There is something that has been bugging me lately. It is a gigantic elephant in the room that has been building unshakeable walls in human hearts since the beginning of mankind.
The elephant is this: We are all broken. We all struggle. We all hurt. We all mess up. We are all messed up.
Why in the world do we spend so much time and effort on acting like we have it all together when none of us—literally none of us—do?! Instead, we lock ourselves in our own prison of emotions and give no one the key when they are the very ones who can help guide us to freedom!
We paint smiles on our faces and repeat our robot speech of “Hey, how are you?” “Good, how are you?” “Good!”
Are we really all that good!? I’m not saying this is bad or completely fake (I seriously say it probably 12 million times per day). I’m just suggesting that we rethink how we interact with one another.
I’m also not suggesting that we’re all secretly miserable inside and no one has the guts to say anything. Life is beautiful, thrilling, and wonderful. Life is (hopefully) happy most of the time! But, we need to realize that it is OK to share our struggles along with our joyful moments.
I am preaching to myself as I write this. One aspect of my personality I’m not too fond of is my tendency to be private and reserved. I only share my deepest emotions with those close to me, and I often get frustrated in my difficulty to verbalize all of the thoughts in my head.
Along with this, it annoys me when people think I am sad or upset when I am quiet. I’m generally a happy camper—I just usually don’t share every emotion I have. It is the way I am wired, and I will always be that way in some capacity. However, I have found myself changing some in the past few months.
I wrote in my prayer journal back in January: “God, I want to be a more vulnerable and honest person. I struggle with sharing my feelings, so I pray that you would continue to grant me the courage to be an open book.” Looking back on this, I truly see how God answered my prayer. Yes, I am still reserved, but I have found it increasingly easier to freely share what is on my heart.
I have to be honest, my article a couple weeks ago (My First Week Of College: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly) was a little hard to write and publish. I thought, “Maybe I will write this a few weeks down the road when I’m feeling completely settled and happier.” But, what is the point? Will it somehow make me more confident to know that I have overcome something rather than having to work through it in the present?
If we live in the idea that we will confess our struggles after we have dealt with them, we will end up living an unhappy and lonely life. For a society so fixated on logic and common sense, we are often so dumb in the aspect of vulnerability. We go around thinking that everyone else is fine and we are the only ones hurting. That is not true!
One of the most breathtaking things about Jesus is that when God sent him to the earth, he didn’t just die for our sins right away and then go back to heaven. Instead, he spent 33 years being a human and walking through every ugly thing we walk through! He felt sad, angry, lonely, tempted, and happy. Our Father has the ability to truthfully comfort us with “I know how you feel” when we cry out to him!
So, why do we continue to convince ourselves that we are alone in our struggles? Why do we continue to let our pride put up walls and leave dents in our relationships? Our weaknesses are where we find our strength—not overcoming them, but experiencing them. We are all in this together. No one is okay, and it is okay.
