Trust

Do you find it as hard to trust as I do? Yes, we all have our

reasons … we trusted someone sometime, someone else some other
time and so on, and we found that our trusts were betrayed and
we have been living with hurts inside us since.

We lie to ourselves, saying that we're healed, but a small voice

inside whispers the truth, each one of these wounds is only
scabbed over and so we guard each tenderly lest it open. We know
that if we poke at them too closely or someone rubs against them
too hard, then the blood flows again.

So we move through life wanting to trust and remembering the

consequences of misplaced trust. Little by little, we cease being
able to live in trust and this becomes the biggest wound of all, a
wound in our heart because we have lost all faith in the good
intentions of others.

Without trust we become incapable of understanding that all

hurts are not intentional, that someone may hurt us only because
they didn't know our life, they hadn't been there, they don't see
the wounds we are hiding, they don't know how carefully we guard
our scabs lest the bleed again.

And just the same, we are blind to all their wounds and we don't
understand their heroic efforts to protect their scabs lest they
bleed again also. We don't see that their hurtful actions are walls

© B. W. Reed July 15th, 2009

they have surrounded themselves for protection.

And so, each protecting themselves leads to a world where trust is

hard to find, a world where our mistrust is justified. This is not
the world we want, but without trust we are incapable of dreaming
another into reality.

Now the solution is difficult and hard because the only salve that
will, in time, heal all these wounds that misplaced trust has given
us is to learn to trust again. The difficulty is deciding to trust in
the first place when so much evidence is against it. The hardness
comes from the realization that by trusting we open ourselves up
to more wounds.

The first step is to learn to see the hidden wounds beneath the
surface of all those who hurt us, learn to understand why they
have become who they are and forgive them. Forgive them for the
part of them that is of God. Each time you forgive them, one of
your scabs will be healed,

The second step is to take a close look at your scabs, looking to

find those scabs that are mere scratches, the ones that looked
bigger just because they reminded us in some vague way of some
more serious wound and let them heal of themselves.

Join me in this journey, this liberation of trust from the bondage

of mistrust.

© B. W. Reed July 15th, 2009