S9.13 | Navigating Challenges and Trusting God: My Difficult Sicily Trip
Welcome back to another episode of "Affirming Truths" with your host, Carla Arges. On today's episode, Carla takes us on a heartfelt and challenging journey through her recent trip to Sicily. Initially planned as a joyful adventure to reconnect her father with his roots, the trip quickly turned into an unexpected challenge, testing Carla’s faith, resilience, and dependence on God. Through immense struggles, Carla finds divine strength and profound lessons that she shares to uplift and encourage you in your own life’s challenges.
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Key Takeaways
Circumstances are Unpredictable but God’s Character is Steadfast:
Carla's trip to Sicily was rife with unexpected challenges, but she emphasizes the importance of leaning on God's unchanging character rather than our limited understanding.
God’s Plans vs Our Expectations:
Carla highlights that our expectations, even when we act with good intentions, might not always align with God's plans. She encourages listeners to trust God's greater vision.
Transformation through Hardship:
By sharing her challenging experience, Carla illustrates how God uses difficult circumstances to deepen our dependence on Him and strengthen our faith.
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Foundations to Healing—-> https://www.carlaarges.com/renewing-hope
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Check out the blog
Resources:
5 Steps to Building Resiliency
Affirming Truths Facebook Community
5 Tips for Overcoming a Negative Body Image
Who You Say I Am Biblical Affirmation Cards
TRANSCRIPT
Carla Arges [00:00:08]:
Hey friends, welcome to affirming truths. I'm your friend and host, Carla Arges. This show is a safe place to share our struggles, grow in faith, and root our identity in Christ. My hope is that you will leave each episode feeling encouraged in your journey. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode and it would mean the world to me if you would leave a review. I am so glad you're here. Let's get started. Hello friends, and welcome to this episode of affirming Truth.
Carla Arges [00:00:43]:
Where do I even begin? First of all, thank you so much for tuning in the last three weeks while I was traveling in Sicily and listening to some incredible women I had on the show. But I want to update you a little bit about my trip, and if you are on my email list, you will have gotten a glimpse into the trip. If you follow me on Instagram, you will have gotten a glimpse into the trip and I just wanted to share with you now in more detail for a reason, not for your sympathy, although you may feel bad for me when you hear the trip, but really actually to encourage your heart when circumstances don't pan out the way we thought. When things get really hard, like when we are in the midst of the storm, when we feel like we don't have the strength to go on, God shows up. And I know many of you are in that spot right now, like, you don't know how you're going to make it through the next day. You don't know where you're going to get the strength to face what you have to face tomorrow. And I want to tell you that in Christ you have the strength. And we may not be able to understand why God allows certain things, but we don't have to rest on our understanding.
Carla Arges [00:02:13]:
What we rest on is the character of God. So a little backstory here. My parents moved to be closer to me late last year, and this has really been years of God's work in my heart. If, you know, I have childhood trauma. I was kicked down my house when I was 14. There has been some tension. There was a lot of harmful things that my parents did. And, I mean, they did the best that they could, but the best with their own traumas traumatized me.
Carla Arges [00:02:54]:
Their best with their untreated mental illness created trauma in my life. And, you know, we have to call it what it is. Not to paint my parents out to be monsters, but it is what it is. These are the facts. And God's done a lot of work over the years to bring my heart to a place of forgiveness and acceptance in really working on reconciling the relationship so that my son can have a flourishing relationship with his grandparents, so that I can have my parents in my life in a meaningful way. Yes, with boundaries, especially with my mom. But they move closer to us, and they moved into a retirement community, and they are used to being in very multicultural environments. Both my parents are immigrants.
Carla Arges [00:03:50]:
My dad has a really thick italian accent, and they're used to being around a lot of immigrants. And so there's this camaraderie in spirit, even if you're not from the same place, but the fact that you're an immigrant. And where I live and the part of the city that I live in is very anglo saxon, very long term canadian, multi generational canadian people. And so my dad was having a really hard time fitting in in the retirement community. There was less patience for his accent. There was less patience for, you know, different cultural point of view, even though italian culture is not so far removed from general canadian culture. But he felt this gap, and he was feeling lonely. And it looked like to my mom and I that he was getting a little bit depressed.
Carla Arges [00:04:54]:
So I thought, let's take him to Italy. Let's get him back into his own hometown. Let's get him seeing his siblings that are still alive to encourage his heart and maybe re inspire his writing. He used to do a lot of writing, and, you know, when we fall into depression, some of the things that we used to love to do fall off, and that was falling off a bit. It was important that we take the trip sooner rather than later. My dad is turning 84, but he is not a robust 84. He is a fragile 84. And we've started to see signs of his cognition being impacted by age really sooner than later.
Carla Arges [00:05:43]:
Getting to Italy was important, and my mom couldn't travel with him because of her own health reasons. And my dad can't travel alone. So I was taking him to Italy to be more of a support worker for him. And, you know, my parents live independently. We didn't anticipate it to be a lot of support, but more helping him navigate the airport. He wouldn't have been able to do that on his own, you know, helping navigate, getting to his hometown, being that sense of support, making sure that with the time change and a different routine, he didn't forget to take his medication. So I was going to there to be a support person. Well, the level of support that ended up being required and the amount of pressure and scrutiny I faced just blindsided me and really blindsided my dad.
Carla Arges [00:06:43]:
As well. Our second night there. It was a long journey to get there. My dad had jet lag. He was clearly overtired, but went right into visiting his second night there. When he woke up to go to the washroom, he had a really bad fall. Like, it was a really bad fall. He could have died and he smashed up his face.
Carla Arges [00:07:06]:
The whole time we were in Italy, half his face was all bruised. He had a black eye, a black jaw. His cheek was all yellow of bruising. He had a cut above his eye. Thankfully, it was not a huge cut and it didn't require stitches, but this really shook his confidence. It really impacted his relatives. We were staying with his brother at the time, and it turned the trip upside down. It was scary, right? We're in a small village.
Carla Arges [00:07:46]:
My dad was refusing to go to a hospital. Luckily, we have some doctors in the family that were in the village, right. This is a small village that most people have immigrated out of, but they all seem to congregate in August back there. So we were fortunate it that God had in our accessibility, some doctors to come look at my dad and tend to my dad. But the amount of impact it had on him physically and mentally, and the impact it had on our relatives was huge. First of all, Italians communicate a little rougher than my normal communication style. My dad is italian, my mom is british. I have a much softer, diplomatic, even keeled way of communicating.
Carla Arges [00:08:47]:
In fact, people kept telling me while I was in Italy, you're so calm. You're so calm. It's not that I'm calm, I'm just more of a tranquil person. Italians, by nature, are not. They're loud, they can be gruff, it can feel like they're yelling at you. Even though that's not their intention, that's how it could feel. So it felt like for me, that first few weeks, everyone was yelling at me about, you know, what happened to my dad. Why wasn't I there helping him? Why didn't I plan this trip better? Like, lots of accusations.
Carla Arges [00:09:22]:
And I know that they were coming from a place of fear and worry for my dad, but they were very overwhelming. They were very overwhelming. And my dad, from that fall, lost his ability. And again, some of this was psychological. Like, he. He got fearful in his mind of moving and doing things on his own, that it really became like I was taking care of a newborn baby. I had to get up multiple times in the night to take him to the washroom. I had to change his diaper, I had to bathe him, I had to, um, walk with him everywhere.
Carla Arges [00:10:02]:
He wasn't able to walk on his own. I had to hold him up. It was all encompassing. And especially having to wake up so many times in the middle of the night when rest and sleep is such an important part of my mental health. It was really hard. I know at one point, we were at my uncle's birthday celebration, and everyone was like, at me because my dad wasn't necessarily cooperative, cooperative, cooperating with what would be best for him, yelling at me that I had to make him do things. My dad is refusing to do things. I broke down in tears.
Carla Arges [00:10:40]:
I broke down in tears. I had to excuse myself, go to the bathroom and cry. And can I tell you, one of the medications I take limits my ability to cry. So the fact that I was crying just shows how overwhelmed I was. I was in a different country where I don't fluently speak the language, like, barely speak the language. I was jet lagged, not getting sleep at night. All of a sudden, my dad needed all this help. All of a sudden, I was under the microscope by all these people to see how I was caring for my dad.
Carla Arges [00:11:18]:
All of a sudden, the plans that we had for him and for when Caleb came to join us, because Caleb ended up coming to join us were out the window. And it was really hard. And I couldn't understand why God, like God, here I am trying to honor my father, give him an opportunity to see his. His home village, give him an opportunity to see his family, probably for the last time, like, my dad's not going to be able to make that trip again. I'm trying to do this as a good daughter, to honor my father. Why are you not making this easy? Why is it that when I'm trying to do something as a blessing, you've called me to honor my father and my mother. You've called me into a place of service for my parents. Why aren't you making this easier? Why are you allowing all of these things to happen? Why are you allowing this to be so.
Carla Arges [00:12:20]:
So hard? And on top of that, our journey home was a bit of a nightmare. It took 27 hours to get home, 19 hours. We were stuck on one single plane. It was a lot. And what God kept bringing me back to is that one he doesn't promise us easy. He also reminded me that his heart is for us to be dependent on him. Can I tell you that I was dependent on God every moment of that trip because of what happened and the state of my own mental health. I wasn't getting movement in because I couldn't leave my dad.
Carla Arges [00:13:11]:
I wasn't getting rest. I wasn't eating as well as I should have been because I had no control over my diethye. My routine of Bible study was thrown off. So all these pillars of thriving that you hear me talk about were out the window and my house was coming down. And I had to daily rely on God for the strength to have the right posture in interacting with other people. I needed to rely on God to give me the strength to get up every night, take my dad to the washroom, change his diaper, do all those things. Like, I had to rely on God to keep me mentally stable in a situation where my mental stability was in risk. I had to rely on God every second of every day.
Carla Arges [00:14:07]:
And sometimes God puts us in positions that are hard because he wants us to learn that daily reliance, because on our own and left to our own devices, aren't we so quick to trust ourselves, to lean on our own strength to try to figure things out on our own? I know I am definitely guilty of this. This opportunity of going through this hard time gave me a chance to bless my father even deeper. Right? My dad had to really rely on me in ways he didn't expect. It gave me an opportunity to bless him deeper. When my son came to visit and he saw how hard I was working to take care of. No, no. That's the italian word for grandfather. It modeled to my son the love of child to parent and the care of child to parent in those changing dynamics when they age.
Carla Arges [00:15:14]:
It modeled for my son how I was getting daily strength from God. There was a modeling there. There was a lesson there. There was a learning opportunity to pass on to the next generation. How I was able to navigate all of that with a moment of testimony to God's glory. When people are asking me, how are you doing it? The only thing I could point to was Christ and his strength alone. And so sometimes we have these ideas of how something's going to go, especially when we're doing something good and we're doing something to honor and glorify God. And we think, okay, this is where God is leading me.
Carla Arges [00:16:00]:
This is where God is calling me. And we expect it. All the doors will just open and we'll have this easy walk through it. And I have learned and experience not just from this one, but that that rarely happens. In fact, when we are doing what we're supposed to do in Christ, when we are doing and walking in that call, often that is when we meet the most resistance, because the enemy doesn't want us relying on God. The enemy does not want our lives to point to the sufficiency of Christ. The enemy does not want that for us. And so he creates opposition.
Carla Arges [00:16:48]:
But don't we know that Romans 828 is true, that God works all things out for our good and for his glory? Now, I don't know all the ways this is going to turn out for good. I'm still too close to it. I'm not fully on the other side of this experience. I'm still overcoming fatigue from it and all of that. But I know that. I know that. I know the character of God. And the character of God far outweighs anything I might see in my circumstances.
Carla Arges [00:17:26]:
In Romans 1513 it says, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. This was my, this is my testimony. I had to trust in him. I had to trust every second of every day to God because I could not do it in my own strengthen. And as I trusted in him, I was filled with joy and peace, especially peace. Peace is really what I needed. As I trusted in God, so my choice to trust came first. Then came the peace.
Carla Arges [00:18:14]:
And that peace built up my trust so I could trust further. And as I trust further, the peace of increased over my life. And with that, the overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit, I had confidence, even though it was hard, my confidence grew as I trusted God that. That God would see me through. As I trusted God, I was overflowing with the hope and the knowledge and the truth that God would see me through. He would not forsaken me. He would not abandon me. He would not allow me.
Carla Arges [00:18:55]:
He would not allow me to break down and fall and crash and burn. He was going to uphold me with his strong right hand, as I trusted in him, as I depended on him, as I looked to him. Psalm 28 seven says, the Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart trusts in him and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy. And with my song I praise him. God was my strength and shield. And as my heart trusted that it became more evident in my life.
Carla Arges [00:19:36]:
And my heart right now is so full of gratitude, so full of praise, so full of worship for how he saw me through. And so I want to encourage you right now, if you're going through something, don't spend so much energy trying to figure out why God, why are you allowing this to happen? Why is this happening? But instead redirect that into trust. God, I don't know why this is happening, but I choose to trust you. I choose to rely on you. I choose to make you my source through this difficult time. And in exchange he gives us peace and joy and hope and everything we need to move through that circumstance, that circumstance that he will ultimately work for our good. We can trust that. And so I don't know what you're going through, but I know that as you put your trust in God, you will go through it, and you will go through it with peace and with joy and with hope.
Carla Arges [00:20:54]:
Are you lacking that right now? It says, as you trust in him, show me you overflow with hope. May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace. As you trust in him, I want you to make an active decision that I'll trust you, Lord God. And right now your faith may only be the size of a mustard seed, but there is a cyclical exchange here that happens that as you trust, you see God move. And as you see God move, that builds your faith. And as your faith builds, you see God move even more. There's a cycle here that happens, and it can start with just that mustard seed of faith. I even know I rehearsed some of the prayer of that father that came to God asking for healing.
Carla Arges [00:21:43]:
And Jesus said, do you believe? And the father said, yes, I believe, but help me in my unbelief. I prayed that prayer, yes, I believe God, but my belief right now is a mustard seed. Help me in my unbelief. And God answered that prayer. And as I offered him my mustard seed of faith, as I offered him my mustard seed of trust, he exchanged it with peace and hope, and it was a beautiful exchange. Now I'm still physically recovering from that journey. That's one of the reasons why this podcast is late this week. I'm still physically recovering from that, but mentally and spiritually I'm good.
Carla Arges [00:22:31]:
And I could not have said that if it had not been from the work of God in my life. During what was the hardest trip of my life. That was the hardest trip I've ever had. But God was there. And so my affirming truth for you today is that I will trust God no matter what my circumstance looks like. And I want to lead you to proverbs three five trust God with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. If we try to lean on our own understanding, we're going to be met with doubt. And I fear and anger and discontent and disillusionment and confusion because we cannot understand all of God's ways.
Carla Arges [00:23:23]:
His ways are higher than our ways. His mind is higher than our mind. But as we trust with God, trusting God with all our heart, he will meet us with joy and peace and hope. That's his promise for you today. I'll talk to you later. Friends, thanks for joining me today. I hope we're already friends on social media, but if we're not, come find me on instagram. Arlaarges orffirmingtruth.
Carla Arges [00:24:01]:
Can't wait to see you back here next week. Bye, friends.