Flipping Your Coin

Flipping Your Coin

It interests me that human beings are so multi-faceted.  Human behavior really intrigues me!  I love watching people, listening to them, and imagining what their lives are like.  I often wonder how “real” someone is.  I always hope they feel the freedom to be real with me.  Are they being genuine?  Do they say what they mean and mean what they say?  I ask the same questions of myself.  I really want to be authentic.  That goes for letting my strengths shine, and for admitting my faults. 

One of the hardest things in the world for me is to feel that I have to “fake it” in any way.  For example, you are having company in an hour, but you and your spouse/child/friend/parent have had a horrible argument, and it hasn’t been resolved (happened to me this week!).  I hate the thought of opening the door and smiling to guests in those moments– just feels like I’m pretending everything is okay when it isn’t.  It’s tricky because really, who wants to be welcomed with: “Just so you know, we’re fighting right now.”  That always helps people feel comfortable in your home!

This week I had a sweet conversation with someone who posed the question:  “Are we (people) able to live in the tension of what life is?”  Life isn’t easy.  Life isn’t simple.  We aren’t robots and we aren’t perfect; yet, I so badly want to be more close to perfect than I am (more like Jesus Christ, really), and I definitely don’t like it when things are ugly in my life. 

She also said, “People are like coins; we all have two sides.”  What she meant was we all have crap in our lives and if we only show the front of the coin (the good ‘face’ part) and not the back side (the crappy crap), then how are we living honestly, helping each other move forward, and getting better? It’s like we’re not living whole.

So, this week in a group of friends I “let seep” something that was really sensitive to me…something that I see as a failure on my part.  It’s an embarrassing thing for me to admit and talk about.  I refrain from sharing the specifics on this only because it could be an embarrassment to others.  Anyway, I just noticed how absolutely vulnerable revealing this little tiny failure made me feel!  I DO NOT LIKE IT!  I feel judged, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t judge me.  I felt like a failure big time, but somehow I don’t think they saw it that way – at least not to the extreme that I feel it.  As a pastor’s wife and public speaker I feel stuff like this is even more difficult because I think sometimes you are put on a pedestal. Yuck.  I hate pedestals.

I showed the other side of the coin this past week.  I do think that’s what we’re supposed to do as human beings.  We’re all in this together.  Whoever you are reading this today – I love ya simply because you are a fellow human being on this difficult and joyful journey called life!  I hope  peace and joy fills your day today!