The True Truth About Trust

TRUST.

Do we humans really comprehend what trust even is? Every morning we trust that we are still healthy and breathing. We trust the sun will rise, that food will be available to be eaten, and that our house is still there. There are so many things that we don’t even think about trusting, but we do everyday. Like the fact that we’ll get our paycheck from our boss or that our car will start. So, do we as humans really understand how huge of a role trust plays in our daily lives?
Yet when it comes to trusting people we have such a problem. Why? We have trusted all these normal daily things since our birth, but yet we can’t seem to trust our brothers and sisters, the ones made in the likeness of God. Doesn’t it seem silly that we have problems trusting people? And then when someone we do trust hurts us, we doubt ourselves that very second as to why in the world we trusted him or her. Answer me this, how many times have you said, “I can’t believe I trusted you”? I am assured that we all can think of at least once when we have said that phrase.
But why trust people when they always let us down, am I right? Why should you or I trust people when they just hurt and stab us in the back? How many times have we thought this? I know I’ve thought these thoughts plenty of times. Yet, somehow, against all protest we go ahead and trust either the same person again or someone else. Why? Well, because forgiveness and compassion has been set in our hearts. What I want to get to is this; why do people become afraid to trust? One reason would be from experience of friends not being trustworthy all throughout the course of life. The second reason is much deeper then that. I think that we tend to just give people our hearts and just flat out trust them and put everything into that one or more persons. All the time knowing they will let you down, they will lie, they will disappoint, they will hurt you; it’s just how humans are. We can’t be perfect no matter how hard we try. So when that person that you trust so much and have put your whole life in the hands of fails even once and doesn’t do something right, you just blow them off. You stop trusting them, or you make a huge deal out of it. I know full well that we have all done this at least once in our lives. This is where you come to that point, you can’t believe you ever trusted them.
From the very beginning I can say there is something completely different that we could do. I have learned for myself that I should have still trusted that person the same way I did, but I shouldn’t have put everything into that one person. It’s like that saying never but all your eggs in one basket. For if you lose that one basket, you have no more eggs; none. There’s a better choice, and it’s to put everything you have into God. He will never let us down like other people do. Think of the most trustworthy person you know, God is so much more then a “gazillion-billion” times more trustworthy then that person. Personally, I need to stop trusting people to bring me all I need emotionally and mentally. I trust people to do so much for me. In all honesty, that’s not fair to everyone else. I shouldn’t expect someone I love to give me everything I need. I’m really setting them up for failure and disappointment. It’s not a question of whom to trust, but it’s more of how much are you trusting in your trust.

Trust. True. Truth.
Trust is built on how true the truth your speaking really is.

To Feel Beautiful

I have "resurrected" a journal I wrote on facebook awhile back in tenth grade. It still rings true today and I think that it is something that even to this day I need to hear and many other girls need to hear. Honestly, it wouldn't hurt you guys to read this as well.

I did an experiment this week, it only lasted two days however. Monday morning for school, I threw my hair into a ponytail, threw on a sweatshirt and jeans, put no make-up on and wore the usual sneakers. The next day, Tuesday, I wore a very "cute" top over a polo and jeans, cute shoes, and wore my hair down.
Most may think so what, you wore different things those two days. But the truth is I felt like two different people in those two days. I'm a girl and all girls want to get some attention to feel good about themselves. Even if they don't admit it, people's opinions do matter to some extent. Monday all through school, barely anyone talked to me, hardly anyone looked at me, and I felt so insecure I looked down when I walked down the halls. On the contrary Tuesday, about six or seven girls complimented me and I got various looks from different guys. This made me feel great, although I'm not caught up in what people think it boosted my confidence to know people noticed me.
So what does this have to do with anything, you may ask. Well this has to do with alot of things. But pretty much I just want to talk about one, something I like to call Self-confidence Beauty. And my deal with it is this, people go through Highschool with a status mainly because of how they look, no matter what school you go to. Some girl that doesn't know how to dress "cute" or isn't into that style can't feel good about herself just because people see how she dresses and reacts on that. Because guys aren't even looking at her she thinks she's not beautiful or pretty. Now I'm not talking about sexy or hott, I'm talking about, well, feeling good about yourself. Why is it that people have to work so hard to achieve beauty that's already there? Why can't girls feel confident in their beauty while walking down the school halls even when wearing a sweatshirt and jeans? Why can't we see the real beauty inside and actually step out and talk to that person? Why do we only stop to get to know someone when the only reason we stopped to talk to them was because of their looks?

The world sees it as this...
To Feel Beautiful, a girl has to be able to make guys turn their heads
To us as Christians it should be seen as this...
To Feel Beautiful, a girl has to have the joy of life within her, and the glory of God shinning through her
Basically I want to encourage girls to be able to be better off independent and with a strong basis with God. Cause honestly, he's the most important thing right now..

A Collection of Shells

When we collect shells on the beach we pick up a shell and decide to keep it because it is beautiful or unique or perfect. If it is not, it simply gets thrown back into the water because it is not good enough to enlarge our collection of perfect, unique, beautiful shells. Perhaps one was picked up out of the water and then accidentally dropped into the incoming tide and lost, then given up on. When I reflect upon my experience with collecting shells or even observe others doing this, I become immensely excited and overjoyed to realize that God does not do this with us. He does not throw us back to our life simply because we were too broken or just too plain boring. Nor does he accidentally drop us into the water and say, "Oh well, I'll just find another". He uses each and every one of us, but only if we are willing to do what he asks. He asks us to serve and to glorify him. Most times we cannot even fathom the things he will use us for, even if we see ourselves as broken or ugly. Even if we are a tiny or big shell, he will still add all of us to his collection of servants for his name. But again, only if we are willing. Only if we ask to be used. Only if we ask to be worked from within. Once we become a part of his collection, we can never lose our worth. He will take pride in every single one of his precious shells. We are his own and will always be treasured.

Poor Blind Eyes

It is always hard to keep going and have hope, when you can see nothing that is in front of you. It is like driving through a densely foggy night. You drive as slow as you can, you try to turn your fog lights on, you squint, you do everything you possibly can to try to see what is in front of you. But you cannot do anything. You get frustrated and angry because you are just trying to get home or to some other destination. But it also is always a bit scary isn’t it? You do not know what lies ahead, where the road goes, what is in the road, or what could cross over the road. It is the same with life. Sometimes you feel like you are going 2 mph in life, you are trying so hard to grope for something; a future, a job, a lifestyle. You feel like you have your fog lights on, that you are constantly praying about it and asking God where in the world He wants you to go. But still, all the effort still results in blindness. You never know what is going to make you dodge or swerve in life, because you just cannot see. You plead and beg God to just let you see, to just let you know what is even two inches in front of you. But He does not respond. Silence. No answer. No help. No sight. So your left alone. In Silence. Blinded and frustrated.

Isn’t it so easy to get discouraged? You feel like yelling up to God telling Him to wake up, to start doing His job, right? But you know that it does not work like that, that God will only answer you according to His will. Doesn’t that seem selfish of Him to do that sometimes? He never lets us see what we need to see. I find myself saying that a lot. “God, if you just give me a glimpse of what you have in store for me, perhaps I will be a little more patient” or, “If I were God I would let me see what my future holds.” What philosophy we have sometimes! Christ was in the right when he scolded us for having so little faith (Matthew 8:26). As humans we often times do not understand this philosophy of being still and waiting on the Lord (Psalm 37:7), and having eyes through faith. All throughout life we are constantly using our eyes, constantly seeing, it is no wonder we have trouble having faith in what we do not see! Imagine being blind, not for life, but for only one day. Imagine having to keep your eyes closed a whole day and trusting someone or something to guide you around all day long. Helen Keller knew what this was like and she knew what knowing darkness and silence were like. She once said, “Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.” She truly knew what it was to be content in not knowing what may have been in front of her.

I am sure we have all played that game where one person is blind folded and another friend guides him or her through an obstacle course of some sorts. Or we have all dared to fall straight back onto someone who is waiting to catch us. I know I have never liked those games because I always wanted to be in control, I always wanted to be the one to see, and I rarely fell back on someone before asking them millions of times if they were truly ready to catch me. We all, including myself, are so easily scared to completely trust someone to guide us, to let them do everything.

Humans love power and control. It is in our human hearts. But there is a catch, as Christians we are no longer called to be apart of this world (Romans 12:2). We have been made alive and a new man in Christ (Romans 6:5-10). So we need no longer to think with our human minds or feel with our human hearts. We need no longer to be impatient with God. We can have the security of hope for the future (Jeremiah 29:11). We are not God, and we could never be God. I know if I were God, the world would either be completely messed up or we would all be hippies. We no longer need our eyes to see what is in front of us. We do not need to beg and plead God to show us something of our future. All of these feelings and actions can be replaced with one thing, Faith. When we are driving through that heavy fog, we have faith that we will be okay. Likewise, when we are going through life, we need to have faith that we will be okay. Even though people may have thought that Helen Keller must have been miserable in life due to her blindness, she saw her life in a whole different way. “I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.” She saw through the eyes of faith, so why can’t we? Patience.

You can have lots of it or none at all. Waiting on the Lord is one of the hardest things to do. Have you ever gone somewhere with someone and they tell you “Wait here”? So you do as you are told and you wait. For what? Why wait there? How many of us get up and start walking around or wandering off places all because it is too boring to wait for something. A something that we have no idea what it is. How many of us begin to think of everything that we could possibly be waiting for? Or how many of us count the minutes that go by? We all become impatient at some point. The same goes with waiting for God to show us a little bit more of what lies ahead.

But what about those who can go ahead and write out an outline of the rest of their lives? Why do they get to be special? Honestly, who knows. Only God, and he knows what is best for his children. No matter how hard we try saying “But God this is not fair!” will not make anything better. I once heard a phrase which really made me think and it was this, “How faithful are you even when no one is clapping?” How faithful are we when all we are doing is waiting, and waiting, and waiting, for what? Well you do not know. Do you still praise God during that time or do you get fed up with him? Do you still love him as much as you did before?

So it is now up to you. What will you do? You are driving in dense fog on a dark night. What you choose to do now, will determine your walk with God. Take the challenge. The challenge to wait, and be happy about it. Learn to dance in the rain. Learn to walk in the darkness. Learn to see life as if you were blind.

Rememberances

To remember is to enter your most dreaded and darkest room in the house. To remember those fears and pains and heart breaks is to enter the room that has remained locked. Standing outside that door your heart pounds with the overpowering sense of terror. "Don't make me enter that room, at least don't make me enter that door alone." But you are drawn to enter because you remember. Imagination can do wonders or it can tear you apart from the inside. To stand before that dreaded door terrified and alone. You remember what is in there, you remember that darkness, that great sadness. To remember is to enter that darkness. To remember is to let it overtake you. To let the mind wander can be a very dangerous thing. But once you enter that dreaded door, there is no going back, no wishing things were different, no running away from the issues and problems. Once you enter, you can be consumed and overtaken. But there is hope, yes, there is hope. But you are too blind to see it. You have stayed too long in that room, too long behind that door. You have let all these emotions and the memories of conversations and circumstances consume you constantly. You have been constantly overtaken by all those memories. You have been paralyzed by your own mind that you cannot even turn around to see your one and only hope. Light. To shed even one ray of light in the darkness will then slowly rid the entire room of it. But how can you think of light in darkness? Will then the darkness slowly be shattered by the light? All there is, is the darkness all around you. You have been living in this darkness for far too long. Turn around. Reach out your arm. Stop living with your heart overtaken by fear. Stop living with your shoulders bent over from the weight of the great sadness. To remember is really to forgive. To remember is far from forget but it is to live again. To remember is to enter your most dreaded and darkest room in the house with the intentions of turning the light on. Once the light is turned on, it will stay on. But it does take a lot of work and constant reminders to keep that light shining in that room that was once filled with darkness. However, you can freely pass through the rooms once there is no more darkness and it is exposed to the light that you worked to turn on. To remember is to enter the darkness and to reach out for that moment of shining glorious and magnificent light. Go ahead, take a step towards that door, turn the knob, push open that door, and take that first step into the darkness. Don't be afraid to move, to reach out, and to forgive it all.

Disclaimer

This is my disclaimer, if you will. I have wanted to have a blog for some time, just to share things going on in my head and heart. I feel strongly about sharing what has happened in my life and in my own heart. Please, feel free to encourage others or even me or even share your own thoughts and opinions. I will warn you, some content may be very dense and personal. But I feel as though it needs to be shared. Here is my heart.