I’ve been trying to write this post for weeks now, but the words just weren’t there. I couldn’t seem to put into words what choosing to trust the Lord really means. It’s been on my mind for a few months now, and I think I finally know what I want to say.

What does it mean to trust the Lord? In my mind, it means to put your life in His hands and trust He will see you through whatever storm you face. It’s not really that easy; nothing important ever is. I’ve come to believe it’s supposed to be hard. Unconditional trust isn’t something the natural man knows how to do. We have to learn to trust the Lord unconditionally. We do that a little bit at a time, day by day. Every single day we have to choose to trust the Lord.

It’s easy to trust the Lord when things are going well. How do we trust Him when it’s hard and we don’t know what comes next? How do we trust the Lord when it looks like nothing could ever be right again? How do we trust the Lord when it appears His promises could never come true? To a certain extent, it’s like stepping into the abyss. You just have to do it. It’s scary to trust what you can’t see, especially when your mortal eyes and mortal perspective can’t possibly see a way through. When in doubt, choose to trust the Lord.

Over the last few years, I’ve learned the hard way how to choose to trust the Lord. Even then, I don’t always remember to trust. Sometimes fear gets to me and overwhelms that urge to trust. How do you trust the Lord when facing down a possible terminal illness? How do you trust the Lord’s promises when you can’t see past what’s in front of you?

Trust takes practice, even when it involves trusting the Lord. It also takes a change in perspective. It also means remembering that the Savior has been down every road any of us will ever travel. Heavenly Father knows all. Together, they will lead us through whatever storm we face. Although we may not be able to see the path ahead, they can see it. They are holding their hands out to us, willing to lead us through the dark, but it’s up to us to take hold.

This idea of trust, it doesn’t overtake the practice of faith. Rather, it’s an aspect of faith. Learning to trust is something we can do to help build our faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. As we learn to trust Them, we get to know them. We begin to understand Their nature, to the extent that we can. They will never let us down. Our Savior has been through everything we have been through. As we come to understand that, we come to better understand the Atonement. With increased understanding comes increased faith. With increased faith, the gospel goes from abstract to something that works in our daily lives. We can see how the Plan of Salvation actually works in our daily lives.

The better we get at trusting the Lord and His promises, the less room there is in our lives for fear. This is because trust leads to faith, and where there is faith there is no fear. When we have faith, there is simply no room for fear. That’s not to say it’s easy, because it isn’t. Like anything else in life, it takes practice to get better. But we’re also human and sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we forget to turn first to the Lord. We forget He is reaching out His hand to us, ready to comfort us and lead us through the storm. But every day we can choose to trust Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. We can make that conscious choice and in time we’ll come to know them and trust them in good times and in bad.

Every day, I do my best to trust my Heavenly Father to see me through whatever comes next. My medical status right now is what I would call stable but unknown. Earlier this month, I spent several days in the hospital with dizziness and blood pressure issues. At one point, my blood pressure got down to 79/40. I saw many different doctors and they ran several different tests. None of those tests produced a diagnosis. Thanks to two medications, my blood pressure stabilized back in the normal range and I was discharged. Following a hospital stay in late August, I had seen both an endocrinologist and a nephrologist for a lower than normal blood pressure. Endocrinology produced blood work that pointed perhaps to hypothyroidism, but not classic hypothyroidism. For now I’m on a low dose of a synthetic thyroid hormone. Further testing still cannot point to what exactly is going on with my endocrine system.

I saw my nephrologist again and he essentially threw his hands up in defeat. He has no idea what is going on. The hospital tested for all the usual answers and none of them were the right answer. So here I am with two medications to my list and no answers as to why my blood pressure is so wonky. I have no answers as to my dizziness either, dizziness that is sometimes so bad all I can do is lay in bed. I don’t know why my thyroid blood work is out of whack. A trip to Mayo Clinic is in my future, but there are no guarantees that they will have answers either. In the meantime, my only answer is to put my trust in my Heavenly Father, and trust that He will see me through whatever comes next.