The opening scene would be a woman walking through a door and down a hallway. Maybe she's in a high rise apartment in New York just getting home from work, maybe she's in her child's school building on her way to a conference, maybe she's just taking a walk around the neighborhood, but regardless of the scene she is walking forward when she comes across another person coming in the opposite direction. Like all polite people the individual she is passing greets her with a common "hello, how are you?" and then she turns her gaze to the other and PAUSE...
And it is in that pause where the story happens, it is in that slight pause before her response that time stands still. Her mind flashes back in time rethinking her day, her week, her year and we, as the reader and/or viewer, get to see her story. We get to see the moment where she walked out of the house without her wallet and phone only to not realize it until the moment the cashier tells her the final total. We get to see her crying in the car having just hung up the phone after a difficult call. We get to see her walk out on a job that caused such unprofessional abuse that the money was not worth the pain. We get to see all the things that are piled on her plate and weighing her down, changing her course of life. We get to see what is truly on her mind.
And then the end of the movie comes and we are transported back to the hallway, back to the moment she has been asked that familiar question, only to see a polite smile come across her face and hear her say "fine and you?" and then walk past continuing to her destination.
The reason the setting of the story is not important is because it can happen anywhere, does happen everywhere, on a daily, hourly, minutely--pretty sure that's not a word--basis.
"Fine" and "good" are answers we are all too good at giving. I am reminded of this scenario everywhere. Recently while pushing a cart full of groceries at Publix, the well mannered stockist, in his well mannered voice, asked how I was doing today. I responded with the correct" I'm doing well, how about you?" to which he responded "I'm great thank you." It was a very pleasant exchange that would surely have made his manager happy because at Publix, where shopping is a pleasure, you want your staff to be pleasant. But, was it true? For either of us?
Nobody likes to hear someone constantly complain and grump about everything. Each one of us in our minds can think of that person who we feel is constantly complaining, constantly negative, and wouldn't see a silver lining if it was pointed out to them, but for some reason we have taken our frustration with that one person's behavior and led ourselves to believe that we must never complain, we must never be negative, and in the end what happens is that we keep ourselves from being real.
The hardest place to go through this scenario is at church, and before it seems like I'm being critical, I don't mean my particular church specifically, I mean Church with a capital C. The places where others who claim to know and love Jesus gather together. It is an all too common exchange among Christians as well. We pass in the hall or at an event and hear "good morning, how are you today?" and you assume chances are they are just being polite and are expecting the typical response of "good, how are you?" so you say it, and move on, but, inside, you are thinking about the real answer, and about all the things that are not just good, and you wonder what it would be like to actually say everything you are thinking. You wonder if they are thinking and feeling the same thing.
Everything I share here is another lesson in my personal sanctification, another lesson in my need to cling to Hope and not to myself. Though I have never been good at hiding my feelings with my facial expressions--much to my dismay--this was and still can be a familiar part of my everyday and I know I am not alone, which is why I am sharing it with you now. I am a recovering perfectionist who has been shown in my past the real life danger of hiding my imperfections, and wants to share this with my friends, my family, and with you who I might not know and might never meet, so that you can see it is not only ok to share our true selves, but it is what we were created to do.
We were made, through our identity in Christ, and not by our own strength to 'encourage one another and build each other up' (1 Thes. 5:11), to 'bear one another's burdens' (Gal 6:2) and remind each other that 'He would began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. (Phil 1:6).
No, you don't have to spread your business to the masses, no you don't have to cast your pearls before all the pigs, but then again you never know which pig really needs to see a pearl. And if we are solidly clinging to Christ then we can believe about ourselves what Psalm 46 says about the tabernacle, when "God is in the midst of her; she shall not bed moved; God will help her when morning dawns."
Just imagine what it would be like if we not only gave the real answer and shared out hearts when asked, but if we truly expected and desired a real answer from the ones to whom we ask those questions. What if instead of giving and expecting typical, we gave and expected transparency? What if we each set the example of sharing our hearts, sharing our sins, sharing our struggles, and really desired others to as well and were ready to listen no matter what it was that they needed to say out loud so that we could encourage them in their walk and point them towards the only One that can bring lasting help.
Lives change in the midst of transparency, hearts are met, burdens are lessened. Real life happens when you share your realness, it can't happen any other way.
If you have spent your life holding on to all the hard inside only to let it drip out occasionally this is a massive paradigm shift in your life, but it is one worth exploring and practicing until that pause is no longer void of what you are afraid to say but full of what you need to say and what another may be need to hear. Truth begets truth and that moment of honesty from your end could be just what another needs to finally drop a burden they have been holding on to. A moment of honesty on another's end could be exactly what you need to drop the burden you have been clutching with both fists as well.
When I ask you how you are doing, I promise, I really want to know, so I am praying for you, challenging you, to let your conversations be real, open, setting up the atmosphere of honest communication where hearts can grow or hearts can heal or hearts can just see God's image in another. Pray for me.
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