Have you ever noticed that the people your heart feels most connected to are not the ones who pretend they have it all together but the ones who are willing to say so when they're falling apart?
Have you ever noticed that we still fight desperately to pretend we have it all together for each other? Myself included. Why is that?
It's like we create these self imposed prisons behind pretense and what we think other people want to see. All the while we know that what we prefer to see in someone else is the real deal.
God is laying this on my heart so strongly lately, through conversations with people I love, through witnessing some hard things and watching people fight their own fears to let go, through a whole bunch of things. I wanna be the real deal. I don't want to be a whiney brat but I wanna feel what I feel and be able to say so. I don't want to live out of what I feel, but I'm tired of pretending it's not or it shouldn't be.
Not only do I wanna be the real deal...I wanna be a safe place for those around me to be real as well. I wanna be able to hear the junk of life, the poor decisions, the mess ups, the sins and I want to pray with and for them. I don't want to be the shocked face as though I thought all our lives were as perfect as we made them out to be. I don't want to be the unprepared heart never ready to hear bad news that someone I love has made some poor choices. I want to recognize the world in which we live and I want to live with hands and a heart that help be a part of God's healing process. I want to be a safe place for the real deal.
I've heard it said that we teach people how to treat us. I think we also by our words and our actions teach people how to "be" around us. Will Jen's mouth run off about everything I tell her or can I trust her with the contents of my heart? Will she share her opinions and criticisms openly like hers is the most educated opinion out there or will she be humble enough to just sit and listen? Will she sit stoicly as though she has it all together or will she confess that not everything in her world has been and always is just right either? Can I trust her to sympathize and empathize with my tears? And I think what we're all dying to know is...Will she love me REGARDLESS?
I think it's easy to get frustrated with people's pretense including our own. I'm just wondering if we don't have a part to play in helping each other tear down the walls of what we've always known we were "supposed" to be. Wonder if it isn't a team effort to help one another be authentic before God and each other. Think we all get better when we approach our problems with a team mentality than a she or he ought to approach.
I think if we ever get this loving each other with His heart thing anywhere near right, the pretense will fly out the window and we'll not wait to be able to be honest and real with one another regardless of whether we're happy or sad or right in a muck pile of sin. We've got a job to do. Let's get busy loving each other like Jesus.
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