You Are My Neighbor

Raccoon State Park, PA (October 2010)

This week, at the behest of a friend, I read a book called “I’m Proud of You – My Friendship with Fred Rogers” by Tim Madigan. I found it a good read – a book that I believe everyone can identify with at least to some degree. While the book talks about the author’s friendship with “the” Mr. Rogers, its underlying message is that of the human condition and great healing. Tim is very open about his own pain and insecurity, his feelings of being unaccepted and how God, through Mr. Rogers, loved him whole.

The more I understand about myself and my own pain and healing, the more I am convinced that every human being is plagued by insecurity and feelings of being unaccepted in some way or another. This manifests itself in many ways – some people try harder to prove their worth to themselves and others, some give up altogether, some implode becoming depressed and living in perpetual suffering, and others explode launching their anger out onto the world around them.

Raccoon State Park, PA (October 2010)

Just today, one of my Facebook friends posted on her status –“It’s hard to explain to someone who has no clue. It's a daily struggle being in pain or feeling sick on the inside while you look fine on the outside.” For some reason, we try to hide this insecurity, this internal battle of worth and value, as if we are the only one in the world who feels this way, believing that if others knew, they would laugh at us or worse, confirm our perceived worthlessness. We go to work, or church, and even at home with those we love and trust the most, and we pretend that everything is okay when inside we’re broken and longing to have someone love us, not for what we do, but for who we are – warts and all. We hide who we are because we are convinced that if they knew the truth of us, they would abandon us and in our pain, we wouldn’t blame them for it.

Raccoon State Park, PA (October 2010)

What I’ve found in God’s healing is that he is the one I was crying out for when all I wanted was one person to love me...me for who I was, imperfect, wounded, and limping through life. I needed someone to accept me wholly, not for what I could do, or for the potential I had, but for the person I was right then, the messy, confused, insecure woman I was. Sometimes I laugh at myself now when I think about me crying out for “this unknown person” and I picture God desperately pleading with me to know him as the One who fulfills all my needs. In the beginning, I understood this in my mind. But it took years of God proving his love for me to me for my heart to wrap itself around the understanding of his complete and unending love and acceptance of me. That doesn’t mean that I don’t, from time to time, experience insecurity and feelings of being unacceptable. The enemy is good at what he does. He knows that the slightest doubt can throw all that knowing into chaos and I sometimes fall for his deceptions. But even as I struggle with doubt, there God is – loving me wholly, as always, just as I am, in that moment.

Raccoon State Park, PA (October 2010)

What I want to take away from the book and put to work in my life is how Mr. Rogers was to the author that physical communication of God’s immeasurable love and whole-hearted acceptance. I want to be that person – the person who sees the pain in others and reaches out with both hands to embrace them in their messy, insecure brokenness. I want them to know that God loves them without reservation and accepts them just as they are with a grace and love that no sin or insufficiency can overpower. Because that knowledge has brought such joy and peace into my own life, I just have to share it with the whole world. So if I look deep to see through the facade you put on or break through the walls you’ve built up, it’s not to harm you, to call you out on your less-than-perfect attributes, but to embrace you with the love and grace of the One who loves you without limit or pretense. You are not alone and you are so very much loved.