Trust By Linda Stowe
There are things in life we trust. We are on a long road trip and we pull into a roadside rest to look at the map on the wall with the little arrow that says, “You are here.” We believe it and feel a little less lost than we did before.
Whenever storms threaten our area, we are glued to our TV screens watching a line of slowly moving storms creep past our area. We listen to the weather presenter explain what is happening and we trust them because they know how to pronounce the name of our town.
Every day there are countless instances where we trust in things beyond our control – the purity of the food we eat, the cleanliness of the water we drink, that our neighbors aren’t snipers or that our house isn’t going to explode. We even trust that our dog isn’t going to attack us.
But once trust is broken, doubt creeps in and things change. Here’s an example from my childhood. One day I was helping my mother in the kitchen, and she asked me to crack open three eggs. This is something I had done several times before, so it was a routine task. However, when I cracked open one of the eggs an unhatched baby chick fell out. Of course, I knew that baby chicks came from eggs and that these eggs came from our chicken house. Logically I knew all that, but the shock of that little body has stayed with me for years. Even now I pause and steel myself before I crack open an egg. You would think that after all this time I would not allow this past incident to annoy me. But that’s the thing about doubt. Once it arrives, it does not leave.
Wordle guess words: about, annoy, allow, arrow
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Polly here.
I eat a lot of chicken eggs. I always trust that they’ll be full of yolky goodness. So. With that, I’ve never cracked on with a baby chick inside. For this, I am glad.
Trust is such a thing.
It is the quiet foundation of every meaningful relationship. Whether that relationship is with a person, place, or thing. In those sound relationships, trust is always there. It is sort of like gravity, holding things in place.
But trust is built slowly, with honesty, consistency, and care. We trust in our favorite brand of bar soap. We trust in our favorite grocery store. We trust in our best friend to be there for us.
When trust is present, we exhale. We settle in. We know that things can be counted on. And this is a good feeling, inside and out..
But when trust is broken, everything shifts. The ground feels less steady. Doubt creeps in. Questions creep in where there used to be calm. It doesn’t matter how small the crack. The doubt is loud.
Repairing broken trust takes time and real effort. And even then, the scar often remains. Sometimes trust can be rebuilt, stronger than before. But sometimes, the break reveals a truth we didn’t want to see.
Either way, once trust is lost, nothing is ever quite the same.
