feeling protected

Today, my heart is longing to feel safe and protected. I think about the many times throughout my life which I have simply not felt that way. It seems like I typically felt unsafe and unprotected by others. Those others being people who should have sought to protect me. My childhood was riddled with moments of feeling unsafe and my adulthood is now stained with the same feelings.

So, I have learned through the majority of my experiences that I must take care of myself. I must learn to protect myself. I must make sure I am safe. I can count on no one else to do that for me.

So how do I reconcile that with the reality that God wants to protect me, wants to keep me safe, wants to be my shelter, wants to hide me under His wings. How do I trust that someone else will be there to protect and shelter me? How do I believe that I don't always have to rely on myself? This is hard for me to understand and I am struggling today to not be envious of so many people around me who do in fact have those protectors in life; people who serve to keep them safe.

Why did God allow me so many experiences for me to learn the very opposite of what he truly wants for me to know? This is confusing and so very hard to unlearn.