02.22.26
Do you know that if somebody loves you (the real you, not the image that you put up or that you wanna project), you can have the courage to face your problems? They love you-you, not your traits or what you do or your reputation… just you. Because they love you, you experientially know that you are not your problems and therefore you can honestly own up to them.
But how do I do that for someone else? How do I love somebody not for their mediums when the mediums are the necessary means by which I get to know them?
Somehow it happens. And it’s magical. You first get to know someone by their looks, by their circumstances, by this, by that… but then slowly but surely the more you get to know them the more you see the person all those things were mere bridges to get to. And you realize something of what is maybe their pure personhood. So that, pardon the morbid example, even if that person were to lose everything (even let’s say their bodily and facial makeup) due to the most horrible tragedy, you could still recognize them and love them
—because you knew them well enough to see them more as the person they are rather than the earthly circumstances* they had.
*Circumstances include: looks (height, body, age, clothes, face, etc.), job or current vocation, achievements, hobbies and interests, marital status, financial status, life problems, life goals, skills, family, friends, etc. etc.
[mini addendum]
Somehow I also realize that this all ties back to my view of God. I once got super mad at Him for taking things away from me to teach me a lesson. So in a fist-shaking kind of way, I asked, “Why is it that because I’m finite, I NEED Your gifts just to be able to know You and yet I’m not allowed to ultimately bank on any one of them?” Today, I can only try to remind myself that the point is never the gifts but always the Giver behind them.
