On Letting

Every guarded person has a reason: a wound, a rejection, a moment (or series of them) when being known turned out to be dangerous. This leads to managing what people could see - and for a while, it feels like protection. The problem is, these defenses don't just keep things out.  They keep you in. What started as a shelter becomes a cell, and the loneliness we were trying to avoid moves in with us.

Creating safety for others isn't simple, and we can't always control how people respond when invited to lower their guard. We can, however, control what we do when that moment arrives. Vulnerability is rare. When someone offers it, they are handing us something fragile, and the way we receive it will affect whether they ever hand us something fragile again. This Spotlight is about learning to be the kind of people and the kind of community who are prepared to honor those moments rather than squander them, and who make it just a little safer for the people around us to let down their guard.

"Unguarded" isn't one thing. It's a spectrum that maybe runs from "very controlled" to "undignified." For example, a different version of unguarded in a work meeting than with a close teammate, a neighbor, a family member, or alone at home. As we close out this series, we want to think about where your relationship with God is meant to fit on that spectrum and why that might matter more than you'd expect.