Faith | Letting God prevail taught her that faith is about trust

My first husband was an amazing man of great faith.

One day he began having persistent abdominal pain. A few days later, the pain intensified, and he developed itching all over his body. We decided to head to the emergency room. After a scan, the doctor told us there was a tumor on his pancreas and countless tumors in his liver.

We were stunned, still not fully grasping how quickly our lives were about to change.

Within days we learned how aggressive his cancer was.

Though we desperately wished for healing, we both felt a quiet spiritual confirmation that healing was not to be our miracle. Instead, we prayed (and asked our loved ones to pray) for time, as much time as the Lord would grant us.

We had a 2-year-old who would only remember his father through pictures and stories. We had a 6-year-old who didn’t understand. Our oldest, just fourteen, would soon carry many more responsibilities.

Six weeks after our initial Emergency Room visit, my husband passed away.

I felt lost and abandoned and did not know how I was going to move forward.

I had read about grief, the stages and waves of emotion. I expected sorrow and anger. What surprised me most, though, was apathy.

I wasn’t shaking my fist at heaven. I wasn’t even questioning my beliefs. I simply felt flat. Empty.

I continued to pray, attend church, and read my scriptures, largely because those habits were already woven into my life. I am grateful for the spiritual foundation I had built before his passing, because it carried me when I could not carry myself.

But much of what I was doing felt like going through the motions. Those practices no longer held conviction for me.

After some time, I realized I had a decision to make. The foundation I had could sustain me only for so long. I could allow grief to slowly distance me from God, or I could choose to let him prevail in my life.

Letting God prevail did not mean pretending I was not heartbroken. It did not mean suppressing questions or forcing cheerfulness. It meant trusting that his perspective was wider than mine. It meant believing that even when prayers are answered differently than we hope, they are not ignored.

For me, letting God prevail became a series of small, quiet decisions.

I chose to pray honestly, even when my words felt hollow. I chose to look for small mercies: a timely phone call, a scripture that felt personal, the strength to face one more day. I chose to forgive life for not unfolding the way I had planned.

Gradually, those small choices changed me.

My circumstances did not shift overnight. I was still a widow. My children still missed their father. But I began to see that God’s greatest miracles are not always dramatic rescues; sometimes they are the quiet strengthening of a weary soul.

Letting God prevail taught me that faith is less about outcomes and more about trust.

It is the steady belief that God is good, even when life is not easy. It is the willingness to keep walking forward, hand in his, when the path is unclear. That commitment did not remove my grief, but it carried me through it.

Life is hard, life is messy, life can hurt. But when we choose to let God prevail, we discover that he has been holding us all along.

Guest Spiritual Life writer Tiffany Bishop-Yetter is a youth leader in the Kennewick East Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints. Questions and comments should be directed to editor Lucy Luginbill in care of the Tri-City Herald newsroom, 4253 W. 24th Avenue, Kennewick, WA 99338. Or email lluginbill@tricityherald.com.