I know not everyone is into the God Stuff nor the Steps of Alcoholics’ Anonymous/Al-Anon, but I ask you indulge your patience. Here you go: LET GO, LET GOD, TRUST, SURRENDER.
I don't have to trust people, nor need anyone "earn" my trust. Taking my power back is to trust my Higher Power. In other words, we intuitively know things which used to baffle us. Trust of people, places, and things comes from this choice. But a person can earn my distrust, not because distrust is right, but because I fall short of the ideal. While Christ taught that we are to forgive 7 x 70 (490), he also said: "Cast not your pearls before the swine".
The inconsistency that distrust offers is that the messages God allows through circumstances are missed. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is an apt description of what it means to see the Messages in EVERYTHING. Even in my own shortcomings, am I going to call myself a 'swine' and distrust myself and therefore distrust God? That is not to say I am The Almighty.
Consider Step Six, which reads that we were completely ready to let God remove ALL of our defects of character. If I have asked God to remove my defects and I still have them, then I trust that they serve a Higher Purpose. Every day, I ask God to direct my thoughts, and then trust that my thoughts, even the mistaken ones, are covered.
If a weed comes up in the Garden of Surrender, if we are smart, we won’t allow it to take root. Instead, pull it, and trust the work of bending over at the very least worked a muscle. Or maybe paying attention to the weed/defect made you notice a bug crawling through the soil that had sunlight reflect from its shell in such a way that it caused you to sit still for a moment and bask in the of beauty beyond the idea of wrongness.
If there is only One God, One Righteous Judge, then even while one might be doing the WHY ME thing (we all do that from time to time, I think), you can also do the, THY will be done THING. 'Why have you forsaken me' is an idea of utter powerlessness that we should celebrate.
Celebrate every drunk, every relapse, every insult, every transgression, every moment of life, no matter how painful it might be. Celebrate, forgive, live with your God Filters on, TRUSTING that experiencing powerlessness is the gateway to the rest of the Steps.
The FULL Serenity Prayer has some dimensions worthy of contemplation, as does the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. If St. Francis was full of love and light, why would he need to forgive? If we are already full of serenity, why would we need a Serenity Prayer? Acceptance of this dualism is not to support it, but to help us let go of the Monkey Mind Syndrome which focuses on the illusion that anything can be wrong in our lives. If God allows it, it serves a purpose. If there is a Satan, this fact above all must piss him off the most, that no matter what he does, a miracle grows from a place deeper than the illusion.
Paul in the Bible asked why he does the thing he would not do, and grieved. When I wanna do it the least is when I need to do it the most. Paul let the grief become his personal wall of hell, but had he LOVED his defects, they would have grown weaker. Hating out shortcomings keeps them strong. Recognizing a shortcoming and loving it anyway opens the door to spiritual growth. Celebrate the offense, forgive it. The forgiveness is more powerful than the offense that required its forgiving.
Strength through vulnerability. Tears are Holy Water. Sun shines through the rain.