What if you leaned in?
Something otherworldly happens when we get close to one another. We see phrases like Better Together a lot in ads and around town. Deep down inside of us, we know we were made to do life, like real life with others.
This doesn’t always come naturally for me. I have introvert tendencies. I love my time alone… sometimes too much. It’s like I turn inward and protective of my time and energy - it’s something I can control. If I’m alone, I can control my environment and what I let in. It’s the illusion of control, anyway. It’s safe to me. Some call this self-preservation. And being 38 years old and single has only fueled this dynamic 😆 (Ha!).
Even so, instinctively, I know that I was made to do life with others. There’s an undeniable drawing towards it.
But man, people are messy. People. Are. Messy.
Over a decade ago, I quit my day job and jumped into the deep end of serving hurting people. Talk about messy. I had no idea what I was getting into. At the time, I just knew I wanted to spend my life doing something meaningful. Meaningful - whatever that was. I am an innate ‘helper’ and a ‘fixer,’ so when a big need was revealed to me - trafficked and exploited youth in my community - I knew I wanted to help however I could. Boy was I in for a wake up call.
I felt like a fish out of water. How do I even relate to them? It was so uncomfortable, yet oddly familiar. It was like I knew this was where I’m meant to be even though the normal course of events would have never allowed our paths to cross. Year after year went by of getting proximate and building relationships with hurting and broken young people, and slowly I became more and more aware of my own mess. My proximity to brokenness was like a magnifying glass inside my soul. The veil lifted and my humanity stared at me in the face. It was like I began to get to know my real, hurting self more and more. The loud volume of the ‘fixer’ in me dialed way back.
Our stories could not have been more different. The girls I’ve sat next to and journeyed through life with look a lot different than me on the surface. Our broken parts came from different places and people. Yet as I leaned in with them as they struggled to make sense of their life, their pain, their worth, I began to peel back my own layers and explore the same things. For me, leaning into other’s brokenness began to bring healing to my own soul that I didn’t even know I needed. This is shared humanity. Together, we heal. When I say proximity, this is what I mean.
Not just physically, though. We can live our whole lives physically proximate to people on the surface level and never enter into each other’s cracks.
When I look at Jesus’ life, he modeled proximity:
to the Father
to the scriptures
to his disciples
to the hurting, needy, diseased and outliers
It’s that last one that’s been the awakening for me - and the most uncomfortable. Proximity to the cracks. We are called to run toward, not away from suffering.
But our natural response is to go the opposite way. I don’t know about you, but I like to be clean and around healthy things.
One of my heroes, Dr. Diane Langberg says it best in Suffering and the Heart of God:
…I have been profoundly struck by the egocentricity of my own heart. I find I am not naturally moved by the evil, sin, and suffering of this world to do justice until it infringes on my world, my comfort, and my relationships. The evil, sin and suffering that do not touch my world I work hard to keep at a distance. It is disturbing, messy, and inconvenient.
What a paradox - the things we run from are often the very things we’re called to. To confront… to bring change to… and in this beautiful reciprocity, our own healing unfolds.
Today, I want to challenge you to get proximate and lean in. I don’t know exactly what that looks like for you, but it’s usually that little voice nudging you. And it always involves risk.
I’m convinced there is a healing our souls can only find in being proximate with others.
Proximity heals.