I Got Trust Issues Pt. 1: When God Doesn’t Show Up the Way You Expected

I’ve been sitting with a realization I didn’t even know I needed to have. A lot of my trust issues didn’t start with people… they started with God. And that’s, honestly, uncomfortable to say out loud.

Because if you grew up in church—or even just around faith—you’re taught how to trust Him. You’re taught how to pray, how to believe, how to stand on His word. But nobody really teaches you what to do when that trust feels shaken.

I was taught all the right things. Pray without ceasing. Ask and it shall be given. Have faith and don’t doubt. And I believed that. So when I needed Him, I did exactly what I was taught to do. I prayed. I believed. I trusted. And then life didn’t go how I prayed it would.

In 2020, my dad passed away. On September 7, my mom and I found him unconscious, and for weeks after that, he was kept alive by a machine. And I prayed—not casually, not passively. I mean really prayed. Days, hours, minutes, seconds. I believed fully that God was going to restore him, that He was going to bring him back to us. My faith was that radical. I wasn’t hoping. I knew.

And then… He didn’t.

On September 17, we made the decision to take him off the machine. And somehow, in that moment, I felt peace—a real, unexplainable kind of peace. But even with that peace, something in me shifted. Because I had believed God for something so deeply, so fully, and the outcome didn’t match my faith. And at 30, when your faith gets shaken like that, it does something to you.

I didn’t stop loving God. I didn’t stop believing in Him. But I did stop trusting Him the same way. And I didn’t even realize it at first, because it didn’t show up as rebellion. It showed up as adjustment. As wisdom. As “being realistic.”

I started moving differently. I still prayed, but with lower expectations. I still believed, but with a backup plan. I still loved people, but more cautiously—not fully open, not fully surrendered, just guarded. Somewhere along the way, I made a quiet agreement with myself: don’t expect too much, and you won’t be disappointed.

The truth is, when you feel like God didn’t come through for you, it changes how you experience everything else. Because if the One you trusted most didn’t show up how you needed Him to, why would anyone else? So you brace for impact. You prepare for disappointment. You keep your expectations low—even in places where they should feel safe. And you call it maturity.

But I’m slowly starting to realize something that’s been hard to sit with: God didn’t fail me. I just didn’t understand Him. And that’s not easy to accept, because it means sitting with the tension that His “no,” His silence, and His timing don’t cancel His goodness—even when they don’t make sense to me.

It means letting go of the version of God I created in my expectations and learning to trust who He actually is. And if I’m honest, that kind of trust feels different. It’s not as easy, not as automatic, not as confident as it used to be. It’s more intentional now. More chosen.

I’m learning that trusting God isn’t just about believing He can do something. It’s about trusting Him even when He doesn’t do it the way I wanted, even when the outcome hurts, even when I don’t get closure, and even when I have questions that don’t get answered right away.

Right now, healing doesn’t look like having it all figured out. It looks like being honest. It looks like admitting that some of my trust issues aren’t really about people—they’re about unresolved disappointment with God. And instead of pretending that’s not there, I’m learning to bring that back to Him too. Not just my prayers or my faith, but my confusion, my frustration, and my unmet expectations.

I’m learning to trust Him again, but I’m not there yet. Some days it’s easy. Some days it’s not. Some days I feel full of faith, and other days I’m still working through questions. But I do know this: I don’t want my disappointment with God to keep bleeding into every relationship I have. I don’t want to keep bracing for impact in places where I should feel safe.

So even in the tension, even in the uncertainty, I’m choosing to lean back in. Not perfectly, not fully, but intentionally.

Maybe real faith isn’t built when everything goes the way we prayed. Maybe it’s built in the moments where it doesn’t—and we choose to trust Him anyway.

If this resonated with you, you’re not alone.