Trust conjures up a lot of things, doesn’t it? My initial knee-jerk reaction was to think of the things that have fostered distrust. Pain serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of trust when someone betrays it.

Sometimes we can be left with far more questions about what qualifies as trust than we may have answers.

For instance, how does one engage trust when it’s broken? Who then becomes safe to trust? What does trust even mean? Can we have absolute trust in another? Do I trust myself to make good decisions when I’ve been burned or hurt?

As I sit with these questions a larger question looms in my mind regarding trust: What am I being invited to by holding trust in another?

And, what am I being invited to when that trust is harmed?

Well certainly the first answer I can think of is RISK – risk of offering my vulnerability and then risking the outcome of someone else seeing or holding my vulnerability. That is incredibly risky. Yes, the pain is risky. Yes, being seen is risky. Yes, getting hurt is risky. But there is also the risk of not being seen, of holding ourselves away from the beauty of relationship with others, or even the risk of no longer engaging ourselves in authentic ways.

Trust invites us to be messy with others (and ourselves) with the hope that it will go well. Perhaps trust is inviting us into uncertainty in ways that cause us to be uncomfortable, but as we grow into that space, maybe it won’t be so hard to offer ourselves to the uncertainty of what will happen. We won’t know until we offer ourselves to the risk and the beauty of this lovely gift.