Trust Fall

I never thought I had serious issues with trusting people until tonight. Well, I always knew I had trouble trusting too easily until I find that something in them that catches my trust, which I cant even define clearly for myself.

I used to be too trusting until many of those whom I believed in and fully trusted broke my confidence. So now I truly trust only a very few. I thought I was doing fine now. I never thought my problem with trust was that big or had any effect on my personality as a whole until we did this thing called "Trust Fall".

We just had our final team-building session for the Thailand outreach and one by one, they asked us to stand on a high footstall with our back facing our team mates, whose arms are lined together ready to catch us on our fall. The objective is to develop trust for one another, enough to risk our lives (or our spinal columns) and be able to fall backwards as freely as a lifeless log, knowing that our team mates will never leave us falling to our death pit.

"I _________, choose to do this event. Team mates are you ready?"
"Ready!"
"Im falling!"
"Fall!"
(Yeah, this is kinda like the "chant" thing)

I came up last, thinking that I could pull it off as easily as everyone else did. Wrong. When I was up there, I couldnt trust my team mates. I couldnt fall. I trembled and I wondered what was wrong with me. I tried twice but I didnt do the right fall. They made me rest for a bit and they told me we wouldnt quit until I do a perfect fall. Argh.

One of the facilitators asked me if i had issues with trust in the past. I thought, yes a lot of times but I dont think its much of a big deal. I mean, they are issues with other people, not my team mates. But she told me it manifests just the same.

My experiences with trust being broken several times and then finding hard to trust again and then slowly trying to trust only a very few chosen people actually affects how I trust each and every person I meet or mingle with. Hmm interesting huh?

I realized its true. And even if I say I do trust a few people, Im not sure if I can really FULLY trust any person at all. Wow. What a significant information about my inner self!

Anyway, it was something I had to deal with right there.... and I had to break free from that if I wanted a normal, happy life (not to mention if I didnt want to be kicked out from the team!). So I climbed the footstall again and positioned myself. I still trembled a little and after a few breath-taking minutes, I just prayed "Lord, your power is made perfect in my weakness." If I couldnt trust myself that I could trust my team mates, I guess what I did was to just trust the Lord to help with it.

So it worked. I did a perfect backward fall. Hooray!

I felt free.

Its really hard to put our full trust on people. In one way or another, they will break it... even those who you dont expect would. I guess there's nothing wrong with reserving a little doubt sometimes...but not at all times. I think trusting people calls for wisdom.

When trust gets broken, your heart does as well somehow. But the lesson I learned here is that people are just people. God is God. People may always do us wrong but we are never hurt without our consent. If we dwell on broken trusts, it would be hard to rebuild them. We must open our hearts to welcome those who want to be trsuted again and mean it. But its not just the heart though that must be opened, but our eyes and mind as well so we'd be awake to avoid anything being broken again. And we can always trust on God to restore broken relationships... or our broken selves.

These are what I learned: Trust is a big word. Love is fake without trust. You cannot be a full person without trust. Trust can be rebuilt with full forgiveness of self and others. And there are people who can really be fully trusted.