After almost a month in the USA, I feel like I crash landed back into every day life in Israel. I won’t say that is bad, but it hasn’t been easy. I think I was on such a high, from the moment I arrived in the States until I left, that when I got back to Israel, everyday life seemed almost overwhelming.

I suppose I got my eyes off the goodness of God and back onto my own situation—literally—no suppose about it. As many of you know I’ve been struggling with back problems. However, thanks to the prayers of many of you, the wonderful work of my Michigan chiropractor, and my being sure to not overdo it on the carrying/lifting etc., all went well—until my last day in Ohio. (I’ll share more about my trip in another post.)

Can you believe it? The day before I was supposed to fly back to Israel I was sitting at a conference where the theme was being “unhackable” and my back got hacked. It’s one thing to feel my back go out when I’m alone at home with friends I can call on. Quite another when I am sitting at a table in a conference filled with people whom I’ve only just gotten to know in person—after close to a year of corresponding with many of them. It’s hard to humble myself and ask for help. It’s hard to admit I need help. It’s hard to be dependent on others.

But isn’t that true for all of us, at one level or another? I’m sure there are some things it’s easy to depend on others for. But to expect newly made friends to help me? To expect my hotel room-mate to be willing to fight with me for a handicapped accessible hotel room on our last night in the hotel? To be so reliant on a friend to get to me to the airport—whom I last had contact with more than 30 years ago back in college?

The real problem though, is trusting in God. He is the one who created me. He is the one who opened the doors for my (amazing) trip. He is the one who surrounded me with amazing people, new brothers and sisters in Christ who had only been a picture on Facebook a few weeks before, and renewed the fellowship with precious friends from university.

So here is the hardcore truth. I don’t like to need others. If you’ve read my book, it should be pretty obvious why. I’ve had to, for the most part, learn to take care of myself. But as I think about it and write it, I realize—that is a lie! My whole life has been and will continue to be one long journey learning to trust God in every aspect of my life—with the publication of my book and the care of my back—with my relationships and responsibilities—and with changing a lightbulb that is too high for me to reach.

At the end of the day, without God’s grace in every part of my life, I’m truly bereft, helpless, and hopeless. And so I relearn on a deeper level what I already realized in my book—every day is a new opportunity to be thankful and trust my God, or to focus on my own inability.

Somehow I don’t think I’m alone in that. Whether it is health, a burden for a much-loved family member gone astray, a burden and longing for God’s blessing on your nation, struggles with bills, relationships, or just plain life… our best efforts are so feeble in our own strength.

God sends answers that we aren’t expecting: A gracious Canadian roommate in Ohio; friends from college days, a kind wheelchair attendant, a young woman from Russia with an incredible gift for fixing things, and an unexpected president in America.

Some of God’s answers seems to us a bit less palatable than others, but the last time I heard, God is still on the throne, and He has promised to never leave or forsake those who are His, and He still holds the nations in His hands.

So I think I can trust Him today. I can’t trust Him tomorrow—I’m not there yet. But as each day comes anew, I am gifted with a new today, a new now, in which to trust Him more, first, and better, with each and every situation He allows in my life.

Join me in giving thanks to our wonderful God and Savior for all His goodness to us.