« Not a rhetorical question | Main | Why I love my job (for the 146th time) »
October 18, 2005
Answers
I did get some answers to my non-rhetorical question. I’m grateful to those who responded to my moment of confusion with answers that seem obvious when we’re thinking straight, but are easy to forget when we’re (I’m) lost in our own pain and self-pity.
Here are parts of the answers I got, for your edification*:
Why bother? Because if you don't, then why bother with life? We are social
creatures of the 3 person God who are meant to be in relationship with each
other and with God the Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. Unless we come close
enough to be vulnerable and risk being hurt, we ensure that we will not have the
joy of deep and meaningful relationships we are meant to have…When you start counting up what your life has meant (it's a bit early for you to start doing that) I think you'll find that most of what really matters boils down to relationships.
We do disappoint /hurt people when we are close to them. It is very important that we stay closer to Jesus than to anyone else. When we let the Holy Spirit have control of our lives, we will see people as God sees them and have His kind of love for them. It is dangerous when we let any person have the closest place in our heart that belongs to God alone. Jesus is truly the only one who will never leave us, never disappoint us and never hurt us!
"The paradox is that part of what binds us closest together as human beings and makes it true that no man is an island is the knowledge that in another way every man is an island. Because to know this is to know that not only deep in you is there a self that longs above all to be known and accepted, but that there is also such a self in me, in everyone else the world over." --Frederick Buechner
We'd like to think that to be known and accepted by a person is an easy process, with utopian-like results. But inevitably, as yet imperfect creatures, we mess up this, one of God's greatest gifts to us. Our sin gets in the way, and then we are each tempted to stay on our own islands, where we cannot get hurt any longer. We ask, "Why bother?"?
But that desire is still there. We long to be known and accepted. And so we try again.
Another friend said she could relate to my question and wanted to respond, but didn’t know what to say. This isn’t something we talk about often. But I want to make it clear to anyone who’s reading this: I go through times of intense struggle in my relationships, as most people do. Usually it makes me want to run and hide, to withdraw into my icy shell of pride and self. But I am committed to keep trying, to break the cycles I find myself spinning around in, for the reasons listed above, and because there is no viable alternative.
*Extra Three Lines of Scrawl points for guessing who wrote them, heh heh
| By huzzlecoo | 06:05 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://seattleblogs.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/610
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Answers:
