Learning to Trust

So far 2012 hasn’t been at all what I expected…

As I started the year, BIG changes were happening. Little did I know, those big changes were just the beginning of  a year long life transition.

In January, I wrote about my One Word for 2012: Trust. This was the area I had prayed about and I knew God wanted me to work on. Trusting love, trusting others, trusting  Him. And, here we are nearing the end of November and I have yet to master any of these.

As a matter of fact, I recently posted as my facebook status:

“There’s a legitimate reason I don’t trust very many people…Most people (even with the best of intentions) are simply not trustworthy…”

What’s worse, I thought I was the one person in the world I could trust. However, as I began a job that God opened up for me, fully intending to go be His light to the world, I realized how easily I could be pulled in different directions. I became someone almost unrecognizable to myself, allowing the negative environment of my new job rob me of the blessing God had set before me.

Over the summer months, I began being pulled back into that place of depression and question that God and I had battled so hard to get me out of. Returning almost as if a bird to a cage.

I didn’t share this with anyone, and nobody asked. After years of practice, I got very good at hiding, putting that smile on and pretending all was right in the world.

I am so thankful God has his hand on my life, because it could have turned out a lot worse. He began months and months ago making sure a net was in place, knowing I would find myself back to this place of misery.

Shortly after blessing me with the aforementioned job, He blessed me with the job I had wanted all along, and it is the best job I’ve ever had. He placed people in my life along the way through the year that would serve as light posts, and brought new people into my life as mentors and friends.

He knew exactly what I’d need, and when I’d need it. He knew exactly the people I would need in my life to teach me these lessons of trust, who would help me to learn to trust myself, and remind me it is safe in His arms outside of my cage…

He also knew this was a part of my journey I still had to take alone. He knew even with these people in place, I wouldn’t yet be at a place to trust them with my deepest secrets and fears, but He knew I’d see them as reminders to trust Him.

One of these friends even said to me at one of my lowest points, when I said I had a question about faith, “Don’t do that. You are my only friend with such a strong faith.” The look on his face told me he needed me to be that, and I knew I needed me to be that also…

Still, from that moment, it took until the first weekend in November to make a conscious decision to leave the environment that I knew God had only called me to for a short time, & to allow God to lift me out of this place, soften my heart, and teach me to trust.

I have friends who would be hurt if they knew how little I trust them and how big of a wall there is between us, but the friends God has placed in my life to be forever friends will be patient as God works with me and I learn to let them in…

I guess it’s time I really take to heart the advice I gave to myself in my Letter to Me…