Trust and faith are two things I have always had trouble with. In the past, every time a friend of mine would do a tarot reading for me, the two of swords would show up. It would happen so often that my friends would tease me, saying they would get me a t-shirt with that card’s image on it. Thankfully, they never did, but for years afterward, every time the card came up for one of us, everyone would look at me and snicker.

The two of swords card has to do with having blind faith. Its message is to relax and allow things to happen, and they will turn out as they should. For a lapsed Catholic who respects religion but refuses to follow it, faith is a somewhat flexible term for me. In some things, I have faith. In others, it’s more like expectations. I do have faith that things will turn out as they should, which goes a long way to help the law of attraction do its thing in my life for the better. I have faith that things will eventually fall out the way it was intended to be for the good of all concerned. However, I also understand that while I believe that, I also know that while going through something, it feels like it’s never going to end or that it may end horribly. (Still working on that glass half empty thing.)

I do have faith, but trust is a can of worms. One of my goals is to learn to trust more. It’s a work in progress. Trust is hard because it’s earned, and it’s hard to regain once lost. What’s hard about faith and trust is that when someone does something that affects one of those two things, we are cut adrift, wondering what we should put our faith in and who to trust. 

Some would say the obvious answer is God/Goddess or whatever deity/higher power you believe in. For some, that is at the top of the list, but when we feel betrayed by our higher power, what then? We need more on the list than just a great unseen/unfelt force that even the most devout of us question from time to time. What about people? In the U.S., we have recently seen one example after another of people in positions of power accused of doing despicable things. 

If we can’t trust God and we can’t trust people, what are we supposed to do?

Many of us are nervous, not knowing what to say or do. A few weeks ago, I was in the parking lot of a drug store, and a police cruiser came out of nowhere. It moved closer and slowed down near my friend and me. I stood there knowing I had done nothing wrong but wondered if I had and didn’t know it. My mind was chasing itself, evaluating all of my actions over the last ten minutes to see if there was something I missed. My heart beat faster as the cruiser stopped. The police officer smiled brightly, said, “Hi!” and then got out of her car. She mentioned she was checking on a pet peeve of hers – someone parking in a handicapped designated space without a placard.

My friend and I breathed a sigh of relief and went into the store. There was no reason to be nervous, but I was. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I had seen videos of others who weren’t doing anything wrong being arrested and worse. 

I had an incident years ago after I bought a used car. The car needed new license plate tags, which are part of registration in my state. The dealership was about two hours away from where I lived at the time. I had to go pick up the tags, but their business office wasn’t open on the weekends, and I got off too late in the day to make it before they closed. I ended up asking them to mail them to me. In the meantime, I left work and got pulled over by a police officer.

He was ready to write me a ticket for having expired tags. I explained the situation, and the look on his face let me know he thought I was lying. His attitude was nearly hostile. I waited for him to check. He gave me back all my documents, told me to go pick up my tags, and walked away. I was annoyed at being treated that way and wondered if all the officers I met would be like that guy.

Another experience with a police officer was one who pulled me over, again for expired tags, but with a different car. (I’m sensing a theme here…) It was late. I had gotten off work and was on my way home. “Wait,” I said, “I have them here. I paid for them.” I pulled them out of the glove box. “You had them mailed to you?” He sounded incredulous. I grimaced. “Yes, I just didn’t have time to put them on.” “Would you like me to help you put them on now?” He asked, laughter accenting his voice. “Yes, please,” I mumbled. He helped me clean the license plate, and I stood there while he put them on for me and told me to have a good night.

The point is that you can’t tell what’s going to happen.  This is where faith and trust come in. What you can have faith in is yourself. Know that you can and will handle whatever happens, and trust that it’s for the best. You are a being of great power. A part of the Universe that thinks it’s separate when it’s really not. You will always do your best at the time. You may make mistakes, but that’s okay. No one is perfect.  How to trust and have faith when you don’t know how is to always believe in yourself. 

There have been some times when I thought I couldn’t even do that for one reason or another, but eventually, once I calmed the hell down, I understood that nothing or no one is perfect, and as long as I do the best I can do with what I have at the moment, the rest of the world could kiss my @ss. I’m still in the process of learning not to be so hard on myself, but I do believe that when all else fails, I always have someone in my corner, myself, my ancestors, and my guides and angels. They will help me through those times when I can’t help myself, and they will do so in ways I might not expect but will be the perfect thing at the right time. It is those agents of the Universe that manage to renew my faith in a divine plan and bolsters my trust that everything will be just fine.