Trust

He was an alcoholic.  I knew that. 

He had an insatiable porn addiction.  I had no clue.

Apparently, while I spent morning, noon and night at work, my ex-husband was on the internet, prowling from one obscene website to the next.   He spent countless hours everyday pandering to this addiction.  I eventually learned that he would even sneak out of our bed in the middle of the night to live in a virtual world feeding his lust and curiosity. 

I never thought to look through an internet search history.  I never stumbled upon a suspicious credit card charge.  Not once did I even sense his absence from our bed.  I really was clueless.  

It turns out there was a lot I didn’t know.  How could I have been so unaware?

Looking back, I know I lived with a belief that his experience was my experience and I trusted him implicitly.  Perhaps I should really say I trusted him naively.  I thought he was as fulfilled in our marriage as I was.  I thought his values were the same as mine.  I thought he was doing what he said he was doing.  I never even considered the possibility that he might be living a life completely unknown to me.  Seriously, it didn’t even occur to me that he wasn’t on the exact same page as me. 

So when I finally learned about what was really going on, I was devastated, not just because of the nature of his actions, but perhaps even more because I felt so stupid.  I felt stupid for trusting someone who was obviously so untrustworthy.  I felt stupid because so many other people knew what he was doing but I didn’t.  I felt stupid thinking I must have missed obvious signs.  I felt stupid for having been duped so readily, so easily, and so frequently. 

But is trusting someone stupid?  Would I rather trust and risk it being violated again, or choose to live a life where I never trust anyone ever? 

I had to wrestle with that issue for a long time.  Finally, though, I had to face the fact that I could go through the rest of my life having “trust” issues, or I could figure out how to move forward.  One of my favorite verses reminds me that “the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy but that Jesus came to give me life, and life to the fullest.”  (John 10:10).  Those words empower me to face whatever challenge is before me since I’m unwilling to succumb to the alternative, namely, allowing Satan to have victory in my life. 

So to face this challenge, I had to come to terms with the fact that it was his behavior that was wrong and his behavior that needed to be changed.  He was not trustworthy.  He took advantage of my trust.  He betrayed my implicit confidence in him. The answer to his untrustworthiness was not for me to never trust again.  Certainly, I could be “wiser” in trusting people in the future, but making a vow that “I’ll never trust anyone again” simply could not be the answer. 

But we often make vows like this:  vows that are borne out of extreme hurt, pain, or disappointment; vows that can shape our entire future life course.  These vows have great power.  But I don’t want the rest of my life to be shaped by someone else’s actions, by somebody else’s brokenness, or by their wrongdoing.  Trust is necessary, in varying degrees, in all of my relationships.  It only makes sense that the enemy definitely wants to “steal, kill and destroy” those relationships by keeping me from ever trusting again.  But that’s not the life Jesus died to give me.  And it’s not the life I choose to live.

Stewardship

I was reading a blog the other day that asked whether we are good stewards of the stories in our life. That question captured my attention as I’d never thought of the issue in that way before. It also convicted me as I knew that for me, an honest answer to that question would probably be “no”.

Typically, when I think of stewardship, I think of those things with which God has blessed me – finances, resources, health – things of that nature. I actually never considered stewardship of my story. As I considered the question, though, it only made sense. Why would stewardship not apply to my unique story? I’m acutely aware that God has done amazing things in my life, and I also know that hasn’t been simply so I may have a “better” life. Rather, His working in my life brings glory to Him, points others eyes to Him, helps build faith in Him and prepares me to be used by Him. My stories become my ministry. But if I’m not a good steward of those stories – if I do not share them or pass them along in some way -- His purposes in this regard won’t be fulfilled, at least not through me.

As I read the blogger’s entire post, it confirmed what God spoke to me last month -- that my stories are worth sharing. It is still a fairly new idea for me and I still feel rather timid about the whole process. But obedience to God’s direction has always been a significant motivator to me. I want to be a good steward of all He has given me, including the stories of His working in my life.

Community

I sat in the doctor’s office crying. For some, that may not be an unusual event as a doctor’s visit could engender various emotional responses. For me, however, not being one to cry around others – especially strangers -- this was an unusual scene on so many levels. I suppose, though, that life’s events sometimes take us out of who we normally are.

Though this was many years ago, the memory of that day is indelibly impressed in my mind. I was there because I wanted something to make the pain go away, the physical pain from a flared-up back injury, but more importantly, the emotional pain. Just a few days earlier, my entire world came crashing down around me. My marriage ended abruptly, I was fired from my job, my family was unavailable to me and I had nowhere to turn. Betrayed by those closest to me, I was a mess.

I couldn’t even explain my circumstances to the intake nurse. How do you tell a complete stranger “I just found out my husband raped my sister while I was out of town”? How do you nonchalantly describe being fired from your job because your bosses wanted to distance themselves from your personal life? How do you unemotionally explain that everything you thought was running so well just one week earlier had imploded in your face?

I couldn’t; and so I cried.

It wasn’t the calm, sorrowful sobbing that elicits compassion and empathy from everyone else around you. Oh no, this was the ugly, convulsive cry: the one where you are intermittently retching and hyperventilating with fluid spewing from every orifice on your face. It wasn’t pretty, but I couldn’t stop myself. By that point in time, I didn’t really care.

A nurse practitioner was sent in to try to console me. While noble, her efforts in this regard were rather futile. She did, however, succeed in revealing a stark reality about my life that I was forced to accept – a reality that has shaped who I am and how I do life to this very day.

Acutely aware that I was in great distress, she asked if I had someone who could come be with me. I went through the extremely short list of potential prospects in my mind and shook my head no. So she began asking one by one:

. . . my husband? That was an obvious no.

. . . a family member? No. They all lived in a different country.

. . . a close friend? No. My one and only friend was my boss who just fired me.

. . . a co-worker? No. I had bosses over me and staff under me, but no one alongside me.

. . . a neighbor? Not likely. I didn’t even know their names.

. . . a pastor? Nope. I had no need for God in my life, much less a pastor.

As she went down the list, the reality of the life I had created hit me full force in the face. The “independence” I wore as a badge of honor was really “isolation” and I was imprisoned in a world of my own making.

Facing what was one of the most difficult seasons of my life, I felt so lost and completely alone. I knew I would have to walk that journey without any support, and even worse, I knew I was responsible for that lonely reality. I hated that feeling and that awareness, perhaps even more than I hated the circumstances that then defined my life.

From that deep valley, came two remarkably wonderful results. First, it was in that season of being completely alone that I finally found the One who would never abandon me, never leave me, nor forsake me. While I previously thought I had no use for God, I began to realize I needed Him more than I ever knew. I'm very aware that this complete isolation was necessary for my journey to faith because if there would have been anybody there who could possibly "rescue" me, I never would have turned to Him. I never would have seen that He was standing there, all along, just waiting for me to invite Him in to my life.

Second, I now know without a doubt I cannot live life without a community. I need others every day, and they need me. I need their opinions, experience and availability to shape and mold who I am.  They need my voice, my perspective and my time as they are walking their journey.

That I was designed for relationship with God and relationship with others is the driving force behind my life now. I believe we all were. It’s part of our DNA. It’s how God wired us. It’s who He wants us to be and how He wants us to live life. Jesus was not merely being pithy when he summed up the law as follows: “Love God and love your neighbors.” (Matt. 22:34-40). Absent relationship, these instructions are meaningless.

This awareness, however, does not mean I get it right every time. While I am significantly motivated by this core belief, I still struggle as this is not easy for me to do. The reality is I don’t make friends readily and quite frankly, I’m not always a very good friend myself. I don’t feel a need to talk to my friends on a daily basis and have even lost friends for this very reason. I don’t need girlfriends to shop with (I don't really like shopping) and I don’t always have a lot of natural activities that involve friends. But still, I know I need them and they need me, and I don’t want to wait until crisis comes along to try to meet those needs.

So I push myself beyond my comfort zone. I risk reaching out, even when it feels uncomfortable. I share my heart, though it may be the scariest thing in the world for me to do in that moment. I’ve had to learn how to be open and vulnerable and how to let others in. I’ve had to learn how to ask for help. With my extremely independent past, this is still really hard to do. Regardless of my fears, though, I remind myself that they are nothing compared to the devastating isolation I felt that day in the doctor’s office. I pray I will never go back there again.