“Sometimes people in our lives start drowning. Under lies,
under emotions, under their struggles. And sometimes it affects us. But as
believers we are called, when someone starts going under, to reach down through
the water and give them a solid hand to grab on to. To help pull them to the
surface, even if we don’t understand. Even if we warned ahead of time that the
water was deep and the current was strong. Even if it means laying down our
pride. Because we never know when that drowning person will be us, and our
survival will depend on a hand of truth reaching form above the surface of the
waters to pull us back into fresh air. Back to life.” –Journal, 6/30/11
I've been gone for a while.
And I don’t just mean that I haven’t written in a while. I
think the real, true version of myself has been on some extended vacation over
the past few months. Seminary has a way of dragging our hearts into the light
and asking us to struggle with what we find there, and I am no exception. But
it’s not just seminary…life issues out its own unique brand of trials to all of
us, and there will be times that these trials drag our true selves away and
leave a bruised and muted version of us behind to live our lives for a while.
And you know what? That’s okay.
As I have been wrestling with my own struggles, I've also
been contemplating something about community and life in relationship that I
think is pretty important. In this world, there must be periods of our lives
where we are allowed to be honest about the pain we feel; when it is safe to not
be okay. Freedom to be exactly where we are and not pressured to bring our
vibrant and true selves out from hiding. In these moments, we need people
around us who are okay with letting us not be happy, perky, or fun. We need
freedom in relationship to not have to hold it all together, and understanding
that the true version of ourselves cannot come out to play right now. Sometimes, we need permission to acknowledge that
we might be drowning.
I think too often we have no space where we are given this
kind of safety. Either the community around us treats us as though we are so
fragile that we may break at any moment, or they fight back against the
discomfort of our pain by demanding that we hide reality so that they may feel
comfortable again.
I’m not saying that
there isn't a time where we are called to set aside our struggles in order to
care for others. I’m saying that as a community we put so much pressure on each
other to maintain the homeostasis of our relationships, and in turn to hide the
pain that sin has so freely planted in our lives. To acknowledge the depth of damage
that sin has caused is terrifying, and most of us choose to run from it while
rebuking those who would dare expose it.
But what if we were called to something else? What if,
instead of sweeping sin and pain under the rug as the rest of the world does,
we entered into it with others? What if we pushed past our discomfort and even
frustration, and sat in darkness with the suffering? Might we then have a
better position in which to bring in the light?
My true self has been showing its face a lot more often
these days, and as I take joy in living more fully out of who God has made me
to be, I’m looking back in gratitude and thankfulness for those the Lord specifically placed in my life during a particularly hard period. These few
people not only sat in my struggles with me, but when the moment came they
reached out their hands and sought to pull me back to fresh air and life. I am
so grateful for their sacrificial love toward me.
And I am filled with sorrow about the number of others whose discomfort
led them away from me in frustration and fear. Words of pain and condemnation
coming from those that I trusted. As I seek to understand and love the people
who could not enter grief with me, I pray that my experiences will deepen my
own understanding of those grieving and help me to more willingly extend my
presence and my hand toward those in the depths themselves.
