VULNERABILITY
When you’re building connections with one another, you’re building bridges of trust that can bear the weight of truth. Some of the personality characteristics we have studied thus far, prohibit authentic connection.
Our greatest need is relationships where we are safe to be our authentic self. Below is a quick video where vulnerability researcher Brene Brown shares about the beauty and positive life we can live if we are brave and live with our vulnerabilities.
I know I would have never written a book, if I hadn’t chosen to be brave and put my REAL life out there into the public for judgement and review. It was truly scary. I feel this nagging fear every time I release a new book. Every…. Single…. Time.
But I chose to be brave because Jesus told me there is one single person out there that needs what I have lived. They need to know that Jesus helps people in difficult marriages. They need to know that Jesus helped me and he will help them. So, I write. I choose to be brave even when I feel vulnerable. Because Jesus will be there to help me (and you) walk through the critics.
When considering difficult relationships, most personality issues are born from a place where we (and others) needed to “self-protect.” I understand this. There are people in our lives that ARE NOT SAFE to share our truest selves with. There are people in our lives that are so very wounded and they have walled themselves off behind self-protection.
But this is where our relationship with our Lord enables us open up to live in freedom, creativity, joy, hope and more, no matter what everyone else chooses. God wants our vulnerable self. He knows our quirks, our failures, our shame… all the “ick” we don’t want to experience. All the shame we can’t share with anyone.
When I truly stepped into my God-given identity, there was something like a shield that dropped around me (Ephesians 6). A shield from words of judgement, condemnation, failure and shame. The shield is the TRUTH that I am fully loved, accepted and I am enough even with my quirks, pain, and off-kilter personality traits.
I began to live from God’s view of my life, and it changed how I processed myself and others. Proper boundaries are necessary as there are many in our lives that haven’t had this epiphany. But don’t wait another day. Step into the fullness of love and acceptance that is in the heart of our Father through Jesus Christ.
May I pray for you today?
When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.
Amen. Ephesians 3:13-21 NLT
So what are your thoughts? Meet me in the comments. Pray for one another. Pray for me as I will be writing my next, very vulnerable, book in June and July.
I love you. Lynn
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