How on earth can God be trustworthy?

When Jeremy died, people told me to trust God. When Jake and I separated briefly 4 years ago, people told me to trust God. When we had a hard time getting pregnant, people told me to trust God.

Trust God.
Trust God.
Trust God.

At first it was encouraging. And then it just got irritating. I think people say it when they’re not sure what else to say. When we lose a job. When we’re facing a terrifying diagnosis. When our house is in foreclosure.  Trust God to give you the ‘desires of your heart’. Trust God and He will heal you. Trust God to provide ‘in His perfect timing’.But every time I hear words like this, I retreat to this question:

How is God trustworthy?

I asked this question last year when I surrounded by thousands of skulls in an underground grave site in Nyamata, Rwanda. Did these people, any of the 900,000 of them who were viciously slaughtered in the 1994 genocide, call out to God? Did they trust Him?

And was He trustworthy? Or what about the starving children around the world. Were their families ever told to trust that God would provide? So was God trustworthy when their children died in their arms?

I think we all should sincerely hunt for the answer.

In my search, I've found a few. They should be encouraging, but if I were being brutally honest, they’re also discouraging: God can be trusted to

give guidance (Prov 3:5-6). God can be trusted to give hope (Romans 15:13). God can be trusted to make everything new in eternity (Revelations 21:4-6). God can be trusted to love us always. (Romans 8:39) God can be trusted to keep His promises (Genesis 21:1).

Notice that… He didn’t guarantee safety (especially for my children).He didn’t guarantee health. He didn’t guarantee shelter or food. He didn’t guarantee marital bliss if we try hard enough. I wish He did. I really really really wish He did. But He didn’t. So when things are messy and well-intended people say those three spiritually 'magic' words, instead of being critical and skeptical, this is what I repeat to myself:

No matter what happens, God’s trustworthy to be everything I need when I need it.

In tragedy. In grief. In doubting. In fearing… I can trust God to be Sovereign. The new question is, in my suffering, do I have the depth of faith to believe it?