Putting my trust in trust...

Today, I spoke with an acquaintance who is having marriage problems and asked for some advice. His main issue is one I'm sure everyone has dealt with at some point or another- trust. As I thought of what I would tell him, I reflected on my own experience. I have definitely been one to be wary in past relationships, but it's like Ben Folds says, "if you can't trust, you can't be trusted". This is my motto these days. All it took for me to change was a conscious decision that I was going to not only trust my husband, but God. When I started dating my husband, I knew he was a good person. And I trusted that God would provide for me. Not that he would magically make my husband more than human, but that if any mistakes were to be made, I would be aware of them and I, and our marriage, would subsequently be healed of the pain they caused. When it comes down to it, hard as it can be (especially when you have a husband who lives on a tour bus with females for weeks at a time across the world from where you are), you have to let it go. If you care about the person (and yourself), you have to trust them and let it go.

This is something that I am thankful I have been taught. God put me in the most trying positions not because he was trying to punish me but because he was telling me it's ok to let go. And I heard him. Now I try to transfer this outlook onto the world as a whole. Since I was a teenager, I have been deeply bothered by the negativity that happens outside my doorstep, from the tabloid magazines in the checkout line to the torments of the Jews throughout history. But I have to remind myself at those times when I am sure our human race is doomed that people deserve to be trusted. When I am worried about becoming a victim of crime as I lay in the dark at night, I remind myself that the world deserves to be trusted. When I worry about death, I remind myself that God deserves to be trusted.

Just as it is self-defeating to judge others, it can be just as harmful for us to judge events. I do believe that everything happens for a reason. Not because of some magical romantic spell, but because God is trying to communicate to us and through us. It is our job while we're here to listen. So out of these bad things I ask myself, what do I need to learn from this? And, if I can't figure it out- well, I just keep trying. We spend 13+ years in school here on Earth so that we can be successful in the "real world". I believe that our time here on Earth is our schooling for the "real realm". Once we have learned all we can, we will be ready to move on.

Just like we must consciously throw our unconditional trust into our relationships with everyone we come into contact with, we must do so with life. We have to trust that, though life may not throw us the easiest situations like we want, it will teach us what we need in the long run that is eternity.


Eternity.