One of my most favorite writers of all time, who inspires, challenges, and makes me wonder, writes about how pieces of our life lead us beyond the confines of our being. I value how he sees the subtle and inconspicuous ways that our stories lead us to a bigger story.
This morning, I grabbed a book where he writes about community and the love of God. He writes about how love between two people connects us to our deepest self. Pain in losing a loved one (by death or other circumstance) calls us to a deeper understanding of God’s love. That love in us shows us the love in others, so the God in us can speak to the God in others. Through that we experience a mutuality in the heart of God. He writes about how losing loved ones is extremely painful because “the other person has become a true revelation of God’s love.”
Do you suppose that experiencing the mutuality in the heart of God extends outside of the relationships with our beloved? In other words, could we experience God with people we tend to just pass by daily? The person sitting alone in the restaurant. The person standing in line with us at the coffee shop. The homeless person standing on the street corner.
Sometimes it feels so hard to muster up a smile or an encouraging word. Or it seems so difficult to step out from behind our shield and be vulnerable together. Maybe it’s because “we are so full of our own opinions, ideas and convictions that we have no space left to listen to the other and learn from him or her.” (Or maybe it’s because we have a screaming toddler and crying infant who we are trying to comfort simultaneously while hustling to get to where we needed to be . . . like 15 minutes ago. I get it. It’s life. I am not judging.)
A friend of mine told me, while experiencing one of the most difficult times (if not the most difficult time) in her life, that a couple of her closest friends decided to take a step back from their friendship and consequently away from her. I remember being really confused and not comprehending how you can desert a friend in their darkest moment. As circumstances have it, my friend was going through a divorce. I wonder if we can rise above the circumstances and value people (friends) more than opinions or convictions we have about certain issues. Are people more important than our ideas or beliefs on a particular topic? I don’t want to assume anything, but can only hope that the space that was created in these relationships was mutually beneficial.
In addition to being amazing, experiencing love can also be dreadful; but bypassing the opportunities to love may not be the answer. As I continue to figure out what loving people in my life looks like, I hope for grace and the ability to learn from my failure.
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