Don't Seek a Human to Do God's Job

Monica Portogallo considers what she has learned about trust from living through difficult situations.

In danger I called on the Lord; 
    the Lord answered me and set me free. 

The Lord is with me; I am not afraid; 
    what can mortals do against me? 

The Lord is with me as my helper; 
    I shall look in triumph on my foes. 

Better to take refuge in the Lord 
    than to put one’s trust in mortals. 

Better to take refuge in the Lord 
    than to put one’s trust in princes. 

I was hard pressed and falling, 
    but the Lord came to my help. 

The Lord, my strength and might, 
    has become my savior. (Psalm 118:5-9, 13-14)

God is my strength

When I read this psalm for the first time as a teenager, it really spoke to me. I loved the idea of trusting in God so fully that no one could hurt me. I vowed to name my first daughter Gabrielle someday, because it means “God is my strength.”  

Still, somehow, I have continued to struggle most of my life with putting my trust in people in inappropriate ways. If someone treated me badly, I let it affect my sense of worth. I cared too much about what other people thought about me, and not enough about what God thought about me. I saw my value as coming from others’ assessments of me rather than from my Creator, the actual source of my value. I thought a knight in shining armor would save me instead of my actual Savior. 

I had thought that the spiritual and psychological work I had done to cope with my difficult marriage had cured me of this tendency. I learned to see myself, including my strengths and weaknesses, through God’s eyes, not through the eyes of uninformed bystanders or a broken, critical husband. I trusted God to lead me out of the dangerous situation my marriage had become, and He did it in a beautiful, providential way that assured me I made the right decision. 

Falling into old habits 

Unfortunately, old habits die hard. As the months went on, I found myself contemplating the emotional scars that I have from that difficult relationship. I started thinking that I needed to be in a healthy relationship with a good man who treated me well in order to fully heal. What’s more, I was starting to despair. I surmised the pool of good men who are both available and willing to be in a relationship with a 40-something divorced woman of average looks, who waits until marriage and has two kids contains exactly zero people.  

I was thinking about this situation at Mass one Sunday. God, in His mercy, put this thought in my head: 

"Monica, are you depending on a human to heal you again? Don’t you know that God is the source of all healing? Don’t put your trust in princes. God will heal you in whatever way He sees fit. You need to trust Him.” 

The reality check I needed

This was the reality check I needed. Once again, I was trying to put a human in God’s role, and it is both foolish and unfair to expect a mortal man, even a good one, to do God’s job.  

Now, I don’t know the future. Maybe after the annulment process is finished, God will send a good man my way, and God will let him be an instrument in my healing process. Or maybe He won’t.   

What I do know is God will heal me if I let Him. How He chooses to do it is not really my concern. My concern is being open to His Grace. 

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Copyright 2024 Monica Portogallo
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