Respecting the Privilege of Trust

“Trust is not a human emotion but a feeling of sustained confidence in a person, place, or thing.”

— Gary & Anne Marie Ezzo

When it comes to families, notwithstanding workplaces, church fellowships and the like, there is nothing more important to relationships than trust. Trust is the maker or breaker of the human continuity within the arrangements for love. Where love persists, as found augmented by trust, just like where there is trust, there is love.

Where trust is betrayed—upon neglect or abuse—love evaporates as if it never existed in the first place.

Families survive and thrive upon trust, but they are destroyed without it. And where there is no trust there is no respect. Where trust flourishes there we find respect, also.

If we are to work on anything when it comes to families it ought to be trust; the beginning, middle and end of the fabric of safety woven in love.

We, the Trusted

What an enormous privilege it is, especially as parents, grandparents, bosses, and anyone with influence socially, to create and augment the culture of trust; where trust would flourish and respect flow down like a teeming river of justice as a direct result.

How do we achieve such outcomes?

Building trusting relationships has to be about connectedness. There has to be the motivation deep within to connect to the person who relies upon us for safety. It is no good at all if, as a parent, we cannot vouchsafe the child’s security by the extension of our sacrifice to nurture trust.

We must provide space for trust. Simply, we must trust.

We must be prepared to have our trust betrayed, and to be big enough not to behave hurt. Our love needs to be big enough to contain the situations that God has blessed us with. We are caretakers of God’s love within the relationships we’ve been placed in. We cannot abuse or neglect such a role if trust is important to us.

As God is graceful, we, also, are to be graceful. When people feel safe in our company—especially children, who must depend—trust is possible. But if people don’t feel safe, for any reason, trust is near-on impossible. It’s easier not to trust than to trust.

Trust and safety are aligned. Where safety, the duty to care, is important enough that we provide it, trust is inevitable.

We, the trusted, must be trustworthy. We have been trusted with a role and it is incumbent on us to deliver good on that trust. And we can. There is possibly nothing more alluring to a human being to either be trusted or to be privileged to trust. When we have the privilege to trust other people, and we discharge that trust, our credibility soars, because people feel secure in our presence.

We are blessed for having trusted.

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Families survive and thrive on trust, but they are destroyed without it. And where there is no trust there is no respect. Where trust flourishes there we find respect, also. There, also, we find love.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.