It's a word not many of us are comfortable with.
No one likes it, and some people hate it so much they can't even say it aloud.
It's the V word.
We Christians don't like to talk about it much. It doesn't fit well with the put-together, manicured lives we've worked so hard to manufacture; it doesn't make sense there. It might even be inappropriate. Only the secure can talk about it without squirming in their chairs or averting their eyes.
Vulnerability.
It's something I'm learning to dwell in, and I even thought I was good at it.
I was very wrong.
Behind my usual roaring lioness of a persona is actually a kitten cowering in a corner with wide, scared eyes and tiny claws extended, believing I can defend myself against a cruel world that's out to get the best of me.
Let me explain.
Read three chapters into Genesis and you'll see that we were created for relationship. It's the very thing our hearts beat for – to be known and to be loved, to know and to love. Examine everything humans do and I promise you that at the center of it all will be some movement toward relationship. We must have it to be fully who we were created to be, but the catch is that we live in a broken world among broken people and are broken ourselves, so after a time relationship begins to be framed around a complicated entanglement of feelings and hurts and wounds and self-protective measures and defense mechanisms rather than its intended structure of love, delight, mutual helpfulness, laughter and shalom. Just a few negative experiences are enough to warn us that true vulnerability will not work in this world, that we are not accepted for who we are and that no one can be trusted with our hearts.
I've had a few negative experiences and lived under that assumption for as long as I can remember now.
What has resulted from it is my pride. Independence. My right to be right. My fists that are never unclenched, my eyebrow that never stops being cocked and such a strong personality that I'm timidly described as intimidating, unattainable and inaccessible by the few people who have dared to brave the lion's mane and outstretched claws to find only a mewing baby kitty.
I have desired relationship above all other things, yet perceived it so impossible that I created a safety net for myself by pushing everyone away before I could risk being hurt.
I send messages communicating that I don't need anyone, that I'm untouchable, that I have it all together. I'm independent, I need no woman and especially no man, I'm perfectly fine on my own.
I basically wear a gigantic "I don't need you" with a picture of a middle finger stamped across my forehead and then wonder why people don't approach me or want to be my friend. What I'm sort of starting to realize is that I might have to wash my forehead if I want to start having healthy, emotionally satisfying, Godly relationships. In reality, the very fact that there's a stamp across my face is itself desperate cry that I do in fact need you (and probably a little more than the average person). It's all so interesting and ironic. Humans are weird.
Anyway, what's terrifying about this whole situation is that I'm realizing that I might have to address this V word.
We external lion/internal kitty cat combos want so desperately to be known, but we must cross this abominable bridge known as vulnerability in order to get there. The awful thing about it is that vulnerability would not be what it is if it didn't involve risk. It's the only possible way to acheive relationships – the thing we were created to thrive in – to take down all the safety nets and defense mechanisms and be whoever you are; but the very reason that those things were there in the first place was to protect ourselves from what risk involves.
Rejection. Hurt. Loss. Pain. Exclusion. Involuntary solitude.
Thus I find that I'm here on the World Race with nearly sixty people sometimes feeling more alone than connected and wondering why, how it's even possible with so many people around me, and I realize.
I realize that I have a choice to make.
I have the choice to wear the lion's mask, to comb my mane and keep my teeth sharpened for fear of being rejected and hurt like has sometimes happened before. To stay safe behind what I know and continue to hope for different results from the same actions, to hope for deep relationships that I'm not even willing to invest my real self in.
Or I have the choice to reveal myself for the kitten I am,
to risk looking weak
and broken
naked, even
to stop performing
to allow the possibility that I might be enough simply as myself
to not have everything together
to risk not being "that girl" anymore
maybe not being the best at something
to admit that I'm pretty flawed
to sit in things that are uncomfortable and abnormal and that don't feel good
to willingly wipe off my forehead stamp that claims I need no one
to retract my claws and admit that
I really, honestly need you.
And I want you.
And I'm scared terrified utterly petrified to the point of tears that you might not want me back or need me,
but I am attempting to swallow my pride enough to say that I was created for relationship and that I'm willing to try if you are.
And maybe along the way, if we're both honest and give each other grace, we might find something divine.
I think I might try option two. This kitten is ready to trade her roar for a meow.
m
