What's up everybody? Summer has officially started and by that I mean the equinox happened and the season is officially summer, however, it's about 60 degrees outside. So, I mean, it's technically summer but it doesn't feel like it, that's for sure.
With it not feeling like summer, it got me thinking about other things that don't feel the way we think they should. Maybe not even necessarily things that don't feel the way we think they should, but things that frustrate us because they aren't what we want.
Tons of things frustrate me. Sometimes a dresser drawer not closing right is enough to make me want to (and sometimes I do) throw a temper tantrum because I get so frustrated. I want the drawer to close and it won't. I don't play very many video games for the same reason. I want my characters to do certain things and usually a user error prevents the character from doing that certain thing. Yeah, these are two relatively silly and petty examples, but on a bigger, more serious scale, I get frustrated when people are afraid to be real. I get frustrated when people are afraid of what is really going on in people's lives and in the world outside of their own.
Sometimes it's easy to talk about things that are "common." It's "easy" to talk about drama happening in your life. It's easy to talk about what he said and she said. It's not as easy to talk about the big stuff that people struggle with. In some places where it should be accepted and embraced, it's almost taboo.
Places like the church where we should be loving people and showing forgiveness and grace, we are shunning people and turning them away. We won't talk about sex, alcohol, divorce, death, drugs or anything that is "morally wrong." It's taboo. People have questions. I have questions. I know I'm afraid to ask some of them for fear of being judged.
We learn through asking questions. We learn through mistakes. We learn FROM mistakes. Why are we so afraid to share our mistakes? Why are we afraid to get real with people? Last summer when I was with sailing and windsurfing camp, they deans asked me to share my testimony. I did it willingly. It gave me a chance to tell the campers (who were all high schoolers) how sucky life can be. I've also learned since then, that life can keep getting worse even when you didn't think it could get any worse. After I shared what was essentially my first two years of high school, one of the deans thanked me for sharing because I was around the same age as most of the campers when all of that stuff was happening. When I was having open heart surgery and heart catheterizations and then my friend was killed, I was 14 and 15. My story hit home with those kids. That's what being real does, I think. It gives you an opportunity to help somebody, but, in a way, I think it helps you too.
What I mean is, when you're sharing something heavy with somebody or a group of people, you're making yourself vulnerable and exposing parts of yourself you've always kept hidden. You're letting people see inside you. And, as horrifying as that might be, it can actually end up being rather cathartic or just relieving. Things you've been holding onto for so long finally are just being shared and accepted. It feels good to get things off of your chest. You never know how your story will help somebody else. But, you know it won't help anybody at all if you don't share.
I think the best way we learn is through story and experience. We learn through hearing about other people's experiences and hear how they got through things. We try to apply what they say to our lives somehow. A lot of times what we hide from people the most are things that have hurt us or things that we regret or view as mistakes, but don't we learn from our mistakes? I think we do. We learn through our mistakes and we learn from them. Sometimes our scars from our hurts make for the best life lessons. Why wouldn't we want to share that with others? I think when we aren't real for fear of judgment or just because of straight up fear, we are being selfish. We would rather stay in our shame and wallow in our hurt than try to help somebody out of theirs and chances are, we'd probably help ourselves in the process.
I'm going to leave you with this thought: What is holding you back from being real? Use this as a reality check when you would rather keep something to yourself instead of open up. I know I'm going to start asking myself this question a lot more.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Everybody is Broken
Yo--
It's been a few weeks since I last wrote. Since then, I got engaged, went to the beach and started my internship. Pretty much all of that happened in about a week and a half. So, I can't complain about much. Life has been pretty fantastic, at least for me. However, the more I'm on Facebook (yeah, it seems like I get a lot of blogging inspiration from there), the more it seems like everybody else's lives are not so fantastic. At least, that is the way they make it seem.
I see posts about brokenness and being hurt all the time, albeit, mostly by girls, but they're still up there. I see pictures that are shared about not trusting people and how once you've been hurt once, you're too scared to get hurt again. Yes, that is entirely true, even of myself. But why are we all feeling alone in this? Why do we resort to putting things on Facebook instead of talking to people for real? And by for real, I mean in person or at the very least, a phone call and maybe Skype. We hide behind our insecurities and our fears. I do it. I do it all the time. We put up a front and we try to mask who we really are. We find fault with others, when really, we are just trying to hide the fault with ourselves.
We want to blame others for our brokenness and the hurt that we feel. When, there is nobody to blame. Not even ourselves. We live in a fallen and broken world. I guess if you really want to blame somebody, you could blame Adam and Eve, but even that is debatable. We want to blame the guy who led me on and then broke my heart. We want to blame the girl who cheated with my ex. We want to blame circumstances. We want to blame anything and everything, when, there is nothing to blame. We want explanations to our brokenness. We want to understand. We want answers. I mean, seriously, who doesn't? I want to know why my heart is messed up. I want to know why one of my closest friends had to go through the tragedy of losing her brother in a car accident. I want to know why. I want to know why the world continually shoves the theme of be skinny down our throats, then wonders why the number of anorexia cases has increased in recent years. I want to know why girls think there aren't any good guys out there. I want to know why people think getting drunk and partying will solve all of their problems. I want to know why.
Well, the truth is, we won't know why when we want to know why. We'll find out when we least expect it. We'll get hit in the face (sometimes literally) with something and you'll just be like, "Oh. That explains a lot." It's a broken world. But, it's ok to be broken. Everybody is broken. I'm broken. I've been more than broken. I've been shattered. I've had my shattered pieces shattered. Everybody is broken. Some more, some less. Some physically, some emotionally, some mentally, some spiritually and some just all around broken. And, as much as we don't want to believe that we're broken all around, chances are, we probably are at least a little bit. I'll let you think about that one.
I'll leave you with this: Everybody is broken in some way or another. Everybody has been hurt. Christ knows and understands that more than anyone else. If you don't want to talk to other broken people, then talk to the One who overcame brokenness. Just because you're broken, doesn't mean you are alone.
-Cara
It's been a few weeks since I last wrote. Since then, I got engaged, went to the beach and started my internship. Pretty much all of that happened in about a week and a half. So, I can't complain about much. Life has been pretty fantastic, at least for me. However, the more I'm on Facebook (yeah, it seems like I get a lot of blogging inspiration from there), the more it seems like everybody else's lives are not so fantastic. At least, that is the way they make it seem.
I see posts about brokenness and being hurt all the time, albeit, mostly by girls, but they're still up there. I see pictures that are shared about not trusting people and how once you've been hurt once, you're too scared to get hurt again. Yes, that is entirely true, even of myself. But why are we all feeling alone in this? Why do we resort to putting things on Facebook instead of talking to people for real? And by for real, I mean in person or at the very least, a phone call and maybe Skype. We hide behind our insecurities and our fears. I do it. I do it all the time. We put up a front and we try to mask who we really are. We find fault with others, when really, we are just trying to hide the fault with ourselves.
We want to blame others for our brokenness and the hurt that we feel. When, there is nobody to blame. Not even ourselves. We live in a fallen and broken world. I guess if you really want to blame somebody, you could blame Adam and Eve, but even that is debatable. We want to blame the guy who led me on and then broke my heart. We want to blame the girl who cheated with my ex. We want to blame circumstances. We want to blame anything and everything, when, there is nothing to blame. We want explanations to our brokenness. We want to understand. We want answers. I mean, seriously, who doesn't? I want to know why my heart is messed up. I want to know why one of my closest friends had to go through the tragedy of losing her brother in a car accident. I want to know why. I want to know why the world continually shoves the theme of be skinny down our throats, then wonders why the number of anorexia cases has increased in recent years. I want to know why girls think there aren't any good guys out there. I want to know why people think getting drunk and partying will solve all of their problems. I want to know why.
Well, the truth is, we won't know why when we want to know why. We'll find out when we least expect it. We'll get hit in the face (sometimes literally) with something and you'll just be like, "Oh. That explains a lot." It's a broken world. But, it's ok to be broken. Everybody is broken. I'm broken. I've been more than broken. I've been shattered. I've had my shattered pieces shattered. Everybody is broken. Some more, some less. Some physically, some emotionally, some mentally, some spiritually and some just all around broken. And, as much as we don't want to believe that we're broken all around, chances are, we probably are at least a little bit. I'll let you think about that one.
I'll leave you with this: Everybody is broken in some way or another. Everybody has been hurt. Christ knows and understands that more than anyone else. If you don't want to talk to other broken people, then talk to the One who overcame brokenness. Just because you're broken, doesn't mean you are alone.
-Cara
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)