Trust Issues.

Hello all. A little update, I have been sick this past week so I've been MIA, but don't worry its nothing serious.(Lets just say it pays to be living with 2 doctors)Im about to start my 3rd week of school. My classes are great and include 4 classes in Spanish(one of which is a Tango class) and 1 class in English. And they don't start until 1 in the afternoon so I am loving the sleep!
One change I have noticed in my life since traveling to South America is my increased trust in people. Now a lot of us have grown up being taught "if its too good to be true it probably is." So we constantly distrust people and different type of offers because nobody wants to be labled as a sucker. While I think its wise to take everything with a grain of salt,I also have learned we can miss out on so much because we fail to trust. We not only miss out on cool and adventerous opportunities with people, but I believe this mistrust can overflow into our relationship with God. Allow me to explain. Flying into a new country can be exhilirating and scary at the same time, especially if you don't really have an itinerary. When I landed in Chile I had no idea where I was or where the hostel was and it was in the middle of the night. I had met this Chilean guy during my flight and he was pretty cool. Everytime we passed by each other on the plane he high fived me. He even went so far as to wake me up one time, while he passed by row. How thoughtful..anyways we land and start heading out of the airport and he asks me where I am going and if I wanted to share a cab. Now bells start to go off in my head, and I remembered the wise words from my lonely planet guide to not share a cab with someone you don't know. After fighting with that voice inside my head for a couple of minutes I decided to to go for it. I would just make sure I had my throwing knives on me. So it turns out he had a cab waiting for him already that his company had already set up for him. He ended up dropping me off right in front of my hostel free of charge! And gave me his number and address and told him if I needed anything to just give him a call. Score! There are numerous stories I could share with you from this trip that are similar. I mean I found my host family on Craigs List and all they did was give me an address to meet them at. Definitely a little sketched out during my cab ride to their house, I was thinking of all of the horrible headlines that they would be writing about my disappearance in the newspaper; "American stumbles upon drug lab and is killed, or "Young man shows up at a Mafia hangout and is turned into a monkey slave." You know that sort of thing. Well I can tell you that these people are the nicest people I have ever met and are definitely not in the Mafia. What I have come to find is that most people are genuinely good people and by living paranoid I was missing out on some cool experiences. Frank Crane once said “You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough” I mean cool things like couchsuring are built on trust, and its a shame that those rare and unfortunate bad events can keep us from trusting others. Im not saying to just be an airhead and not have discernment, but trust first and if you do happen to get screwed over then get up dust yourself off and keep going. Trust is key in our relationship with God as well. I know for myself there can be that doubt in God's grace. Sometimes I feel its impossible for God to keep loving me because of all the times I've screwed up. His grace sounds too good to be true. But trusting in him means beleiving that when he said "It is by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift from God not by works, so that no one can boast," that he meant it. And we all know the ever so popular verse, "trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways awknowledge him and he will make your paths straight." -Proverbs 3:5-6. Without trust we miss out on the goodness and kindness of strangers and freedom in Christ. I know for me this is something I am growing in and am excited to see the opportunities it provides.