Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me (Ps 42:7).

Our missionary community gathered for morning prayer, spread out across the gravel parking lot of our office, reading these words in the “Liturgy of the Hours.” Deep calls to deep. Breakers and waves. There was something in those words for me, but I couldn’t quite grasp it.

I felt way too stressed out, confused, angry, and discouraged. A few years ago, my husband Kevin and I said yes to a leadership position in Family Missions Company. We have been so blessed by our role, and yet, it can feel heavy. Recently, my calm, fit, happy husband was diagnosed with dangerously high blood pressure.

I freaked out. Why? Was it the responsibility of his position? If so, why would God call us to something that was hurting us? Was it a sign we needed to change something in our lives? If so, what? I felt like we had abandoned ourselves to God, and he had abandoned us. I wanted to understand what was going on, how to respond, what the plan should be, what I could do to make things better.

My husband, infuriatingly to me, kept reminding me that we needed to trust God. Sure, I thought, I will trust him once I understand what is going on.

And yet—deep calls to deep. I prayed with this image, and the Holy Spirit nudged me to really see myself. As long as I insisted on trying to understand, to keep my head above water, to be in control, I was buffeted by breakers and waves, violently tossed about and consumed by anxiety. But the truth I have learned over and over again is this: When I surrender, when I accept that I don’t understand, when I sink down in humility to a place of dark unknowing, where I can trust God because God is good, because he loves me, because I KNOW that I can trust him—then in deep and peaceful darkness, the violent waves of fear and confusion can’t touch me. I can rest in the depths of his love and mercy. I calmly trust him. 

I slowly found my way into the deep over this past week. I surrendered my need to understand, and I spent extra time in prayer. I loved on my husband and walked with him as we figured out his medical options. He is doing better physically. I am doing much better spiritually. In the depths of God’s love and mercy, in the humble surrender of my need to understand, there is peace.