“Every good and perfect gift”
Sometimes I don’t believe good things.
People often encourage me to write about my experiences, and this is a thing I’ve noticed. Sometimes I don’t believe good things.
It is a trauma response, or so I read. A tendency or response when you’ve lived trauma — moments strung together in a hyper-sensitive fight, flight or freeze response to circumstances when you can’t see beyond survival.
No cause for alarm. I’m not living in those moments now. But sometimes it feels like I still am. Because our hearts and minds form habits. Tendencies. So sometimes I don’t believe good things or good people. Even when they’re staring me in the face, in all their faithfulness and trustworthiness. And goodness. Sometimes I still can’t believe. Through no fault of their own, the gifts stumble into the spiral of my history. And the habits I’m trying to break. Desperately.
I read that the trauma response often masks every other response and hijacks every natural emotion. A filter through which I often view and process my experiences long past any moments in the thick of hardship. Even in the midst of uncommon blessing. It’s my involuntary and default response to things. And I wish it wasn’t.
When there is good in my life, sometimes I don’t believe it. I can’t rest with it. Because I’m constantly worried and watching for when I will lose it. And so I question. And question and question it to death. I analyze every word and every action. I second guess. And ask what if. I overthink my own responses, afraid that I will cause someone to leave. Or a situation to fall apart. Or worse, that something I do will cause pain or hurt to someone I love. That I will somehow cause a hurt that can’t be redeemed. That I will be to blame for the loss of something good. That all of my responses will inevitably be too much. Or too little.
My default is that I will experience loss. So when someone or something stays, there’s a part of me that simply can’t believe it. Can’t trust it. I’m surprised and unsure.
In the absence of information, I often believe the worst. I fear the worst. In the absence of information, I’m afraid. I look for reminders. Often. I’ve learned to ask for what I need. Silly things. “Are you here?” “Is everything ok?” “If there is bad news tell me.” Or even just to say “I’m afraid.” For no good reason. For what seems like baffling reasons from the outside. I ask, “Have I done anything wrong?” For fear that somehow, I will accidentally do something that will cause someone to leave, or something to be destroyed. If I make a mistake, I assume it’s the last straw. Faithfulness or steadfastness in another person is hard for me to believe. It feels too good to be true. So forgiveness given freely with no repercussions is often downright astonishing.
These are the tendencies that I sometimes feel will destroy anything good that comes into my life. As if the past is continually creeping and stealing from today. And stealing from the future. But still I hope.
That’s the crux. The plot twist, if you will. Still I hope.
“Every good and perfect gift is from above.”
The source of all good and light is there. And it’s not me. Thank God. It’s not me. And my learned responses. It’s not me.
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who never changes or casts a shifting shadow.” (James 1:17)
Good things come from God. The Father of lights, it says. I read the words and it disrupts all those tendencies. Because I know God. I know His faithfulness. I know His provision. I know His comfort. I know the consistency of His truth. And when I say I know. I KNOW. Through tears and hard-fought faith. I know through trauma.
Good things come from God. And when my tendencies raise their head with doubts and questions and disbelief, I’m learning to hold. To hold fast to the One who never changes or casts a shifting shadow. The One in whom there is no deceit or misdirection. No gotcha moment, no lie. No false hope, no exhaustion of purpose. No loss.
Only grace. And mercy. And goodness. And the ability to change and grow. Where I find those things, there He is.
And so I’m learning to retool my thinking. Not to be satisfied and complacent with those learned tendencies. But to make room for hope. For growth. When I think of love and friendship and trust and faithfulness, as frightening as those words are sometimes, rest is possible. Goodness is possible — maybe even sometimes probable. I can find that place of rest. A place to step in, however tentatively and think differently. Experience differently. Love and give and receive differently. A place where He is in the midst. A good place.
Hello & welcome! I’m Haley Montgomery, and I’m the designer and owner of 
