To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.
Criss Jami
(Pause. Open a new tab on your web browser, go to youtube and start playing "Beneath Your Beautiful" by Labrinth ft. Emeli Sandé. And then read this post.)
Hey y'all. Rachel here again (yes, on my own blog. Whaaaat.) with some more talk about my weaknesses and vulnerabilities. It might seem like this is all I talk about because I am the textbook human distaster; it is hard for me to let you see beneath my exterior. Which makes it hard for me to truly love each of you as I should, as Jesus calls us to.
I have had the priveledge of having bad things happen to me; it sucks but it puts me in the rare position of being able to empathize with just about anybody. To care about everyone, whether I want to or not. I cried on the way to work last week after seeing a motorcycle accident, praying for the families of everyone involved; because I know what it is like to be in that position. Because I've loved and I've lost.
I'm not really one to talk about myself. To share my struggles. To let people in. My walls are there for my own protection yes but more importantly, they are there to protect the people around me. I am always scared something will creep out of my dark places and hurt someone I love. The role of being the strong protector is an easy one to sign on to; the role of being a weeping, broken, ordinary human being is not.
It is hard for me to understand how contradictions like my vulnerabilities being my strength is even possible. But anyone knows in this crazy thing called life, you have to play to your strengths. And to do that, I have to make myself vulnerable. Not by flaunting my scars, but maybe by letting you see them a little more frequently. By letting you see that I am hurting too. By showing you what makes me me.
I feel an incredible pull towards vulnerability this year; last year was the year I faced a lot of my fears and felt stronger by the end of it. Now the Lover of My Soul is calling me to let go of that sense of strength, dear as it is to me, and abandon myself to Him through my weaknesses. I can't do it alone but hopefully with Him filling in the gaps I can do an acceptable job. Hopefully. My confidence is in Him rather than in myself and that, too, is an acknowledgement of a weakness that makes me stronger than I would be on my own.
As always, dear friends, thank you for being with me on this journey of life. Thank you for letting me see beneath your beautiful. For showing me your scars. You being open with me is inspiring and encouraging on such a deep level it is hard for me to find the words to express it.
