You Live and Learn Part 2
December 3, 2025
You Live and Learn Part 2: Trust
One of the first things we ever learn in life is trust. Our first course in trust might be called Nourishment 101, and we took it as infants. From our first breath, nourishment was essential, but we were helpless to provide it for ourselves. Our caretakers held our survival in their hands. We had to learn to trust them for food, warmth, love, and care. And food was the very first practical lesson. The feeding process itself became the laboratory for Trust 101.
Few babies are continuously fed on demand. Caretakers manage real lives in a real world and cannot always be there the moment a baby cries. So, we learn that getting our needs met is unpredictable just as life itself is unpredictable. Between the first pangs of hunger and the moment of feeding, something profound happened inside us; we began to form our first sense of trust or mistrust.
Why don’t most babies lose all hope when their needs are not met instantly? Because, through repetition, they learn to trust that nourishment will come. The memory of being fed in the recent and distinct past becomes the foundation for hope and trust.
But not all babies are so fortunate. Some are neglected, underfed, or raised in a state of chaos. For them, hunger may stretch into despair, and the absence of care can teach them that the world is not to be trusted.
Our earliest holding environment, the way we were physically and emotionally cared for, teaches us our first lessons in trust. And we carry those lessons into life until new experiences challenge and reshape them.
A healthy baby, held in a stable, loving environment, learns to trust (see Erik Erikson’s Childhood and Society.) In a healthy holding environment, babies come to believe that their needs will be met, even if not immediately.
Over time, we also learn that healthy mistrust has its place. Unpredictability teaches us to discern and to navigate wisely. In the absence of the arrival of our food, we strategize how we will deal with delay. We learn continuous crying usually does not work so we develop ways to entertain ourselves until the food arrives. But trust is still essential. Without it, curiosity fades, hope dies, relationships wither, and our willingness to explore new paths disappears.
Trust is the very heartbeat of faith. Trust in the Divine is trust in the overall order of life itself and in the unseen hands that hold us when we are afraid or uncertain. To live without that trust is to believe that the universe is indifferent or totally unreliable. But when we live with trust, we know that love, support, and sustenance, though sometimes delayed, are always on their way.
We live and learn.
Spiritual practice: Why would you say that you trust God?
Self-inquiry: Under what circumstances would your soul mistrust?
Prayer:
Dear God, I pray to trust you so that when I lean on you, I do not doubt your presence. Amen
