Vulnerability

As most of you know, I am going to Cedarville University in the fall of 2016. We already have multiple group chats going and I'm starting to feel popular for the first time in my life (as I set my phone down for an hour and returned to over 3,000 new messages). I feel like I've known these people all my life. We've never seen each other face to face yet somehow, we can (accurately) guess what each other's voices sound like. My lovely piers already feel like family and I don't know how I survived life this far without them, their bedtime stories, and inside jokes.

What shocks me however, is how vulnerable we've been with each other. Many of us have shared things with each other that we'd never shared with anybody else (and note, we haven't even physically met). We've shared testimonies together, cried together, laughed together. And the simple reason behind our vulnerability is one thing: trust.  

Vulnerability is something I'm grateful for. For many years, I wore masks and pretended like life was peachy and beautiful (which it most of the time still is, but sometimes it's not). My biggest fear about entering college was that I would be surrounded by those same kinds of people and feel like I couldn't keep that mask off. 

That fear has been more than shattered. Earlier this afternoon, lots of us girls opened up about our life struggles. I opened up about my recent struggles, and other girls were vulnerable and shared how they struggle with similar issues. Each situation was immediately met with prayer and encouragement and love. No judgement. Just love. I am so grateful that I can walk into an environment where vulnerability is the norm and it is most often met with only love and Jesus. 

Vulnerability takes away shame. When you hear other people talk about vulnerable things, it makes you feel safe to share as well. It makes you realize that they aren't ashamed of what happened to them in the past, because God was (and still is) there, so neither should you be. Vulnerability heals. The devil tries so hard to convince us that we are all alone in our struggles. Yet as soon as we are vulnerable, we realize the lie that is. As all of my piers and I have been vulnerable, I've met at least half a dozen people who struggle with the same things I do. Our fears about college have eased as we know we already have a huge support system walking into it. 

Vulnerability heals but only if we decide to open our hearts to let God (and others in).

"When I began to name things, it turns out that God, He already knows. It was less like denial and more like healing" (Sara Groves).