What is True Vulnerability?
Vulnerability:
the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally.
There once was an angry boy.
He was angry at his parents.
Angry with his many many siblings.
Angry at everything that wasn’t as it should be.
He was perfect in his own eyes.
Everyone around him was far from it.
He would show other people their blind spots, but when confronted with his own he turned their wisdom down and stuck his nose to the sky.
“I cannot be wrong.”
He was sheltered and protected from many things the world had to offer.
His dad was a pastor and spent more time in the church than not.
His mom was a teacher, and everything needed to be viewed as a lesson to be learned.
His family kept growing every other year, and with each new child, it meant that the boy was pushed farther and farther away from his parents’ gaze.
It’s difficult to give your full attention to 11 kids don’t you think?
It’s near impossible to divide your time evenly amongst them all?
What the boy soon realized is he enjoyed being unnoticed.
It was easier to control.
Control was his vice.
He longed for it.
Manipulated to earn it.
Was driven to obtain it.
He learned very quickly that his twisted carnal desires were easily fed.
Lust can be learned from a screen.
Knowledge can be forcefully taken.
Respect doesn’t need to be earned.
He became an artist with his anger.
An author of abuse.
A tsunami of emotion.
A mime of the truth.
The boy became a teenager.
He cheated through school.
He slept in and played video games each day.
He didn’t care who told him what to do, he was going to do it his own way
He shattered all the trust he had at a young age.
He wasn’t to be left alone.
He couldn’t be given responsibility.
He was filled with shame.
He’d been in church his whole life.
He was practically conceived and birthed in a pew.
Yet almost every time he entered a church building he felt more guilt than love.
The God everyone always went on about didn’t seem to care about him.
He earned his first job at a camp.
To wash dishes and clean up after others.
It wasn’t glamorous at all, but he could hide his faults even easier.
He was called out one day by his friend and he lied to get through the conversation easier.
“I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong.”
But that didn’t make things better.
The lie grew and grew, and it led him to the woods.
He was asked about Heaven and the eternal realities.
The teenager’s head exploded as he screamed in bitter confusion.
He stumbled around in the dark crying.
His feet began to sting as he forgot to put on his shoes.
The pain of the earth piercing his feet couldn’t match the eternal strain on his heart.
God was reaching down for his hand.
He stared at it, refusing to accept the help he so desperately needed.
“I don’t need you.”
A vision of Heaven came to the boy’s mind.
It was beautiful, unlike any other.
Yet somehow it was terrifying.
Perfect eternity was out of his grasp, he would mess it up if he was there.
Friends and mentors did their best to help him understand the truth.
He said he’d accept it, but didn’t understand what he himself was saying.
He began to put forth effort in prayer and studying scripture.
The checkbox mentality fit him well.
If you asked him if he was a Christian, he’d say yes.
Even though he still carried his sinful secrets around on his back.
A crack appeared in his life one day when he saw his parents fight.
He thought they were perfect, just like he was trying to be.
The fighting grew more and more regular.
The kids were encouraged to pick a side.
The demons were gleeful.
The angels comforted the brokenhearted.
Divorce is not an easy choice, yet some think it’s the only option.
The boy refused to believe that his whole life could crumble around him in such horrid ways.
He tried to fix his parents, he was convinced he had the answers.
With every failed attempt he had to forgive his parents, he had to extend them grace.
Yet the sad part was he couldn’t even give forgiveness or grace to himself yet.
He ran away.
If that’s what you can call moving out for the first time.
He skipped town and left all his anger behind him.
God couldn’t want that for him, could he?
The boy was an outsider.
In the places he served, he stood out.
He was awkward and upfront.
He was needy and unprofessional.
The boy wanted to prove himself.
To let his character shine through the dark.
Yet his insecurities started to surface one by one until it became too much.
He’d rather be alone and unheard than be vulnerable with others.
People hurt you.
People listen and laugh.
People judge and diagnose you.
People are imperfect.
The boy didn’t want to be near people.
Yet it said in the Bible that he would read each day that The Church was supposed to be a family, one that was full of misfits and losers. The rejects and brokenhearted.
That’s where he wanted to be.
He thought he found that.
The boy left for a mission trip.
He was all prepped and ready for 11 months of adventure in community.
Yet when he was vulnerable with his team he was kicked off due to being deemed unfit for field work.
He was thrown back into the US.
He was defeated and discouraged.
If God had really made him to be a new creation why can’t others see it?
Were they incapable?
The boy began to work different jobs.
Nothing fulfilled him.
He was a teacher, a factory worker, and a youth specialist.
All had their own trials that refined his character.
His faith was shaken for many days.
The boy learned that taking up his cross meant literal death.
His desires needed to die in comparison to God’s.
He learned that was always the best option.
Today he is still imperfect.
There’s so much in the story left unsaid.
Probably for the best.
Vulnerability has to come with some measure of self-control.
If you couldn’t tell this is my story.
It’s not a pretty collection of heroic efforts.
It’s a hodge podge of human error and God’s Mercy.
Yet I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The more you listen to someone’s story the more comfortable they feel they can share.
Everyone has scars and burns from this life.
No one is immune.
I urge you to be one who can listen gracefully to those around you.
No one has an insignificant story.
They just need to learn how to tell it in light of the Gospel.
The Gospel gives me the strength to be vulnerable.
What can man do to me that God hasn’t already forgiven?
It is terrifying to be completely known.
Yet today I’m going to capture my whole story as well as I can so you can know me fully.
Scars and all.
Yet it’s worth repeating the redemption that God weaves.
There once was an angry boy…
