I Think I Might Have Trust Issues

With our next move coming upon us quickly, we spent last weekend going through old boxes trying to determine what to save and what to toss. We found some sweet surprises in the boxes.

The boys' baby shoes. I actually had all six shoes, three pairs for three boys.

High school photo albums for both my husband and myself. Very funny to see all these pictures, especially in these Facebook days. I would consider posting some but that would require me scanning the old fashion paper photos into an electronic format. Instead back into the memories box they went.

We found this:

We had to keep this floppy disk if only to completely confuse the children when they open this box of memories someday.

And then there was a letter I had written a dear friend right when my husband and I were first starting to date.  I had been reading the book "Inside Out" by Larry Crabb and sent my friend a couple of quotes that were challenging me at the time. Sixteen years later, I am still challenged by these words,

Trusting another is perhaps the most difficult requirement of Christian life. We hate to be dependent because we have learned to trust no one, not fully. We know better. Everyone in whom we have placed our confidence has in some way disappointed us. To trust fully, we conclude, is suicide.

After this quote I wrote to my dear friend,

That is me. Independence and self sufficiency I hold to so tightly. I hold to them because I am scared of needing anything or anyone besides myself because what if I am let down. What if someone chooses, or not, to hurt me and withdraw their soul that was watering my deep thirst. I would be left to emotionally die all alone. And that is terrifying to me. If I don't let myself need people, I may never know deep satisfaction or joy, but I also won't feel deep pain and death. To my fearful spirit, to trust fully IS suicide. And yet, I am learning that to live without deep relationships that require trust and dependence, I am already slowly dying. 

The angst of a 22 year old. I am older now, wiser, more trusting but sadly this is often the angst of this 38 year old.

I am so thankful that I have an unchanging God who loves me, that He is where I place my trust.

But as for his people, the ones he has brought into my life, they scare me a bit. I have trusted and been let down. I have built walls and missed out on deep connection. I have struggled with how much to need others and how much to let God fill those needs. I wonder when to speak up for myself and when to give grace. I try to trust but my soul flinches.

I have grown a lot in the last sixteen years but it appears that I still have trust issues.