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October 9, 2024 - January 1, 2025
Friendship breakups. Loved ones not having my back. Several deeply hurtful and life-altering betrayals. Lies. Gaslighting. Me feeling crazy. Me making shocking discoveries over and over.
Wrestling with who I can trust and who I can’t. Swinging the pendulum from being too trusting to being skeptical of just about everyone.
Things aren’t normal. People aren’t good. You’re risking too much trusting those who you think love you. Just when you think you are safe enough to open up a bit, they’ll hurt you. They all have secrets. They all will eventually let you down, betray you. None of them can be trusted.
And I even started doubting I could fully trust God. I stopped having the passion I’d once had to read my Bible, go to church, or listen to worship music. I secretly questioned how a good God could see what was going on behind my back and not do anything to either stop it or help me find out before it got as bad as it did.
I think that’s been true of a lot of the distrust in my life that makes me uncomfortable, hesitant, and sometimes resistant to engage with certain people. My issue with trusting those people may honestly be a sign of wisdom, not weakness. And my tendency to overanalyze their words and actions, or even a feeling I get when I’m around them, may actually be an exercise of discernment, not deficiency.
I can make the choice to stop feeding the anxiety and instead start fueling hope by recounting the many everyday moments where God has come through for me and where things did work out.
what was actually wrong was that I was once in a relationship where I felt the need to investigate but was too afraid to do so. So, instead of looking into things to verify what I was being told, I just kept asking questions, hoping to get answers that made sense. But things just weren’t adding up. And when I pressed for more explanation, I was shamed for my concern. So, my central nervous system was doing the job God created it for. It was firing off constant warning signals. But then I felt incapable of figuring out what the warning was about.
It is okay to need more information. It is okay to ask questions and verify what is true. It is okay to be honest about what we can and cannot handle.
I guess anyone can be an actor and put on a good show. Trust me, I’ve seen some addicts and some narcissists who deserve an Academy Award. But no show can last forever. They can’t hold their breath forever either. With people who pretend to care because it serves them in some way, their reaction to the next time you disappoint them will be very telling. Eventually, the truth or the lack thereof comes to the surface. What’s on the inside of someone always starts to leak out. Even if they seem to be serious this time about reestablishing trust, just a little bit of dishonesty taints their
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Lord, You know my desire to have close relationships based on truth and goodness. You also see my tendency to try to control my circumstances and the people around me when things look scary and unknown because of what I’ve been through. Help me step forward as the healed version You see in me—the one You’re making me into. This feels messy and unpredictable, but I know I can trust You and the ways You are working on me and for me. I pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.
if it was good for us to have this information, God would surely give it to us. So, the fact that He isn’t allowing us access to these specific details lets me know that having that information isn’t what’s best.
Some people in our lives have disappointed us, proven they don’t have our best interests in mind, seriously messed up, lied to us, hidden things from us, made us feel powerless, made us look foolish, and told us things were fine when they weren’t fine at all. We paid a high price for their actions. When people have a bad track record, of course it’s not wise to keep blindly trusting them. But we also don’t want to make our future relationships pay for the sins of the people who broke our trust in the past.
That’s the biggest of all risks in this journey. It’s not that we will risk trusting and possibly have our hearts broken again. It’s that we won’t grow and heal from what happened. As long as we are paralyzed in the vicious cycle of trying to control people or avoid people, we will attract that same level of dysfunction in future relationships. We won’t move on toward the healthy, trusting relationships we want. We will stay stuck right in that same pit of pain where we are angry at the people who betrayed us, trying to control what we don’t trust, doubting that God really has good in store
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Today may not be what we want. It may not include all the people we thought would be right by our side in this season. It may be that many of our dreams didn’t come true. We’ve lost a lot. We’ve grieved a lot. And now we have a collection of heartbreaking memories we wish we didn’t have. We also have memories we wish we could make, but things didn’t quite work out that way. It hurts. We don’t understand. So how could any of this be answered prayer? Because God isn’t done.
Controlling others breeds chaos. Surrendering to God produces peace.
Control breeds chaos. Surrender produces peace.
“Trauma isn’t an event that happens. It’s how you process the event.”18 So, if you process it in a healthy way, with a strong support system that helps you heal and see the truth more clearly, then the lasting effects won’t be as devastating. But if you don’t have that help as you experience a traumatic event, then you could end up feeling stuck in that trauma.
Don’t wait until you feel brave. Go be brave. Remember: if God is for you, there is nothing that can stand against you (Romans 8:31).
They may have knocked me down, but I will accept what happened, grow new roots, and turn broken into beautiful.
Lord, I admit that I have desires for how I want things to turn out and I’ve made many plans for my life, sometimes without consulting You first. But right now, I want to fully recognize You have the final say; Your plans are so much better than mine. Even when I don’t understand what You are doing, I will remain close to You and I will daily declare that I trust You. I will commit everything I do to You and follow Your faithful guidance on the perfect path You’ve determined, not one I’ve manufactured on my own. In Jesus’ name, amen.
God, I want to be found as someone with a heart that is fully committed to You. Though people have broken my trust and life circumstances have broken me down in so many ways, I choose to turn to You for the strength I need today and every day. Only You have the perfect track record of trustworthiness, and I’m learning to not only be okay with that, but to find great comfort in it. In Jesus’ name, amen.
