A second reason to trust again is to start new relationships. Maybe a friend, a partner, or a spouse significantly broke trust with you. Your friend lied to you or said mean things behind your back. A partner may have forgotten about your birthday or forgot to pick you up for a date. Or maybe your spouse cheated on you and you are now in the workings of divorce. Each of these circumstances can dramatically hurt us and cause us pain. In addition to causing us pain, they can cause us to not trust these individuals again. It can even cause us to have a hard time trusting anyone again.
At these times, it is important to remember that not everyone is like that friend, partner, or spouse who lied to you, hurt you, or betrayed you. It is worthwhile to open up your heart and your trust to others if they have demonstrated the actions of being someone who is trustworthy. Even if you may never see that friend, partner, or spouse being trustworthy again, you can still find trustworthy people out in the world who deserve your trust. Many times, we wish we could trust these individuals who were once close to us, but we haven’t been given any tangible proof that they are worthy of our trust.
If the person has taken the right steps to become worthy of our trust again, we should be open to trusting them again. However, if you have been sexually, physically, or emotionally abused, you are not obligated to trust them again. Even though the individual may apologize or act convincingly, it is best not to rekindle relationships with those who sexually, physically, or emotionally abused us. Never are we called to trust those who have hurt us in this way. While we are to forgive, it doesn’t mean what they did was okay. Rather, forgiving them means we give it all over to Christ.
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