and the widow striving to make the last bit of meal and oil stretch as far as possible, we have a choice.  Trust or not.  If we are relying on our own means and our own abilities, much like the widow starving to death, the "meal and oil," will always run out.  For all she knew, that was their last morsel of food with no apparent signs of it being replenished.  Or, we can take that leap and trust in our Creator that there will always be enough!