The question of Trust...

In a recent conversation with a friend I was told that God had planted himself in me in a wonderful way. I know that he has and that I have come to place of trust with him that allows me to live the life I do, passionately and unreserved. However, in realizing this I also wonder what has led me to this place. What are the factors that have conspired to give me this trust?
The older I get the more I see the role my parents have played in laying the foundation for this trust. My parents have a trust in God that is incredible, to the point of cliché at times. I have watched them lose a child and raise four others. Move a family every few years, but keep a sense of home. Be incredibly hurt by those they have tried to serve. Push for what is best in the lives of those around them. Love my friends and me, even though they may not completely agree with certain life, style, or cultural decisions. Strive to be the best people and servants they possibly could. More and more I see the core if them being able to accomplish this is deep, real, honest relationship with an eternal creator, trusting that they were hearing God. This has set me on the same path, one that I have struggled with and often against, but have decided to make my own.
I cannot point to a single point where I decided to trust God. Looking back over my life I see instances in which he has been present, also, times when I thought him very distant. I have struggled with the reality of this planet and with what I hope is true. I have often had to say, “I don’t get it,” “I don’t understand,” “I thought…” and then follow it with, “but I will trust.” I have a relationship with an eternal being, I don’t know how it all works, I don’t know what eternity looks like, I don’t understand how this being can let so may bad things happen, but I know he is real and I know him. I can dialogue with him, struggle with life with him, be honest and real, no matter what. When bad things happen it makes me angry, when good things happen I am thankful, but sometimes wonder why good things happen to me while others are starving. I don’t think there is a good answer. If you try to give me one, I will think explicit thoughts. The world is messed up, if there is hope it rests in an Eternal being, not the good intentions of finite minds.
Without solid answers and understanding how can I possibly trust? I don’t know exactly. I think a possibility is I equate beauty with the existence of God. I can see beauty; this is how I see God. I don’t need a scientific explanation to trust that beauty exist, I can see it. Who cares that it is only light, reflecting and refracting through water vapor and the gases of earth’s atmosphere to create an incredible sunset, its beautiful. Music is a combination of certain vibrations moving from one tiny particle to the next through the air into my ear, contacting bones and nerves that convert them into signals that my brain recognizes, so what, its beautiful. I don’t need to understand how these things work for them to beautiful, they just are. I believe that God placed this desire for beauty in us so that when we doubt we can see where he is. Some people are more sensitive to seeing it. They are the same people that notice when it is absent. Just as beauty allows me to see God, pain and suffering gives rise to questions. Questions are what I base trust on. Not necessarily the answers I get, but the reality in the dialogue. I can trust an answer I don’t like, if I trust the person it comes from. If I am allowed to question, then perhaps truth isn’t hiding; I just haven’t seen it yet.
In the times I have felt God absent, that I felt I was in a desert far away from the soothing water of his presence, I have struggled. At times I have entered those times not knowing I would be with out the feeling of his presence. It is in those times I feel the seeds were sown for the trust planted in me now. Every time I have struggled with life I have then seen in the years after how it prepared me for the future. The terrible things that have happened in my life and those around me, God did not cause. However, when I ran to him with questions he held me and used those times and struggles to show me more of who he is. I have felt him weep with me, laugh with me, and walk with me. These are the instances that I believe have led to my deep trust, the realization that God has emotion, that pain and joy affect him. He himself said He weeps with those that weep and rejoices with those that rejoice. From incredible loss I have seen community, from deep pain I have seen hope, in great poverty I have seen generosity. These are the seeds planted in me. These are actions not possible with out the influence of an eternal creator. At times I forget to water these seeds and they whither a bit, but the seeds planted are those of cactus like resolve, plants that can survive, if needed, for years with out rain, living only on the sparse moister in the ground and around surrounding them.
This is me, to those of you reading… My life is one of extremes, not everyone is made to live in a desert. Some are created to survive only in the rainforest fed and watered daily, others in the marsh and delta, plants that must have their roots immersed in water at all times to survive. Many start needing the delta, but move to the desert, as I feel I have. We must understand, and continue to strive to understand where God is trying to plant us. I do not wish to live always in the desert, it is hot and dry, I wish the entire world and every person in it could live with roots planted deep in the seas of God’s Love. That is why I live the life I do, to be a bucket that God can use to pull water from his deep wells placed in every corner of his creation. One of my favorite proverbs is, A mans heart holds deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out. This is my life goal, to draw others out. To trust, so that others may trust the words I speak and write.