VULNERABILITY

You have searched me, LORD, and you know me.  You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.  You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely. 

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 

Psalm 139. 1-4, 13

I remember being told no one has a normal upbringing because what is normal? We are all parented by parents who think their way of bringing up children is normal because it’s what they know from their own upbringing. Then you have the nature versus nurture debate – I must say I am a sucker for all the differing personality analysis whether it be Myers Brigg, the eneagram or the swedish one I read about recently based on colour coding! Not only can you understand yourself better, you can also understand your partner, family, friends and work out why they approach life’s challenges differently to you!

As we go through life our experiences, good and bad, not only can result in us masking our true feelings, but can lead to us putting on layers and layers of armour in which to protect ourselves from perceived attack. Our learned behaviour leads us to give answers we think other people want to hear, rather than being true to ourselves and what we are feeling.

Let me tell you a story. A couple of years on from R’s accident we went on holiday with about four other families. I was at a very low ebb, feeling like I had 5 children instead of 4, and was just exhausted. One night, I broke down, feeling like I couldn’t go on and that life was not worth living. In retrospect, all very normal considering the pressures I was facing at the time. However a few years later one of the couples went through an acrimonious divorce and my friend S, asked me if I would accompany her to court as a supportive friend. Her husband at court, took one look at me and declared that, owing to my feelings of despair a few years before, I was unstable and not a reliable person to be speaking on behalf of his soon to be ex-wife. What did this teach me? That some people have long memories and are waiting to kick you down! Yet I see vulnerability as essential if I am going to connect properly with someone else. Indeed I would say before R’s accident people probably thought I was rather unapproachable because I didn’t look like I had many problems of consequence so wouldn’t be a good listening ear.

I think showing our vulnerability, in a safe space, enables us to connect more effectively with others, to listen and empathise and actively support. No one likes to think they are coping with life less well than someone else. The truth is, unless we are superhuman, we all have down days, days when we struggle and can’t quite see the point of everything. Being able to share those thoughts, removing our ‘coping masks’ and showing our vulnerability enables others to do the same. But offering your vulnerable side to another person is a precious gift that should not be abused by the receiver. I learnt my lesson from the story above. Not everyone on that holiday was a safe pair of hands in which to let down my guard. It also taught me to be extra careful with the confidences people share with me. We all have our fragile moments and as grateful as I am to my very good friends who are prepared to listen to me, I am also immensely grateful that I can talk to a God who knows me inside out and from my very beginning.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.  How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!  Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you.

Psalm 139. 14-18