Good morning…
Yesterday’s post by the Henri Nouwen Society explains the process of shedding our old self to gradually mature into our God-designed true self, “growing up in all things” into Christ, our Head (Ephesians 4:15). I wonder if somehow this is what happened to me when I moved from the close-knit cocoon of loving and being loved in the small town of my dreams to follow God’s call to a fast-paced, foreign-to-me city.
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DAILY MEDITATION | JANUARY 31, 2019 – My True Identity by Henri Nouwen
The first thing that struck me when I came to live in a house with mentally handicapped people was that their liking and disliking me had absolutely nothing to do with the many useful things I had done until then. Since nobody could read my books, the books could not impress anyone, and since most of them never went to school, my twenty years at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard did not provide a significant introduction. . . . Not being able to use any of the skills that had proved so practical in the past was a real source of anxiety. I was suddenly faced with my naked self, open for affirmations and rejections, hugs and punches, smiles and tears, all dependent simply on how I was perceived at the moment. In a way, it seemed as though I was starting my life all over again. Relationships, connections, reputations could no longer be counted on.
The experience was and, in many ways, is still the most important experience of my new life, because it forced me to rediscover my true identity. These broken, wounded, and completely unpretentious people forced me to let go of my relevant self — the self that can do things, show things, prove things, build things — and forced me to reclaim that unadorned self in which I am completely vulnerable, open to receive and give love regardless of any accomplishments.
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Me being loved and freely loving with my within-walking-distance friends, Betsy and Jenny, Elaine and Janet, as we nestled quietly in our nest of New Wilmington, Pennsylvania did not matter to the people in Atlanta, Georgia. From the height of being at home, beloved and belonging in my simple dream life, I was brought down by God to begin all over again. In the Vinings area of Atlanta, I was a newcomer. I was not from here. Any friendship I made began at day one. These broken, wounded, and sometimes pretentious people forced me to let go of my old, relevant self – the self that up-close could do love, show love, prove love, build love – and forced me to reclaim that unadorned self in which I was made completely vulnerable, open to receive and give God’s love regardless of where I live.
“See, I will make you small among the nations; you will be utterly despised. The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’ Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down,” declares the Lord (Obadiah 1:2-4, NIV).
When God brings us down to the ground of our unadorned self, completely vulnerable, stripped of everything, we sense more deeply that God is our home and that is enough. From this humble ground, planted in this fertile humus, God grows up our soul for eternal purposes.
…Sue…
