I have a love-hate relationship with convictions, with realizations about myself, with seeing and sensing my brokenness, my humanity.
I love the opportunity to grow, the privilege to become a better person, to serve more, to love more deeply.
I hate realizing how broken and messed-up I am. Even more, I hate admitting how messed-up I am, which is precisely why I must admit to these broken, ugly areas of who I am more often.
If I keep my failures under wraps, I can easily present a facade of a put-together, trusting, loving, generally nice person who loves Jesus and is a good big sister. But beneath the adorable Instagram photos, there are arguments and yelling-matches, bouts of great annoyance and frustration with the tiniest things, bossiness, and starting fights about things that should not matter (I've legitimately had arguments with my siblings about who sits on what part of the couch. Namely when they take the seat I want. I really don't want to admit to that level of immaturity...).
I suppose the point of all that is to say it's quite easy to put on a mask and build up great walls, merely presenting the person you want everyone to see, without allowing the true person beneath to ever be revealed. It's possible to exist this way, but it's exhausting. Never a moment to let your weary arm fall to your side because it is always holding a mask of put-together over your face.
You can't really live this way, you can exist for awhile. Tired and constantly surrounded by friends but never truly belonging.
That's not a way I want to live, I assure you. I may be addicted to what people think of me, constantly desiring them to see me at the best angle and never get a picture from my bad side, but the joy of being truly known trumps the quick fix of a shallow compliment that only sees an intricate mask or carefully crafted wall.
In the past year vulnerability has been a huge theme in the lives of me and my friends.
At a conference last year on New Year's Eve I heard a talk from a Coloradoan pastor, Scott Nickell (you can listen to the talk here, it's number 11). He talked about how we are all really broken people who can't save ourselves, how it is so easy to judge what other people have done and deem them "worse" than us, as if the things they have done make them a far worse person.
We put brokenness and messiness on a scale of not-really-so-bad to the-worst-thing-ever, and give ourselves the role of judge and jury.
But that's not reality, that's a construct of a broken and prideful mind.
The reality, Nickell reminded us, is that we are ALL broken, saved solely by grace. And so instead of standing up, looking around, and yelling, "look what she did! Did you hear what he said? At least I didn't do that!" We kneel, humbled and broken, at the foot of the cross, and as we look to our right and left and see the others kneeling there too we say, "Oh, you're a mess? Me too...me too."
That talk changed my life. Through it I was deeply convicted to share areas of my life I'd never before been willing to let people see, and as I let light shine on the darkness in me, I could finally truly accept healing and grace. Which I'd never, until that moment as I knelt at the cross, realized could be possible. I got a glimpse of what it was like to be fully known and still completely loved and accepted.
Through the year the theme of vulnerability remained a constant. It came up in books, sermons, conversations, songs, movies. An inescapable part of life as I learned to be open and share my struggles.
I remember sharing my story with a friend, nervous as ever as to what her reaction would be. I'll never forget her response, some of the most beautiful words I've ever received. "You're the same Katy, I just know a little more about you." And the beauty is that my vulnerability gave her the freedom, later, to share her own story with me.
Someone once said, "vulnerability breeds vulnerability."
Yet I always feel like I'm still missing something. Like I try so hard to be open and yet come up short. I've been told too many times that I'm closed off, caged by huge stone walls I've carefully erected and tuck-pointed myself. I think I've taken them down, and I believe at least some parts are gone, but I have so much farther to go.
I heard something this past week, at the same conference I was at last year actually, that resonated with me and helped me understand this pursuit of vulnerability more clearly.
That transparency is not the same as vulnerability.
And I realized, maybe I haven't been getting better at vulnerability, but rather transparency. Which I think is a step forward. Make the walls invisible, then start tearing them down and letting people in.
I am open with my brokenness, my struggles, but generally only after they're "fixed." I identify an issue, and by that I mean God shows me an issue, then I say, "Alright, God, let's do this!" And, just me and God, I work through those issues, unwilling to really tell others about it until I can say, "I was _______, but now I'm fine!" Which is not vulnerability. I always end everything on a positive note. I'm willing to share what is hard in life, what I'm upset or angry or confused about, but I always end it with a "but I'm fine," or "but God's got it," (which He does! But when I'm honest, I don't always believe that in the moment, or at least live it).
I tell stories, I don't always share chapters.
Stories have a beginning, middle, and end. I don't like to let it go hanging. It's always, "I was struggling, but," rarely, "I am struggling."
This realization, and conviction, of a need to take the next step in living vulnerably, was encouraged by conversations with friends. I had the privilege of truly being vulnerable with a few dear friends, giving them chapters, and more importantly, asking for help. Admitting that I needed them, couldn't do it alone, needed to be built up and encouraged and asking them to be intrusive friends who didn't let me just give a surface-level mask-held-high answer, but to tear down the walls and let them into the real me.
And those moments were beautiful. Instead of telling them the already-finished story, I got to invite them in to the chapters that are currently being written and let them be part of the plotline. And the fear of being viewed differently or not liked as much was quickly dissipated, with the reminder that I'm still the same Katy, just a little bit more.
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