Lost Innocence

My thoughts and conversation were dominated by one subject. After asking how the situation was going, my friend said, “You’re grieving your loss of innocence.” I laughed and told her that at my age, innocence was long gone.

Her further explanation gave me a lot to think about.

We’ve been coming to the same area for many years. The people are friendly and respectful. We have shown trust and respect to them in return.

Recently, someone broke that trust and deceived us. We gave him the benefit of the doubt and worked at a resolution. Our efforts were ignored, leaving us with a loss of time, money and trust.

Perhaps we’d been foolish in our actions. We hadn’t had a bad experience up to this point and failed to exercise the caution we should have. My belief in the inherent goodness and honesty of all business people had been broken. My friend was right in her assessment. I’d been innocent and now my eyes were open.

Looking at the situation as a learning experience helped me release the negative feelings I was holding. I was able to let go of the bitterness and anger. My thoughts were no longer dominated by this matter and life became peaceful again.

It was an expensive lesson, but could have been much worse.

As I was thinking about how people who are trusting are sometimes deceived, the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden came to mind. They trusted the innocent looking serpent and allowed him to deceive them. That didn’t turn out well for them or for mankind.

The bottom line is, they didn’t talk to God before making a big decision. Neither did we. We trust He will take care of us, but failed to seek his guidance in this matter.

Maybe my loss of innocence was the only way for God to impress upon me the importance of trusting him and not my own limited understanding. In that case, the lesson was worth the price.