Rochester, Minnesota - Love is wishing others well. Love is kind. Love gives and is grateful in receiving. Love feeds on trust.

Trust is your willingness to cede control. Letting go of control makes you feel vulnerable. Most of us don’t like feeling vulnerable. But we don’t have a choice. We don’t wish to live in a world where we can’t trust. So we trust.

In trust we choose not to retaliate, sometimes even in self-defense. We weaken our immunity. We close our eyes to the hurts, until they hurt very badly.

In the process we might have to endure many stings, the sharpest of which come from the most unexpected corners – from the people closest to us.

Those hurts, however, are much fewer than the love you may have received – from trusting, loving and being vulnerable.

You have a choice. Choose to trust and love and be vulnerable, or keep yourself distant and safe.

I choose the former.

Trust and love will make you vulnerable, trust and love anyway.