Nothing about this chapter went the way I planned, and that’s where God met me.

To listen to ths episode click here.

This month, the Grace to Trust series is anchored in the story of Joseph, one of Scripture’s most compelling pictures of what it looks like to trust God through disruption, waiting, and hindsight.

As I’ve been reading Trusting God by Jerry Bridges, the Lord has used several truths from that book to shape my own heart, and these posts reflect some of the golden nuggets I’ve been carrying with me along the way.

If listening feels easier than reading right now, you can hear the Scripture audio of Joseph’s story here.

It was 2021, and we were finally breaking ground on the home we had planned for years. Every square foot had been thought through. Every bedroom had a purpose. It was the right size for our family of four, and it felt like a finish line after a long season of waiting.

While we built, my parents graciously let us live in their basement. It had one bedroom, one bathroom, and a large living area. Lance and I took the bedroom. Anna had a small space set up in the living room. And Noah, on the other side of that living room, was the garage. It was heated and cooled, so we turned it into a full bedroom for him. We were packed in, but it was temporary, or so we thought.

One night at baseball practice, my phone rang. It was my uncle, who was caring full time for my aunt as she battled ALS. He explained that DHR was requesting a family placement for his three month old grandson and his two year old granddaughter.

The little girl was already part of our daily life. We had been watching her full time since she was six months old. So of course, we said yes.

That night was a blur of paperwork and home inspections. We set up a playpen in our bedroom. We added a cot beside Anna’s bed. Suddenly there were four children in that one basement space, and I could feel my mind trying to do math it couldn’t solve.

As I lay there that night, my thoughts kept circling the house plans. The slab had already been poured. The design was done. There was no space for four children. This was not what I had planned.

What I didn’t know then was that this moment would begin a deep heart work the Lord had already planned for me.

The baby eventually went to live with his dad after six weeks. The journey with their mother was long and painful, but God’s grace was quietly at work the whole time. Years later, she was reunited with her children and is doing well today.

I wish I could say that when life hit hard, I trusted easily. From the outside, it probably looked like I did. But I didn’t.

I was angry. Angry at my cousin for her lack of accountability. Angry that she put her children in this position. Angry that she put me in it too.

That summer, between the stress of building our home and the bitterness I’d been carrying, I hit a wall. One afternoon at the pool, I laid back in a chair, grabbed my phone, and desperately searched for something that might steady my soul. I didn’t even know what to search. “Mad at my cousin” wasn’t exactly going to help. Finally I typed one word: fostering.

The first episode that popped up was called “Common Myths of Fostering.” I pressed play.

Every point felt like a mirror. Guilty. Exposed. Then the podcast named one myth that stopped me cold: loving the children while wanting the birth mom out of the picture.

That sounded appealing. But it also revealed something I didn’t want to face. The goal was never for me to rescue this little girl. The goal was for her mother to get better, to become the mom God desired her to be. My role was to provide safety while healing happened. That meant the journey with the mother mattered just as much as caring for the child.

That day something that had hardened in my heart was removed, and grace took its place.

Nothing became instantly easy. The situation was still messy. But my posture changed. And because my heart shifted, God carried me through that season with purpose, not resentment.

Throughout Scripture, God gives us stories that help us make sense of seasons that only become clear in hindsight. Joseph is one of those stories, a man who endured years of loss, injustice, and waiting before he ever understood what God was doing. His life reminds us that God’s purposes are often clearer looking back than they are while we’re living them, and that trust is often formed long before clarity ever arrives..

Grace to Trust

There are moments when life doesn’t just interrupt our plans, it exposes how tightly we’ve been holding them.

In 2021, an unexpected family placement disrupted a season we had carefully planned. Grace didn’t step in to smooth the logistics or make the emotions easier. It did something quieter and deeper. It began reshaping my heart inside the disruption.

Philippians 1:6 reminds us that God finishes what He starts. That promise speaks not only to salvation, but to the ongoing work of shaping us. God is committed to completing His work in us, even when the process feels inconvenient or poorly timed.

2 Peter 3:18 calls us to grow in grace. Growth requires surrender. Grace does not simply comfort us, it stretches us, inviting us to loosen our grip on control and trust that God is at work beneath the surface.

Psalm 23:6 assures us that goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our lives. Not only the peaceful days, but the disruptive ones too. God’s presence does not withdraw when life becomes complicated.

And Romans 8:38–39 anchors us when fear rises. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Not anger. Not resentment. Not imperfect responses in hard seasons.

In Trusting God, Jerry Bridges reminds us, “Our responsibility is to trust God for what we do not understand.”

Joseph and the story he never saw

There’s one more thing about Joseph’s story that always leaves me in awe.

When Joseph welcomed his family into Egypt, he had no idea what God was ultimately setting in motion. He was simply responding with obedience and grace in the moment he’d been given. But that decision, that reunion, that season of provision, established Israel’s presence in Egypt. It laid groundwork for a story Joseph would never live to see unfold, the story of Exodus, redemption, and deliverance on a scale far greater than his own life.

Joseph never knew that his faithfulness in suffering would become the setting for God’s future salvation plan.

And that humbles me.

Because it means that even in the small, even in the hard, even in the seasons where nothing feels significant or resolved, God is still working. He is building foundations we may never see. Writing chapters that don’t end with us.

Trust does not require understanding the whole story. It asks us to be faithful in the part we’re living.

Reset

Ask yourself: Where am I feeling most unsettled right now? What outcome am I trying to control? Is there a relationship or situation I’ve been resisting instead of entrusting to God?

Bring those answers into prayer. Rather than asking God to change the circumstance, ask Him to steady your heart within it.

A simple prayer might sound like this: God, this season feels unsteady. I don’t know how to fix it, and I don’t want to carry it alone. Shape my heart here. Help me trust You with what feels out of control.

Then choose one small response of grace this week. Release the need to manage. Extend compassion where frustration has been building. Name the resentment you’ve been holding and place it before God.

Grace grows when we stop bracing against the shaking and begin leaning into trust. 

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Conclusion

Over these weeks, we’ve talked about grace, not as something we graduate from, but as something we learn to live inside. Trust didn’t arrive all at once. It grew slowly, often quietly, in the very places I wanted out.

Looking back, I can see this journey wasn’t about getting answers or gaining control. It was about learning to stay. To keep showing up with open hands. To let grace steady me instead of rushing to escape the shaking.

That’s what grace to trust looks like. Not a life without disruption, but a heart anchored in the middle of it.

And this journey doesn’t end here. Grace doesn’t flinch when life does. It steadies what fear shakes, often growing us in the very places we would rather avoid. It keeps inviting us back to the same simple posture, open hands, lifted eyes, a willing heart.

If you want a quiet space to keep walking this out, the Reset Room offers guided prayers, reflection tools, and resources to support you along the way. You can also subscribe to receive future teachings directly in your inbox through Her View of His Grace, so you don’t have to keep up, you can simply keep showing up.

Thank you for being here and until next time, live through the lens of His grace.