Trust

I can count on one hand the people I trust. I don't even need all the fingers. Trusting someone means alot more for me than it does most people. I am not talking about trusting someone to feed my dog or water the garden. Those things are kind of easy to trust another person with. I trust most people with any "thing" that I own as things don't hold much value with me. Relationships mean it all. The list is very short of people I trust my children with. There is one person in my life that I not only trust my kids with, but truly feel like she does a better job than I do with them. We are not related by blood. I also would trust her with any detail of my life-but I haven't. Giving away the dirty little secrets of your life is a tricky thing indeed. There was a time in my life when I thought being honest meant telling all. Age has taught me discretion.

I can't trust easily for one simple reason -I've been lied to. In pretty much every way imaginable. It never gets easier, being lied to. I am a truth seeker. I savor an honest soul the way others savor a good meal(not that I don't savor those). You can tell me I look fat in that dress and have a personality you despise and I will love you a little bit. I won't want to hang out with you, but I will appreciate you giving it to me straight(no spin, if you will). We live in a wicked dishonest world and every time I am lied to, it hurts. I have met others like me, the ones who get their stomach tied up in knots when they tell a white lie and eventually have to confess it. I confessed a "feeling" I had one time to my husband. Since I confessed it, he thought there must be more to it than just a feeling and we had many fights until he finally "got it". We lost a little ground that day, I learned he doesn't get my need for honesty. I do think he learned that he can trust me, I would self-destruct if I ever slipped up-so I guess we gained a little ground too.

Do I want full-disclosure? I am not sure but I think I do. Why is the need so strong to want such a level of honesty? I am not sure about that either. Hypothetically speaking, I would rather know that someone had done something horrible than not. I have much grace and compassion in my heart. I have done about every wrong there is and lied like a rug about most of them in my 35 years. It would take alot to shake my faith that God can change a person willing to change. Unfortunately though, it would take alot to convince me someone was willing to change.

For a relationship to go as deeps as it needs to go, honesty and trust must be there. A trust that if someone messes up, they will 'fess up. Fessing up is the hardest thing in the whole world. You have to lay out your heart and soul wide open and then let someone else decide if they can forgive it or not. However, if they do forgive it, it paves a road to trust between two people that will always be in place. There is nothing quite like knowing all the bad stuff someone has done and then just loving them for who they want to be, not who they are. That is exactly what God does. When you get that in place with a fellow human being-it is a little bit of heaven on earth.