Someone to Be Safe With…

We have talked of sharing and of keeping confidences. Now, for a moment, we should like to talk of someone to trust⎯someone to be safe with. There are many exciting people, many talented and able and entertaining people, many charming and engaging people, who add interest and usefulness and color to any occasion. But beyond all this, among the greatest blessing of life is to feel safe with someone.

In many things we are very dependent upon other people. We don’t have the knowledge or skill or ability to do all things for ourselves. And since this is so, it is a surpassing blessing to have someone to trust⎯someone to be safe with. But there is no real safety or peace or assurance with anyone without integrity, without high qualities of character.

It is a blessing and an obligation to see that our children are safe. Blessed is the child who can come with his hurts and his troubles to someone he can trust, and be enfolded in loving arms, with the blessed assurance of being safe with someone. And not only is it so with children, but with others also.

We likely wouldn’t let an unknown, unbonded messenger carry large amounts of money from bank to bank. But do we assure ourselves how safe our loved ones are? Would we entrust a daughter, for example, to unknown and unproved companions. Is there anything more priceless than virtue? Than chastity? Would we leave priceless and irreplaceable things to chance? This is plain speaking⎯but not too plain for speaking of life and peace and safety and happiness, and of infinitely important and irreplaceable things.

Among the greatest blessing in life is to be safe with someone without evil intent, someone who wouldn’t violate a trust, who wouldn’t take advantage of innocence or ignorance; someone who isn’t planning in his heart to compromise principles, or to deprive another person of virtue, chastity, honor, or any priceless or irreplaceable possession. We may have all else in life, but if we can’t count on character, on integrity, if we haven’t the sense of being safe, we have little that matters very much. Oh the joy, the surpassing joy of having someone we can turn to, someone we can trust. Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort, of feeling safe with a person . . .