Sin Letter: Dana Patino

All people on planet Earth have something in common. Sin is what makes us resemble each other. And it is also what makes us human. Absolutely all have been submerged in the fearful waters of sin. Some have even been drowning in sin, others have been saved, but no one is perfect, and I can assure you that we all commit some sin every day of our lives. By this I do not mean committing very strong sins like murder, adultery, or revenge, but I mean that we all commit at least one minor sin every day. It can be lies, pride, envy or in my case, overconfidence. You may be wondering, how is it possible that one of my biggest sins so far at my young age of 16, has been overconfidence.

Well, in view of the fact that I have a whole life ahead of me and I have not experienced many things until now, my greatest sin has been to open the interior of my being to others and to place my trust in various people. By this I do not mean that I have betrayed someone’s trust, but rather, I have trusted people so much that they have unfortunately hurt me in various ways. Now, why do I think this is a sin, if I do not considered confidence itself as a sin?

The answer is very simple; because it was my fault that I trusted the wrong people. Regardless of whether others have hurt me through betrayal, I was the one who opened the door to the sin of betrayal through my overconfidence towards some people.

Almost every time I have placed my trust in someone else, it has been counterproductive for me. I sincerely think that trust can be a double-edged sword, or it allows you to attack evil by opening your heart to others, or it is like a dagger that is buried deep in your heart.

Over time I have learned not to trust any word, smile, kiss, or hug, because people know how to pretend too well. Since I was little, I had placed my trust in almost everyone who was my friends, teachers and even some relatives.

But I realized that the trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool. Just until a couple of months ago, I understood that distrust and caution are the parents of security. Well, after all the great disappointments that I have experienced because of being overconfident, I have learned to be more careful. However, although I have learned over time, trust is like a glass, once broken, it will never be the same no matter how hard you try to fix it. Or confidence is like paper, once it’s wrinkled, it can’t be perfect again.

That is just how my trust towards others has diminished. It is as if it were an eraser, it is spent with each mistake. And although I was not the one who betrayed the trust of the other, I was the one to blame for trusting the wrong people. If I had known from the beginning that trust is gained with a thousand acts and lost with one, then I would not have let multiple people hurt me for long. Because yes, unfortunately the same people who betrayed me when I was little, continued to betray me until a few months ago, when I finally put a stop to the trust I placed in others.

I always tried to find a pretext to cover up the dark truth, that someone had betrayed me. I suppose it was because I was afraid that some of the people, I loved the most had broken their word and betrayed me. Now that I think about how it was possible that I continued to trust the same people who had already hurt and betrayed me before, I think it was because I did not want to accept reality.

Sometimes in my dreams I imagine a small and naive girl, in a beautiful park full of white rose bushes with pearly tones and divine chrysanthemums. That place was safe, peaceful and in a very beautiful setting. But whenever that girl approached the pure white rose bushes, she would cut herself on her fingers, blood would come out and hurt herself. In the end it hurt her, and she ended up staining that beautiful and pure white of the rose bush with her own thick, fiery blood and a crimson red. In the end everything was clouded and the only living note of color was that crimson red. It was the surviving note of sin in her world. The girl in that dream was always me, the pure rose bushes were the trust that I placed in others, the thorns were the acts of betrayal that I suffered from trusting too much in others and the thick blood was the pain and suffering that I suffered, caused by cutting myself with the thorns of the rosebush.

The fact that in my dream I saw myself approaching to touch the rose bushes and how I hurt myself with the thorns and stained the pure rose bushes with thick blood, makes me think that it is just as if I had opened the door to the sin of overconfidence and therefore, the betrayal ended up reaching and hurting me. Well, I was the one who came to touch the thorns of the rose bushes and I alone ended up making cuts all over my soul.

But this is the reality, and although I realized 16 years later, the importance of knowing how to go slowly but surely with the people around us, at least I have realized and now I know that loyalty is difficult to find, confidence is easy to lose, and actions speak louder than words.

“Trust can be a double-edged sword, or it allows you to attack evil by opening your heart to others, or it is like a dagger that is buried deep in your heart”.