Learning Transparency

Romans 12:15 (Message) “Laugh with your happy friends when they're happy; share tears when they're down.”

I can’t hide my feelings, no matter how hard I try! People are forever reading my face, whether correctly or incorrectly. When I am tired, people know it; when I am full of joy, people know it; when I am stressed, try as I might people know it. Frustrating as this can be, it is not nearly as frustrating as when I am misunderstood. People have misunderstood tiredness for boredom, or simple scanning of a room to not liking them.

As much as I dislike being misread, or hearing constant questions in the family of “are you okay?” I realize that my inability to hide my emotion is actually a blessing! It keeps me accountable to others and forces me to be honest and transparent.

We often find it difficult to be open with one another. It is “easier” to be shallow or to put on the face that we would like the world to see, however when we do this, we miss out on deep relationship and the ability to have others help bear our struggles or learn from our journeys.

The Bible commands us to “carry one another’s burdens” (Gal.6:2) and to “laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down.”(Rom.12:15). Many of us find it easy to do this for others, (as women we are nurturers and more empathetic by nature) but we have trouble flipping the coin. How are those close to us suppose to carry our burdens, or laugh with us in our happy times when we don’t have relationships where we communicate how we really feel because we are trying to present a front? While we nurture others easily, we are not quite as good at allowing ourselves to be nurtured.

In order for us to live according to God’s plan for us as believers, we need to learn transparency. (Is this resonating with anyone else, or am I the only one with some inner “ouches” going on?) Sharing struggles, hardships and sins is biblical, and vital to having deep and lasting relationships!

I challenge you (and myself!) to evaluate your relationships. Do we reach out to deepen these relationships? If we do, is it by reaching out to others emotions, or reaching out with our own? God’s word encourages us to do both!

Kourtnay

Kourtnay is a wife and mother, and she is very active in her local church. She is a woman of passionate purpose who longs for all women to live out their God-given passions.