It isn’t that I don’t trust others. I don’t trust myself.

I grew up in an alcoholic and abusive household. As a little child I was already standing up for my little brother who became the blame for the problems my parent-children could not work out. At 3 years old, I saw what was happening and spoke up. I trusted myself then.

Then I heard things like, “that’s just daddy’s way of loving us” or “it will be okay this time.” Those were in between words like “shh. be really quiet. I want you to get dressed and stay under the covers. Be ready to go when I come and get you.” Followed a bit later with, “shhh. We don’t want to wake daddy, let’s go for a walk. A friend is going to meet us and we are going to a sleep over.” When I would ask when we would get to see dad or go home, I was told how nice it is where we were staying and asked if I wasn’t enjoying petting the horses each day.

Later in life as a teen when I was asked why I did things, I would respond, “well I thought….” only to be told not to think. When I said, “I didn’t think…” I was told I needed to think more. And while they didn’t know how insidious it was, I was teased my entire life by family and others about my blonde hair and being a dingy broad/blonde. All this despite an obscenely large vocabulary and high intelligence. When my grandfather molested me, I was told by my grandmother that as the eldest grandchild it was my job to lead the family and instead I was ruining the family and telling lies. But I was telling the truth…and aren’t we supposed to tell the truth?
So I stopped believing in myself. I don’t know when it happened but it did.
If what I thought was love wasn’t how I was loved, then I must not be trustworthy.
If I both enjoyed the horses and wanted to go home, I must not be trustworthy.
If I can’t “think” or “not think” correctly, I must not be trustworthy.
If I speak truth but it destroys, I must not be trustworthy.

When my synod in the E.L.C.A. (Sierra Pacific) began having problems around what our bishop did, that I did not witness myself, I did what I have always done: believed the ones harmed, the ones crying out for mercy. But I didn’t trust myself. I thought daily that I must be missing something. Surely there is more that I do not know. And then I was told, along with all the rest of us, that there is so much we don’t know. So again, I believed I was untrustworthy.

I was NOT a first hand witness so I made space for the voices color around me and kept listening. And all the while in my heart, I kept thinking, “Remember, you cannot trust yourself. You have to trust others to speak the truth- there is no way you can know it.”
But I did know it.

For years I have been in therapy to recover from abuses from my childhood. I love how I grow. I love how I learn to see truth and what I am responsible for and what is not mine (shame over being abused, for example). I love how I learn, and I realized, I have trust issues. Today, as I processed even more trespasses of my bishop, I realized something. It isn’t that I didn’t trust someone else. I don’t trust myself.

I didn’t trust myself that I was strong enough to be a verbal supporter and make room for voices of color. I didn’t trust myself that I was smart enough to see the manipulation. I didn’t trust myself that I have healthy boundaries. I didn’t trust myself to let others disappoint me and that I would not shatter when they did. I didn’t trust myself enough to believe that God has called me to pastor in this time. Or that maybe, just maybe, I have a word and a gospel promise to share that is work assigned to me because someone needs to hear it in my translation or expression to help their heart heal or understand.

I didn’t trust myself enough to figure out which of my colleagues in my new synod were trustworthy. And in turn, they didn’t trust me and several all but accused me of being dangerous. And maybe I am. Because I don’t yet understand I have to trust myself.

I am told my mind is sharp and I see things clearly. But I don’t trust myself to believe it all the time. And when I do I get gas-lit again and told I am being bold, too outspoken, or dramatic, that I am being “Too much.” Well, I am not too much. I am God loved and created. I just preached to my congregation to remember our queerness is not bad, but sacred, given and woven into us with love and intention. But I need to claim this for myself.

I also need to keep claiming it for others because right now, I am hearing others did not trust themselves and they are holding deep regret and shame for it. And I wonder, were they told the same things to make them doubt themself?
I wonder: What if the sin in the garden wasn’t that they ate the fruit, but that they didn’t trust their own worthiness to be loved after making a mistake. In that moment, the first separation from God occurred, they did not trust in their own worthiness or that God’s love could be big enough. They felt separated from God in their own lack of trust.

Maybe, just maybe, we are missing the most important part of all of this; that we are trustworthy and God has called us to this moment because we are trusted to do this work, to name this sin, to gather in, and grieve*, and eventually to work for something new together.

You are trustworthy. You can trust yourself. And I need you to. We, the whole church, need you to trust yourself because we have some serious grieving, sitting, and when the time is right, work to do. But to do it, we need to trust ourselves.

*Please read Pastor Hazel Salazar Davidson’s phenomenal blog found here: