Whatever I Am

For B.M.

It doesn’t matter what you think of me.  What you say about me.  What portrait of my life you paint for others.  I am whatever I am, and conversations cannot change that.  Manipulations cannot mangle character.  My heart is being rebuilt, and nothing you throw at it can stop the process.  You cannot dig deep enough to unearth its foundation. 

We can think all we want, and be utterly mistaken.  We can say what we’ve seen, and be utterly blind to the truth.  We can paint as we wish, and be utterly misled.

(Made in His image, yet dispensable in ministry.  Held in His hand, yet easily cast out by others.  Hidden in God, yet shamefully exposed to many.  What paradox there is in living!)

Some have taken time to know and some have presumed to know.  Some have understood and some have not.  Some have listened and some have spoken.  Some have grown and some have gossiped.  None have done both.

I know you’ve been hurt as well.  So why not let the pain be our common ground?  Why not let these feelings kindle fellowship between us?

Because vulnerability is the cost of intimacy, and it seems for you too high a price to pay.  To be vulnerable is to be fearless, to be reckless and daring, to let go of all you’ve grasped for security, to release all you’ve held captive for saving face.  But could you taste for a moment the consequence of that cost, you would surrender and set free every idol that’s ever captured your heart.

Very well, or not well at all, the brokenness remains.  The veil is re-sown.  Your words build walls.  And you’d rather mask your insecurity insulting others. 

When I—whatever I am—am gone, when the memory of my life is forgotten, remember what He has said and done, remember who He is.  For all our being, all our “I am-ishness,” is suspended from His, from the One I AM.  How tragic, then, how wrong, it must be, to speak of others in envy, judgment, greed, and gossip, to say, “He is this” and “She is that.”

Ultimately now what matters is what you think of Him.  What you say about Him.  What portrait of His life you paint for others.  But, then, as well, it matters what you think of me, what you say about those you have not professed to love, what portrait of your enemy’s life you paint for those of your inner circle.  It doesn’t matter, and it does.  It matters all.  And it matters most.

When we think in contempt, we think against Christ.

When we speak against others, we speak against Him.

When we paint in disgust, we smear our own lives.

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