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1/25/2018 3 Comments on seeing a whole personwe are fragmented. all of us. we are made up of the bits of our memories & odd quirks & adventures & brutal regrets & dominating personality traits & stories & cruel biases & inside jokes & scarred pasts. i know, that’s not all we are or all we’re made of, but sometimes that’s all we see. we put these cold labels on each other in conversations behind closed doors & in the dark closets of our minds when we scroll through souls on a screen without even bothering to ask each other, “wait, what actually is your story?” we rob empathy of any opportunity when we stick our noses in the air & walk past faces in subjective silence. the truth is that we are so much more than anything any of us might ever see in each other & we need to make a valiant effort to try to see the whole person. we need to convince ourselves of this reality: we will always be learners of God, of each other & of ourselves. we need the humility to know we never know the whole story & that there’s more to discover in a person (& in ourselves) past what we’ve labeled them to be from a distance. instead of jumping to conclusions, i want to ask questions. instead of assuming, i want to listen. i want to be the kind of person that other people want to let into their hearts & their stories & in order to be that, i have to let other people in to see all my scattered fragments in their effort to know my whole person. i’ll start with this awkward introduction by telling you that i feel everything really deeply & even though i sometimes think it’s great to be sensitive & emotional, i’m pretty insecure about the way i think & feel & the people closest to me have this supernatural patience & grace they give me which (ironically) usually makes me get even more emotional when i think about it & even though i constantly feel a vicious pressure to prove myself & tell you that i’ve solved all the problems in my life, i’m really starting to enjoy the journey of living unfinished. a lot of times, we don’t let other people see the whole of us because of fear & shame & guilt & all those joy thieves. so what do we do? we hide. we stuff vulnerability in a dark drawer & swear to ourselves we’ll never open it again. not after we’ve been hurt like that. not after we gave our trust over only for it to be trampled under foot by someone who failed us in a gut-wrenching kind of way because that pain is real. but in so doing, i really think we lose more than we gain. i know there are seasons & i know there’s a time for everything because not only does the Bible tell me so, but my professor also told me that it’s OK to distance ourselves for awhile from what’s hurt us to give us time to heal. but i also know we were build for connection & we humans can sometimes be really, really horribly bad at it, but it’s also the way towards freedom. i think the loudest question in all of us is: “when you see me — like really see me — will you stay?” & i can’t answer that for every person because as unfinished people, sometimes the answer is, has been & will be, “no.” & nothing hurts more when “not good enough” comes in & punches you in the face & you just kinda sit there for awhile. but The Story, your story, my story, never ends without hope. on a God level, i know the question i’ve had for Jesus even though i rarely ask Him is: “will You keep coming after me? will You keep pursuing me? even after i treat You like this? even after i rip my hand out of Yours & say i’m gonna do it my way this time? will You still come after me?” i know His answer, even though i don’t always feel it & for those who are still unsure of what He’d say, i’m here to tell you that He will. we are whole because before we even knew His name, the cross took all our broken pieces in His scarred hands & told every single one of them that He's actually going to make them into something. He saw us: our whole person shattered in a filthy heap of all the million moments when we’d treasure ourselves above Him & told us that we belong. He saw us & in scandalous mercy & redemptive grace, He let His healing blood seep into the mess of our broken shards & its power actually began to weld them all together in the shape of a cross, in the sound of the loudest cry that shatters every fear of ever being made whole again when we hear: it is finished. so when we see others & when we see ourselves, i hope we seek to see more than just fragmented selves that are oddly proportioned, but i hope we seek the whole story always & seek each other as whole persons welded together by the blood of Jesus that shattered Himself so that we would know what it means to really live.
3 Comments
Susan Gaechter
1/25/2018 04:16:45 pm
Bethany, Once again beautifully written! Glad that your are "starting to enjoy the journey of living unfinished!:-) Keep up the good work.
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Carol Byma
1/25/2018 06:21:17 pm
Oh, Bethany, we see only the fragmented pieces, but He sees the whole. We are broken people made whole by the blood of Christ. What others see are only the pieces. It's also what they judge. But it's really only an audience of one whose sight counts and whose judgement is always eternal healing grace. Nothing to hide. It is finished. And you are a beautiful whole in His eyes (and mine). Continue to touch the world for Him. Love and hugs.
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Bethany
4/2/2018 04:46:12 pm
Mrs. Byma! I am so sorry I am just responding to this now! Thank you so much for the encouragement - it means the world coming from you! & thank you so much for reading. I hope you're doing well :)
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