Broken Trust

My Trust is broken. 

It fell off the wall and landed awkwardly and even though it's been glued, it's wonky.

I can't help thinking that this is deeply significant. 

My word for last year was 'Trust', and, as I did the year before that, I had my word cut out of MDF by a gentleman who cuts things out of MDF for a small fee. 

There's a little space just above the wardrobe in my bedroom that is just made for fixing MDF words to - and so that's where my words live. 

I can see them from my bed, which is one of my favourite places in the world. I see them before I put the light out at night and I see them when I wake up in the morning. 

But 'Trust' fell off. Thud. It landed at an angle on the last 'T'. Bent, cracked, now glued, but (as they say in this neck of the woods) it's all skew-whiff. 

A metaphor for my life. I trust - yes I do - but it sometimes slips. I come unstuck, and on occasion I fall and land badly, and that hurts. I bruise. I mend, but I have scars. 

My trust in God is hugely variable. I wish it were not so, but I know that I do not have the staying power to stick closely to Him. When I am there, right by His side, holding on tight, I am safe, I am secure, I am right where I should be; but then I get distracted and I loosen my hold, and - there - I get pulled away and a gap yawns between us. When there is distance between God and me, it is easy to pick me off like a pack of hyenas with the slowest buffalo left behind by the herd. 

I am a slow buffalo, sometimes. 

However, good news. 

My Trust is back up there. 

It's been glued, but it's not quite straight. It will always droop a little now, following it's fall, but it's back where it belongs. The damage is subtle, but definite. However, because of the strength of the glue, it will never break in the same place; it's stronger than ever. 

Funny, that - the area of fracture is now stronger than the surrounding bits of MDF - a bit like bones. Bone callus is denser than normal bone and so it's rare for a fracture to take place where there's already been one. There are other weak points, but this one is healed. A little uglier now, a little smudgy, a little out of line, yet tough and resilient. 

My trust keeps taking knocks. There are days when I scribble urgently in my journal, 'I trust you, Jesus' and 'I trust you - I'm trying to' and there are days when I don't write in my journal and I forget to trust at all. Those are the days when my tenuous hold is weakening, weakening.... Lately there've been a few occasions where my need to trust has been overwhelming and yet I realise how poor I am at it. 

But, He is endlessly patient.  He soothes the hurts, heals the wounds and puts me back where I am safe. 

This year's word is 'Peace'. I've ordered my word in MDF from the man who makes things out of MDF but it hasn't come yet. I've been hoping peace will arrive very soon for quite a while, now. I am waiting for my Peace.

That's another post, I think.