I am as fragile as glass, yet stronger than the cables that suspend the Golden Gate Bridge.  Sometimes I am hard to find, other times I am freely given.  I am more valuable than the Hope Diamond, but I am sometimes discarded as if I were yesterday’s garbage.  I can live a lifetime or die in an instant.   I am what makes a baby take his or her first steps towards parents’ outstretched arms.  I am what makes a child attempt to ride their bike without training wheels.  Parents possess me when they allow their teenagers to leave with a group of friends.   I am what holds all relationships together.  I am solid, but when broken very difficult, and at times impossible, to put back together.  Many believe that once I am betrayed, I should be restored because of an apology.  But my soul is deeper than that; and sadly, sometimes I can never regain my original beauty.  Sometimes walls are built around me for self-protection.  I have the power to change the way a person views mankind.   I am the foundation that friendship and love is based upon. In any relationship, I am more important than love.  If you haven’t guessed, my name is Trust.

We are not born trusting others.  A good example is a child learning to swim.  Even though their parents may be in the water, ready to catch them and encouraging them to jump, they are hesitant.  That is, until that first beautiful leap when they are safely caught in the outstretched arms of their parent.  From that point forward, they are ready to jump over and over because they trust that someone will catch them.  And that’s all any of us really want; someone to catch us.  Trust is a valuable gift to give or receive.  If someone gives the gift of trust, don’t treat it lightly.  Treat it as the honor that it is and guard it as protectively as any prized possession.  Trust will be the closest we will ever come to holding someone’s heart in our hands. Cherish it.  Be careful with it.  Because how we handle it matters, sometimes more than we realize.