When you have been deeply hurt, learning to trust again can be like learning to walk by taking one step at a time. It is okay for you to take that one step at a time, if that is all you can take. You are healing and that usually takes time, sometimes a lot of time. Yet, you choose to take that step. Often, Jesus spoke of faith making a person well.

Yes, trust arises out of our relationships. We never heal by hiding. If you say, "Well, she hurt me," "He hurt me," or "They hurt me," and you close down your heart, you will not heal - you will only hide. The heart can heal only when open. You will stay stuck in the past, if you harden your heart.

You will hurt others out of that past hurt, and you will justify it. You will keep turning events within your perception in your favor, to your desire to feel a victim, to justify your hurting others, or simply abandoning them before you risk being abandoned by them. You may live among others with a facade of closeness, never unlocking the prison of pain that keeps you captive. Your smile can be a pretty mask of the ugly toxins of regret, resentment, and unforgiveness.

The above scene in The Shack shows us the kind of relationships that help us to heal - to trust again. These relationships are not about performance. They are not demanding of us. Yes, they place expectations upon us, for Love is a relationship - re-lat-ing, after all. True Love places accountability upon us.

In a safe, healing relationship, persons seek to bring out the best in each other, but not demanding the best of each other. Expecting a like reciprocation, persons learn to trust their capabilities at caring and sharing.

A relationship with the Divine is to be a healing space, too. I was once in therapy. My counselor alerted me to the insight that I had lived closely to Spirit most of my life, very close, for I knew I was safe in that relationship. That, in itself, was good and as needs to be.

We do need to feel safe with God, and we need to exercise freedom to see God in whatever way helps us trust God. As long as the way we see and speak of God is respectful, we need not be concerned at how we see the Divine. That freedom to see God as one needs is healing.

Imagine some common sense with me. Forget your theological prejudices for a moment. Now, if you were God, would you be displeased with however a person could see and speak of you, if the result was a trusting relationship, a healing one? No, you would not care at all. Love does not care. That is part of the healing space of loving the Spirit. We can connect with God in the way that helps us to trust God. Now, some of you are having problems with what I am saying. That is your problem, for you are not as loving as God - neither am I.

We need to know God is not a scary deity out to get us if we do not live up to expectations, or demands. God does not push us around. God does not demand our love. God offers God; this is what Jesus means to us. Among the conflicting ideas about who Jesus was, can we all agree - Jesus shows us the heart of God?

After the counselor spoke to me of my relationship with God, and how I had trusted it, I realized something else. I came to see how I had hidden in that relationship for years. I had been slowly coming out for years. Still, I began to see how I had found the place so safe, I tended to scamper back to it from the world outside.

So, see, this is all good, to an extent. We can run to God. We can find that place a safe place. If you are hurt deeply enough, you may need to live mainly in retreat for some time, hiding in the embrace of God. Not all hiding is unhealthy.

This retreat is not going to a physical retreat site. This retreat entails a persistent return to your Quiet with God.

The retreat inward may be what you need to prepare to explore the world outside again, to offer yourself and your gifts more wholly. In fact, the Spirit might not open some opportunities for you, until you are prepared for them. So, in healing, you may discern closed doors are not a "No," only a "Yes, when you're ready."

Then, when you are ready more fully to engage life and learn to trust again in relationships, choose wisely. You will pray to be led to the right friends and romantic relationship best for you. See, God is intimately involved in your life. God has a way of connecting you to the persons and places you need at any one time in your life.

You will, also, be honest. You will not hide your pain from persons close to you, but you will not just dump your story of pain on persons. You will, in the right time and way, share with whomever you need your path of healing. This, itself, is an act of trust. But you will not advertise your past or present pain. Sharing your experience in the right way and time, with the right persons, and your story held in love, that is part of the healing.

See, you do not have to feign being strong. Simply, be who you are - the best you. That is a person learning to love once more.

You may say, "But I am not on that journey of healing." Okay, you are not, but you will be called to deeper levels of trust and self-abandonment to Love. You will need Grace to help you.

See, there are levels, so to speak, of loving that you and I have never explored, never dreamed of. Family love is not the same as universal love, for example. Best friend love is not the same as romantic love. Learning to trust at every new level is a new experience. Trusting in different relationships of different qualities of Love is what you are learning. We never graduate from this education in Love-ing.

So, we return to faith, which in the New Testament means "to faith in, trust in, faithing in," when used as a verb. Faith is a relationship reality, that is why to have faith in the New Testament means to faith in or being faithing in.

James Brown, in 1991, then serving a church in Louisiana, wrote of faith as follows:

There is no situation I can get into that God cannot get me out. Some years ago when I was learning to fly, my instructor told me to put the plane into a steep and extended dive. I was totally unprepared for what was about to happen. After a brief time the engine stalled, and the plane began to plunge out-of-control. It soon became evident that the instructor was not going to help me at all. After a few seconds, which seemed like eternity, my mind began to function again. I quickly corrected the situation. Immediately I turned to the instructor and began to vent my fearful frustrations on him. He very calmly said to me, "There is no position you can get this airplane into that I cannot get you out of. If you want to learn to fly, go up there and do it again." At that moment God seemed to be saying to me, "Remember this. As you serve Me, there is no situation you can get yourself into that I cannot get you out of. If you trust me, you will be all right." That lesson has been proven true in my ministry many times over the years.