How to Trust After You've Been Betrayed

Gary Shriver came home and told his wife Mona the

truth. He'd been having an affair for three years. The

other woman was Mona's close friend. It didn't come out

because Gary woke up that morning and decided to come

clean. A co-worker had confronted and his pastor sat

him down right after that, and by the time he got to Mona, the

thing had already been pried He told her the rest of it to

another woman one night. So Mona lost two people that day, her

husband and her friend. She didn't file for divorce. This

was back when an affair meant almost certain divorce, and

everybody around her knew it. She'd tell you later that her

reasons for staying weren't noble ones. Part of it was pride.

She was proud of their marriage, and she couldn't stand the

thought of people looking at her likable husband and deciding he

must have had his reasons. Gary was repentant, and he wanted the

marriage, and Mona held on to that. It was the thin thread to

hold on to. Then came the part nobody warns you about.

Forgiving him and trusting him again turned out to be two

completely different and she had no idea how to get from one to

the other. Gary and Mona started looking for help and what they

wanted was simple. One couple. One couple. One couple somewhere

who had been through adultery and come out the other side. Who

could sit across from them and say, "We made it! And you can

learn to trust again." They started looking around. We'll

come back to what they found. But

first, welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm

Bart Léger. Betrayal changes the way you see people. Somebody

you counted on lied to you, or walked away right when you

needed them. And even years later, long after the wound

closed over, you catch yourself flinching at things a healthier

version of you would have taken in stride. A friend cancels

plans, and part of you decides they were never your friend to

begin with. Your spouse is late, and your mind is already three

chapters into a story you have no proof of. That's because a

betrayal leaves a scar. It's what happens when someone breaks

your trust. Your mind learned that people you love can hurt

you, and now it's trying to keep you safe by keeping everyone at

arm's length. The trouble is that arm's length is a pretty

lonely place to live. Here's what I've watched over years of

counseling. Trusting again is slow work, and it happens by

inches. I've had people tell me they were sure they'd never open

up to anyone again. And I couldn't argue them out of it.

I've also watched those same people a year or two later let

one careful person back in, and then another. Nobody talked them

into it. God did it one small risk at a time. What I stopped

doing a long time ago was trying to rush it, because it doesn't

rush. There's a verse that gets misread on this pretty often.

People treat it like the Bible's telling you to give up on people

and rely on God alone. As I read it closely, it says something, I

think, better than that. Listen to Psalm 118, verses 8 and 9.

Refuge is where you run when everything else gives way. The

psalmist is telling you where to put the full weight of your

trust. Not on your husband, not on your wife, not on the friend

everyone admires. Put the whole weight on God, because He's the

one who holds up under it. Then, when a person lets you down,

people often will, the letdown doesn't take you down with it.

You are never standing on them completely in the first place.

Once God is holding that weight, you're free to love people again.

You can risk a friendship, and you can rebuild a marriage. You

do it with your eyes open this time, and you do it by God's

grace, knowing that even if this person lets you down again, you

are not going to fall through the floor. That's the difference

between the trust you had before and the trust God builds in you

after. The first was fragile. This kind has a foundation under

it. So, let me tell you what happened to Gary and Mona. They

couldn't find them. Not one couple would say it out loud.

Plenty of marriages had survived it, and nobody was willing to be

that exposed in front of another human being. So, Gary and Mona

did the work without anyone to show them how. Counseling and

years of it. Trust came back the way it comes back for everyone.

In inches. On a timeline, neither of them got to pick. In

1998, they started Hope and Healing Ministries, a peer

support ministry for couples trying to come back from

adultery. And they became the couple they'd gone looking for

and never found. Later, they wrote it down in a book called

Unfaithful. Gary telling his side and Mona telling hers.

They've been married more than 40 years now with three grown

sons. In inches. On a timeline they didn't get to pick. That's

how it comes back for you too. Here's today's challenge. Name

the person who broke your trust and take that name to God today.

Tell him you're scared to open up again. Because he already

knows and he can handle it. Then, ask God to become the place you

run to first. The refuge under everything else. And when he's

holding the weight, take one small step back toward people.

Maybe just an inch. Answer the text you've been ignoring. Or

say yes to the coffee. Let one careful person a little closer

and leave the part you can't guarantee with God. Father, you

know exactly who hurt us and you saw it when it happened. Some of

us have been guarding ourselves for years and we're tired. Be

our refuge. Be the one we run to first. The ground that holds

when people give way. Teach us to trust you with the full

weight so we're free to love people again without living in

fear of them. Do the slow work in us inch by inch the way only

you can. In Jesus' name, amen. If this episode encouraged you

today, would you share it with someone who might need to hear

it? Just go to dailydevotionsforbusylives.com

slash 283 and copy the link. It only takes a second and it might

make a real difference in someone's day. Thanks for

joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. Remember, trust

comes back by inches and it comes back best when God is the

refuge holding the weight. Come back next time for more

encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth. Until

then, God bless and have a great day.