Trust…

“The word ‘trust’ is the heart of faith….The word ‘faith’ conveys more an act of will, while the word ‘belief’ conveys an act of the mind or intellect, but trust is the language of the heart.”

~L.B. Cowman, Streams in the Desert

In whom do you trust? Merriam-Webster defines trust as an “assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something; one in which confidence is placed.” Because oftentimes what sexual abuse survivors have learned to expect is hurt and pain and shame and guilt, trust can be difficult. So often the one whose charge it was to protect is the very one who hurt. How can anyone be trusted?

In first facing the trauma of my childhood, my hope was to let it go. I would think it through, chew on it for a bit, and then put it away for all time. That’s not exactly what happened. In slowly learning to trust more fully in God, and that means his sovereignty over all things, I began to realize my need to embrace what happened to me as a child. Yes, embrace it, because God is using even that to shape me into the woman he created me to be. My childhood, with all its hurt, is a part of what makes me who I am. Given a choice, would I have chosen a different path for myself? Absolutely. But I’m trusting in the path God has placed before me.

People will disappoint. We’re all broken people living in a broken world. There’s evil. There’s sin. Life can sometimes feel utterly without hope. At times it did for me. And then I remember what Jesus said, “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” What joy I find in those words! Jesus Christ is the one in whom I can fully and faithfully trust. No matter what the trial or sorrow, even in the deep wounds of childhood sexual abuse, there is hope that’s found only in him.

He is faithful, He is glorious
He is Jesus, all my hope is in Him
He is freedom, He is healing right now
He is hope and joy, love and peace and life

~“He Is Faithful” by Jesus Culture

So, where do you place your hope? In whom do you trust?