Trusting with the Heart

In moments of quiet reflection I will sometimes pull out my old study bible. Its like living memories and tears all over again when I skim through it. Sermons and quiet moments of reflection and prayers answered or pleaded for are marked along the side of this bible. When specific verses stood out or meant something or broke through to my heart Ive written the date next to the specific scripture. On the night that I stumbled across some words about divorce and sat on the phone talking to a friend who helped me learn how to break the words down and do a word study ...all these notes written in this bible. This Bible I will never part with. It represents a 'security' blanket to me in ways that some might not understand and others would.

The other day I was in a rather emotional mood and sat down and started thumbing through it. Rereading those highlights, reliving those moments and found this highlighted. Its one of those Psalms that have stuck with me through these past few years and I have leaned on it a lot.

"When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will no be afraid. What can mortal man do to me?" Psalm 56, 3-4

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Trust for some can be a five letter four letter word. Trust requires allowing someone into your heart. It is allowing yourself to believe, hope, and dream with someone. Trust means putting your faith and hope in someone outside of yourself. Giving up the control to control what happens in your life. The question is, can a heart be broken too many times and not able to completely trust again? How do we prevent the heart from hardening?

I've been thinking about this for some time now. I know in the past I have 'trusted' too easily. Trusted and believed in people who may or may not have earned the right to be trusted in my life. I see the good in people. I believe in the good in people. My 'faith' in people has been shattered more times then not.

Finding myself in such a place to have to allow myself to 'trust' again is difficult. Believing in the good is harder when the bad and even terrible has happened to you. The scars of the past are hard to 'make-over'. Even with 'cosmetic' surgery and decisive picky selection of whom to 'trust', it is harder as the wounds of the past have left their scars.

I'm fortunate to have found a man who has patience and faced some of the same scars I have in the past. But I still struggle. Will he change his mind, such a silly thought when one thinks about it. Will I get a letter, see him become indifferent, stop loving me, walk away? We should take note to realize how important the heart of a person is and treasure it as a precious gem. One that can't be replaced. I don't understand how someone can stop loving another. It makes no sense to me what-so-ever. When I love its not a temporary passion, its a passion of my heart. When its removed, a part of me is 'thrown' away. Scars of the past. Those scars heal, but leave their marks.

I suppose though to not love would be even harder then to love. To not trust would be even more impossible then to trust. To not trust or love would be to not live. And what kind of life would that be? A rather lonely and empty one I think.