perhaps...

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Each Tuesday evening I travel off campus to volunteer at a local pregnancy center where I am shadowing and learning to be a lay counselor. My time there has been rich, full of eye-opening experiences. Never have I come so close to such great need, to despair, to palpable fright, to joy and resilience in the midst of hardship.

I respect the women (and men) we see. I strive to treat them as equals. My pride, however, could not handle being in such a spot. As I try to mentally place myself in their proverbial shoes, I find that the thought of asking for help to feed my own child or to have a clean diaper to put on my baby makes me cringe.

I love to help. But I do not like to receive help. In my mind, needing help equates to weakness.

It seems God might be trying to change that mindset.

For many months past, due to a friendship that disintegrated, I have often felt invaluable, unwanted, not worthy of attention. And I have hated feeling such things because they make me feel weak, spineless, dependent.

But I am reminded tonight of a quote I read over Christmas break in The Gospel of Ruth by Carolynn James: "How can I hope to grasp anything of God's heart for this broken planet if I never weep because its brokenness touches me and breaks my heart?"

Unless I experience how messed up this world is at times, how sad and disappointing it can be, will I have any sort of understanding of what God feels for us? Looking ahead to a potential career as a therapist, my experience of sadness, of questioning, of experiencing firsthand how broken and flawed we humans are, takes on meaning. For through my pain, perhaps God is pushing me toward the world the people I might counsel inhabit. Perhaps he is peeling away my sense of superiority. Perhaps He is breaking my heart to bring me to a fuller understanding of Himself.
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