Exercising Trust
I’ve never really participated in any crazy trust exercises before. Although, if I did at this point in my life, I am sure I’d fail miserably. I’ve never been one to put my confidence in other people. This is why things such as group projects and team work have never really appealed to me. It would seem that in most cases, at least one person won’t hold up to their end of the bargain.
Unfortunately, my family sort of brain washed me from an early age to be suspicious of people. The highest pride in my family to this day is to be successful and independent. My family carried this “stand-off-ish” manner that kept them from investing in healthy relationships leading to trust. This inability to connect with other people manifested itself like an invisible bubble. They were always one of the first ones to book it to the car right after the “sermon.” If that doesn’t make things difficult enough, the climax of my trust struggle came when a family member choose to pack their backs and head in another direction. This left myself, along with the rest of my family, with wounded bleeding hearts. Anyone who has gone through this kind of hardship knows that it takes years to mend damage this severe.
Thankfully, God has given me, “us,” the choice to do things differently. Generational baggage can sometimes make things like “trust,” very difficult. I consider “very” to really be an understatement. Trust can almost feel impossible! Take a good look at the picture above. As I was browsing through Pinterest, (which I do a lot,) I came across this picture. I literally felt a wave of fear grip me by just looking at it…eek! I realized, as God spoke to me, that this is what trust is, and the context of the picture is what it has felt like for me. God is literally dancing with me, and then suddenly decides to hold me over a cliff and says, “trust me.” He showed me that trust is like a dance, where you have complete trust in your dancing partner. You trust that your partner is not going to drop you, especially in the case when he is holding you over a cliff.
Honestly, I have been wanting to go a different direction in my blog posts. But I really sensed that God wanted me to share this instead. Trust for me, has been believing in God during anxiety attacks I’ve have been experiencing over the past years. In those moments I scramble to figure out what I “should do.” I’m not sure how to explain this, but my mind scrambles to find some kind of method or cure to stop the anxiety. Lately, however, God has been relentlessly telling me “let it go.” I didn’t realize that I was actually holding on to it. For weeks I kept asking him how, and what letting go really looked like. As I mentioned in a previous post, the answer he recently gave me was “trust.” In those moments when I feel helpless and fearful, that I don’t have to do anything. All I have to do is trust the Lord and look to Him while he does the work. This really goes against the grain of what I want to do. However, when you realize that the one who is speaking to you is trustworthy, it’s so much easier to trust what they are saying.
If you think about it, trust is really one of the key components to deepening a relationship. You can’t go very far if you don’t trust someone. For me, it’s been hard having to adjust the orphan mentality that I developed years back. It simply goes like: “This person abandoned me and betrayed me, I don’t trust them, therefore I don’t trust people.” It becomes this kind of underlying warrant that tells you, “If my own closest family member did this to me, then how do I know other people are not doing that to me? How can I trust people?” I remember the very beginning phases of this when a family member decided to leave our family. Suddenly, I starting seeing people in this new light. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my entire personhood put on this protective self defense mechanism that wouldn’t let anyone get close to me. Sure, I would talk to people and even get into deep conversations with them. However, there was a part of me that I wouldn’t let anyone trespass.
If you have ever heard of the Christian rapper NF, he has a song called “Mansion” that is incredibly insightful and almost a bit haunting. NF is somewhat of an angry rapper, and I find some of his music to be a bit too much at times. However, this song, as raw as it is, had a huge impact on my life. Some people might find it disturbing – but I have never heard a song so real before; a song that literally spoke to the depths of my soul! I would actually encourage you to check out the lyrics if you are curious. His song basically uses the idea of a mansion to describe his mind and the different hurts he carries inside. In this mansion, there are different rooms, and each room represents some kind of hurt or pain he carries. The lines that go best with what I was describing above are:
“So this part of my house, no one’s been in it for years. I built the safe room and I don’t let no one in there. ‘Cause if I do, there’s a chance that they might disappear and not come back. I admit I am emotionally scared to let anyone inside, so I just leave my doors locked. You might get other doors to open up but this door’s not. ‘Cause I don’t want you to have the opportunity to hurt me, and I’ll be the only one I can blame when you desert me. I’m barricaded inside so stop watching; I’m not coming to the door so stop knocking…”
As intense and raw as this may sound, this really describes how I felt. And a lot of other feel this way too, I just know it. A lot of people are in pain, but they don’t let it show. This is not where we should stay, but I like how this song is so honest. He talks about the reality of what he is going through and doesn’t cover it up with rainbows and flowers. Because, lets be honest folks – it’s not at all about rainbows and flowers. People hurt, and it’s ugly. We need more people like NF to talk to the public about what they are going through.
I hope this has been an encouragement to you, and I hope that you stay tuned for what the Lord has in store next!