Time, Trust, and the Spaces Between

As I was sorting through old computer files last week—trying to decide what was worth saving and what could finally be deleted—I stumbled across a blog post I wrote in 2008 on my old blog, Pastor Laura's Musings. The post was called Time and Trust.

At the time, I was preparing to leave Jerome, Idaho, for a new appointment. Before kids. Before marriage. I was reflecting on transitions, uncertainty, and the strange ways we humans get stuck between where we have been and where we are going.

Reading it eighteen years later felt a little like opening a time capsule.

In that 2008 post, I compared myself to Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. Not because I was wearing a tattered wedding dress or preserving a long-forgotten feast, but because I recognized the temptation to become trapped in the past. I wrote about replaying old conversations, revisiting decisions, and imagining all the things that could have gone differently. I also wrote about my tendency to obsess over the future, making lists and then rewriting those lists, as though careful planning could somehow eliminate uncertainty.

Apparently some things never change.

What struck me most wasn't how much I have changed since 2008. It was how familiar those feelings still are. Here I am again, in another season of transition.

I am preparing for another move. Packing boxes, changing states, appointments to schedule, churches to say goodbye to, and a new community to get to know. There are spreadsheets, checklists, and yes, more lists than any one person probably needs. There are moments when I find myself replaying the past, wondering if I made the right decisions. There are moments when I find myself staring into the future, trying to solve problems that haven't even arrived yet.

The details are different. The emotions are remarkably similar.

The older I get, the more I realize that trust is not a lesson we learn once and then master forever. Trust is a practice. It is something we return to over and over again.

When I was younger, I imagined that maturity meant eventually arriving at a place where I would no longer worry about the future or second-guess the past. I assumed faith would eventually provide certainty.

Instead, faith has offered something better.

Faith has taught me that certainty and trust are not the same thing.

Certainty says, "I know exactly how this will turn out."

Trust says, "I don't know how this will turn out, but I know I won't face it alone."

Over the years I have walked with congregations through celebrations and crises, births and deaths, marriages and divorces, disasters and recoveries. I've watched communities rebuild after pandemics and wildfires. I've watched people discover strengths they never knew they possessed. I've watched doors close and unexpected doors open.

Again and again, I have seen that God's faithfulness is usually much clearer in the rearview mirror than through the windshield.

That doesn't make transitions easier.

It doesn't magically erase grief when we leave beloved people behind. It doesn't answer every question about the future. It doesn't remove the anxiety that can accompany change.

But it does remind me that every chapter of my life has contained moments when I was convinced I could not possibly navigate what lay ahead.

And yet, somehow, I did.

More accurately, God and a whole lot of people helped me do it.

Looking back at that old blog post, I still agree with something my younger self wrote: "You have to trust God with the past and the future in order to trust God with the present."

The present is where life actually happens.

The present is where my children are growing up faster than I can believe.

The present is where congregations continue to do beautiful and courageous ministry.

The present is where friendships deepen, meals are shared, laughter erupts unexpectedly, and grace appears in ordinary moments.

The present is where God meets us.

The challenge, of course, is that the present can feel less interesting than the stories we tell about the past and less exciting than the possibilities we imagine for the future.

Yet scripture consistently calls us back to today. Not because the past is unimportant. Not because the future doesn't matter. But because today is where we can actually love our neighbors, extend kindness, make a difference, and experience God's presence.

As I prepare for yet another transition, I find myself returning to the question I asked in 2008: How do we get unstuck?

I don't think the answer is found in finally solving the tension between past and future. I think the answer is learning to live within that tension. We honor the past without becoming imprisoned by it. We prepare for the future without demanding guarantees. And we practice noticing the grace that is available right here, right now.

Maybe that is what trust looks like.

Not having all the answers.

Not eliminating uncertainty.

Not perfectly balancing memory and anticipation.

Just taking the next faithful step while trusting that God is already present in both the road behind us and the road ahead.

My younger self would probably be disappointed to learn that eighteen years later I still make too many lists. But perhaps she would also be encouraged to know that the God she was trying to trust in 2008 has remained faithful ever since.

And that is enough to keep moving forward.