“I need you to trust me”

For Holy Week: earning the trust of a willful toddler (spoilers: it’s me)

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

A few Sundays ago, I took my toddler to the Narthex bathroom before Mass began. As I was washing my own hands, she began her endless stream of demands requests to wash her own hands, right now, in this particular way. Exasperated—because I knew I had a plan in mind that would meet her needs, even though I hadn’t told it to her yet—I said:

I need you to trust that what I’m asking you to do is for your good.

Even as I said it, I was aware of how futile it was. Even if she understands the meaning of the words—“trust” and “good” as used here are big concepts—this statement alone will not somehow create trust within her. My asking her to trust me in the waiting will not help her wait more patiently unless she already perceives me to be trustworthy.

But it did serve to get her attention, which gave me enough time for me to narrate my process and help her wash her hands.¹ That explanation of what to expect allowed her to trust and to be at peace with the waiting I was asking of her. Because she knew I had a plan—and especially because she knew what that plan entailed—she could see and recognize that I was working for her good.

In many ways toddlerhood is like this—a series of endless demands. How could it not be? These children have the cognitive ability to know what they like and don’t, what they want and don’t, but they don’t always have the ability to communicate or articulate it easily, or to deal with the disappointment when things don’t go their way. They are not yet big enough to reach countertops, to open refrigerators, to drive cars… and even if they were physically capable, they aren’t yet mentally and emotionally mature enough for the responsibility to use their freedom well. So they demand. They ask. They plead. They whine.

They don’t always trust. They haven’t yet learned that we, as parents, are (or ought to be) constantly working for their good. That we are striving to model and teach goodness for them. That we are making plans to help them grow up holy, healthy, and whole. They can’t yet understand that the things they want are not always in their best interest. Heck, even now as an adult, I’m still constantly learning how the things that my parents expected of me were ordered toward my good—many of these lessons I haven’t been able to really learn and internalize until I became a parent myself.

We’re working on patience a lot these days—both growing in it ourselves and trying to help our children grow in it. For example, a few days ago, the toddler told me that she wanted a glass of milk. James was in the kitchen chopping potatoes, so I told her that we would get milk in a few minutes when he was finished. She was content with this for a moment, drank a sip of water, read a few pages of a book with me, and then hopped off the couch, went over to James, and said:

I want milk. Mommy say too many people in there.

She clearly understood that I was asking her to wait, and why I was asking her to wait. She didn’t get upset or throw a fit. She also didn’t want to wait—so she came up with an alternative option.

If the issue is too many people in the kitchen, maybe I can ask the person who’s already in the kitchen!

She didn’t frame it as a request when speaking with James. It was a statement, a report of what had transpired. But if you spent any amount of time around toddlers, you’ll know that this is how they operate. They like to test, to verify that what one adult has said is the truth. She didn’t ask James for a glass of milk, but she was curious to see if he agreed that Daddy, Mommy, and Toddler in the kitchen would be too many people in the kitchen… If he’d said, “Oh! No, I don’t mind her coming in to get you a glass of milk!” then I’m confident she’d’ve run back to me and demanded I get her that cuppa ASAP.

Instead, he, out of his abundant love for her, just went ahead and got her that glass of milk. She was overjoyed and trotted it back over to me, saying “Daddy got me milk!”

This is trust in action. When you know deep within your bones that the people in your life are for you—especially those with legitimate authority over you—you can test boundaries, seek second opinions, and find creative solutions because you can rest safe in the knowledge that they will not let harm befall you (to the extent they can prevent it). You can also rage against their boundaries, express your overwhelming disappointment or frustration, and beg that things be otherwise than they are… because you know they’re able to handle it.

Now, of course, as human beings, our capacity is finite. Our virtue is “in progress”. Our nature is fallen-and-redeemed. But God does not suffer these same limitations. Our trust in Him can grow to infinity because He is infinitely good. In other words, we are the limiting factor when it comes to how much we trust Him. I find great comfort in that—there is always room to grow. If I’m struggling with what the Lord is asking of me, I can rest in the knowledge that He is still trustworthy.

And here’s where it comes around to Holy Week. Leading up to the Passion, Jesus is telling his disciples the same thing I was telling our two-year-old that Sunday in the bathroom: “I need you to trust me. Here’s what’s going to happen. I know you might not understand it, but I need you to trust that what I’m doing is for your good.”²

We see how they respond: Judas, Peter, John. Rightly, we condemn Judas’ actions. We weep with Peter over his betrayal. We thank God for John’s fidelity. We know the ending, so as we walk through the Triduum, we can see and understand these responses with the clarity of hindsight. I know I can’t be the only one who feels, deep down, grateful that I was not tested like these men were.

But how often are we Judas? How often are we Peter?

We forget, sometimes, that we are like children before the Lord. We strive to be “grown up” and in so doing, we bungle things. We choose ourselves when it’s uncalled for. We pursue good things in inappropriate ways. We let our priorities shift out of alignment and seek a lower good before (or instead of) a higher good. We allow ourselves to “act out” for the sake of “fitting in”—even for the sake of “evangelizing” or “enculturating” or “building a relationship”… as if the Gospel is strengthened by our contrary witness.

In other words, we (like our children) are fickle and doubtful. We don’t trust Him, in spite of endless proofs that we should. We think that we know best. We let our lives become a series of demands, blissfully unaware that what we ask for would not serve us well. And we wail, and we protest, and we try to understand. Sometimes we are able to see, either in the moment or after the fact, what He is doing in our hearts. Other times, we have to trust that we may only understand on the other side of the veil.

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

- Matthew 7:7-11 ESV, emphasis mine

We know from experience that human parents are imperfect. We all bear the cross of being raised by imperfect parents, and while some of these crosses are heavier than others, no one is exempt. Likewise, no matter how hard we strive for perfection, all of our children will bear this cross. The Holy Family is the only exemption from this universal human experience. But our Father in Heaven is not fickle. He is infinitely trustworthy. And, like a wise parent of a willful toddler, He will sometimes ask things of us that we don’t understand.

I want to share with you all more about the season of uncertainty that our family is in, but the story isn’t finished yet, and I don’t think it’s mine to tell right now. But if you feel like you’re in a season of waiting and demanding and crying and flailing and pleading and hoping and wishing… well, you’re not alone. James and I are taking one step at a time, not because we want to move so slowly, but because that’s all we can see. We’re learning to trust one another as well as trusting the Lord. It isn’t always easy to do either.

And yet—our call is to trust, to remain seated at His feet in the midst of the trials and the struggles, to hope-against-hope that some fruit will come from it. Our call is to take St. John and St. Mary Magdalene for our examples. To take Our Lady as our Mother.³ I know that if I can remain rooted in the knowledge of who God is, then I can continue waiting. I can remain in the discomfort, hoping against hope that what He is working in our lives and in our hearts is ordered toward our good.

My prayer during this coming Holy Week is that we, like Our Lady and St. John and Mary Magdalene, we can remain seated at the foot of the Cross, weeping and not understanding, but trusting nonetheless.

How do we learn to hear His promises—even those that seem cryptic or tragic, those that we don’t understand—and remain with him as they are fulfilled? How do we trust that the Cross must end in the Resurrection?

1. I don’t know who I need to speak to about getting toddler-size potties and sinks in the family bathroom, but I am filled with righteous (??) indignation at the gap between “gets a diaper changed on the foldaway table” and “can mount the adult-size toilet and reach the adult-sized sink unassisted”. The Mother’s Day Out program our 2yo attends—at this same parish—has a kid-size bathroom, and it’s amazing how much pride she and her classmates take in being able to do this basic function for themselves from start to finish. Okay, potty-training rant over.

2. Predictions of the Passion can be found in Matthew (16:21; 17:22-23; 21:18-19), Mark (8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34), and Luke (9:22; 9:43b-44; 18:31-33). In John’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that He will be “lifted up” (3:14; 8:28: 12:32).

3. We could talk all day about the relationship between one’s experience of human motherhood and one’s experience of Our Lady’s motherhood. A topic for another time, perhaps.