Iyanla Vanzant: The Four Essentials of Trust

One of the stories you mention in the book is the shooting at the church in Charleston.

Yeah.

We all remember back in June 2015 when a gunman opened fire during Bible study at the historic Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The shooter killed nine people, including state senator and pastor of the church, Reverend Clementa Pinckney.

After a 14-hour manhunt, 21-year-old Dylan Roof was arrested.

He later admitted to the shooting and told authorities he did it in hopes of igniting a race war.

You know, an event like that, when you're talking about trusting in others, trusting in life, can cause everything to be called into question.

Your faith, your trust, your belief in God.

How do you trust again after something like that?

I believe that all things are lessons that God would have us learn.

And I believe everything happens the way it needs to happen.

They were not wrong in trusting that young man to come into the church.

They were not wrong.

They were doing what they needed to do.

And what happened, even though our human eyes and human mind can't calculate it, needed to happen.

I believe that what happened as a result is where the whole thing went to pot.

I believe that that incident and many, many others were the call for us to have a real conversation about race and racism.

I really do believe it.

And we did a bypass.

we went to forgiveness and be nice and be kind instead of saying, okay, we still got bushes here with people living in them that got this issue about

race.

Yeah.

Like the profound lack of trust between, you know, the African American community and the police in our community right now.

we won't have that conversation.

And if you're not telling the truth, you won't trust.