Embracing Vulnerability

Vulnerability is hard. First of all, I hate making mistakes. Even more, I hate people knowing I make mistakes or seeing the parts of my life I don’t have “together”. It is so difficult to have someone see how I messed up or that I said something incorrectly. "Vulnerability" scares me because it means putting yourself in a position where the other person could hurt you. It means showing the good AND the bad. It’s allowing the mess to be seen for what it is. Like I said…its terrifying. :) But, as I’ve been reminded over the last few weeks, without vulnerability there can be no intimacy. Without transparency, you can’t move closer. You can mask transparency for a while; however, masks are masks. They conceal. The mask of sarcasm, humor or avoidance doesn’t actually help. They only bring isolation. 

I've been asking God over the last year to teach me about healthy vulnerability. There's a difference between telling someone every single thing you think about them--good and bad--and allowing yourself to be transparent. 

-

I can truthfully say that I did not expect the ride that one prayer has taken me on. I did not expect that learning vulnerability would mean I had to experience the pain of making mistakes and letting someone watch me make them. I did not expect it meant learning how to talk about the things from my past that were really hard for me to articulate. It meant finding words to share when I've always been the listener. It meant bursting into tears at work and letting someone know it was because I wasn't doing well. It meant letting go of what people think and not stuffing because "they might think I'm not reliable".  BUT, as I started talking about the messy parts of my life, I was not prepared for what I received. I didn’t expect people to step closer when I expected them to step away. 

Honestly, I think that reflects God’s heart. In the middle of the mess, He sees us and still He comes closer. He saves us and leads us on the path of peace. THAT doesn’t make logical sense—for a Holy God to come close to those who are imperfect. Yet it is the essence of who He is. “He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near” (Ephesians 2:17). He brings peace to the heart that is used to striving to be accepted, peace to the diseased, peace to the broken, peace to the humbled, peace to those in poverty, peace to those in misery, peace to the lonely—because He is the Prince of Peace. He knows exactly how He made us and that we can’t make ourselves perfect. We aren’t supposed to be perfect. Only He is perfect. We can’t do anything to work towards perfection because only in HIM are we (1) redeemed (Eph. 1:7), (2) complete (Col. 2:10), and (3) lacking nothing (Ps. 34:9). We don’t have to strive...He has declared that it is finished. 

-

So simple, yet so profound. To be seen, known and loved by a God who desires relationship with each of us...and to give us the opportunity to show that same love (in some small way) in our relationships here on earth. Now that is something to talk about.