Being vulnerable doesn't have to be threatening. Find the courage beyond yourself to be sincere, open and honest. This opens the door to deeper relationships.Speaking from the heart frees us from secrets that burden us. These secrets are what make us sick or fearful. Speaking truth.vulnerability.screams His mercy the loudest.
It’s different, ya know?
Being 18 and away from every hover of comfort I’ve ever known.
Even as much of a free-spirit that I naturally am...
I’ve always had some confines of rules,
Some comfort of the people around me backing me up,
I’ve always had people with me-- who just knew me...
The ones who you don’t really have to explain much too, they just know.
Which is wonderful.
Rules do hold you accountable,
and family and friends close by is a comfort that words can’t really do justice for...
especially with the remarkable friends and family i have been blessed with.
When the wheels (or whatever the proper word for them is) on that plane touched down on this soil, I knew that this would be so different.
And so new.
But so very necessary in my journey of life.
You see, no one really knows much about me here. At all.
I’m not ‘known’.
There are zero ‘rules’ that I answer to in terms of people. None at all.
I’m another face here, that has yet to have a story put with it.
No one really knows where I stand, what i believe, or what i’m like at all.
Again, so different than what I’ve known in life...away from my ‘hover of comfort’ completely.
And with this comes a whole new challenge...
Who am I really, apart from everything i’ve ever known.
How will i define myself?
How will i radiate the true One who truly defines me.
When i’m literally starting from a blank page with people here.
Such a beautiful, freeing thing..this blank page.
But not one to be taken lightly in the least bit.
See, I immediatly found my mind going to a place of,
“Be careful what you say, Jessica. You don’t want to mess up-- people might get the wrong idea. Make sure to watch your humor-- it does tend to get carried away sometimes. Make sure you are saying the right answers. People need to get the right idea...be careful to make sure people understand you right...”
There my mind was racing to appearing attractive with my words and stories.
Pride, they call it.
Ha, boy was I ever so wrong for these thoughts i’m realizing.
So. Terribly. Wrong.
So here I am, learning so much about this thing we have called
THE FREEDOM TO BE VULNERABLE.
Sometimes, especially in some scenes I have grown up in, it’s always been ‘easier’ to be looked at as such an “example” or a “role-model” without being vulnerable in the slightest.
Goodness, do we miss the point sometimes.
I know I do.
Having it all together all of the time is total deception.
It can be a deception of the worst kind.
Because that’s when it again, becomes all about us..all about me.
Where is Jesus in that?
Where is grace?
I don’t know, I feel like there is so much hurting that stays hidden for the sake of reputation or what not.
I’m probably the first to hide things-- or cover them up. I know that for sure.
“Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45)
Hmmm....I’m learning so intensely what this means.
When everyone here is new to me, what is my heart saying?
Is it talking?
Or are empty words of self-seeking acceptance coming out.
Again, vulnerability.
Being totally real.
Something that i’m learning more and more about each day, it seems.
And i’m seeing how glorifying to the Creator this can really be.
He never tells us to never ask Him the hard hard questions.
He never tells us to constantly have it all together on our own accord.
He never tells us to not acknowledge the past for the sake of a reputation.
Our messes,
our mistakes...
Well, those things can be the things that truly point to Jesus.
Because with out mess, there comes overflowing in His grace.
His love, so great and so unfathomable, that he loved us through it all?!
That’s real.
That’s beauty at its finest.
It’s humbling, really.
“Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” Or as The Message translates it, “It's who you are, not what you say and do, that counts. Your true being brims over into true words and deeds.”
It doesn’t say for the sake of rules or appearing good that the mouth speaks.
But who are we, really, apart from all of the rules...at the end of the day when it’s just us in silence...who are we?
From the heart...
Are we truly speaking from our hearts?
And if so, what are we saying?
From our messy, wounded hearts so drenched in forgiveness and grace beyond ourselves.
This is something i don’t fully have a grip on yet.
Something that I’m working on.
Something that I’m learning so much about here.
These people here have taken vulnerability to a whole new level for me.
And Jesus is there, SO evident, right in the middle of it all.
It’s something that makes my heart want to burst,
that even vulnerability is an act of worship.
How. Completely. Freeing.
Tonight I got to sit on the front porch with this little growing family. Her next little one is due in a matter of weeks!!
She doesn’t speak english, and the only word her little man, Jamil, can say is “auntie” over and over again.
So sitting on the front porch,
with only the sounds of laughter
and us slurping from our messiness (and my inexperience) of eating sugar cane...
no words even spoken at all.
Was something pretty darn special :)
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