Last night I had a conversation with my manager at the restaurant. She's still very young - only 21, which seems centuries ago to me - and she's having relationship issues with her girlfriend. (Yes, she's a lesbian.) At one time I wouldn't have been able to see past her sexual preference, and though I still don't believe that God approves of homosexuality (though He desperately loves the homosexual), I don't look at her and see someone who's gay. I just see her - this wonderful, amazing person who has far more to bring to the world than she knows.
Anyway, those matters are beside the point, and though I want to explore them, I'll do so at another time. What I'm really driving at is the fact that this girl is in a relationship with someone several years younger who's really not ready for the kind of committed relationship that my manager is ready for. So despite the fact that they love each other, their relationship is falling apart at the seams as they both tug at each other - one desiring independence and convenient intimacy, and the other desiring something deeper and more fulfilling. It's been hard over the past few months to watch this girl I really love go through the near weekly drama that consumes their relationship, so when she asked for my advice last night, I gave her my honest opinion. No, I didn't tell her she should stop being a lesbian and "get right with God." While I believe that's what she truly needs, the soil of her heart isn't ready to hear that yet, and my advice without discretion would only serve to close her off to me should the time ever come that her heart is ready to hear the whole truth. The honest opinion I gave her was the opinion my best friend has given me regarding my relationships with men. And just like me, she's not entirely ready to act on it, even if she knows it's good advice. I told her I think she needs to walk away from this relationship and get involved with someone who's ready for the kind of relationship she really wants to be in. I think she has a lot to give, and getting involved with a more mature person who's ready for a relationship with less drama and more giving would do wonders for her.
I understand how easy it is to give that advice and how terribly hard - even impossible - it is to follow, even when you see the wisdom of it. And no doubt I feel for S (my manager) the same kind of compassionate concern my best friend must feel for me. I know she's not ready to let this relationship go, and so I know that her heart will continue to be battered as she holds out for changes that aren't going to happen.
It's hard to watch somone you love make choices that aren't in their best interest. You understand why they're driven to make those choices, but it hurts to know that those choices will only cause more pain in the long term. It's especially hard when that person has the kind of personality that S does. She reminds me so very much of my ex-lover sometimes. On the outside she's a hard ass who seems like she just blows stuff off, but the truth is she's this terribly vulnerable heart inside, a teddy bear who internalizes everything. In fact, despite her tough exterior, I think she gets wounded more deeply by things than the average person. And just as I'd love to do with him, sometimes I just ache to wrap my arms around that place inside her that is so bruised and hurting and heal it for her. I want to protect her and help her before she starts building walls and getting all hard like he has.
There are lots of people I know who make me feel this way, and it makes me wonder if that's a part of what God wants to do with my life. I want to fix the broken people. I never used to care beyond the superficial, but I remember asking God a long time ago to help me see people through His eyes and love them with His love. I guess I was expecting a lightning bolt from heaven to strike me with superhuman love and compassion, but that's not how it happened. I just know that somehow over the last ten years, my heart has become soft toward others so gradually and imperceptably to me that I don't know when I became a bawl-baby over them, but somehow I have. I look at people and I see beyond the surface. I look at M, another of my co-workers from the restaurant whom I just adore, and can't help but wonder what's going to happen to him when he wakes up someday and searches for meaning in his life beyond partying, one-night stands and getting stoned. I wonder why he is so driven to immerse himself in the crazy life he lives - what is it he's running away from? - and who among all his partying buddies will really be there for him when he's desperate and in need.
I can't explain it, but I just wish I knew where to start and how to make a true difference. I don't know why I get hit harder with some people more than others, but I do. It's just like I can see certain people hobbling around emotionally - some of them have already given up and they're just going through the motions like the walking dead, others are still striving and struggling and fighting to make something work out - and I want to get in there and fix them. I want to sit down with them inside their souls and cry big tears for all the pain in there and cover it all with warm, healing oil. I want to make it stop hurting and stop longing and stop warring so they can come out in the sun like innocent children and laugh and start fresh without those wounds that cripple them.
I remember being with my ex-lover and seeing some of those dark, wounded places in him. I felt so inadequate to even begin to heal them. The pain and the past were just too big, and it was a horrible feeling to know that I could wrap my arms around his body while knowing that he didn't know how to let me wrap my arms around his soul.
The truth is, though, I don't know how much any of us can heal one another. The creation can only do so much for itself before it has to turn to the Creator and say, "Please help. We're having a serious malfunction here, and we can't fix it." I don't believe He likes to see us hurting, but I think He's wise enough to understand that it's usually our pain that goads us until we have to look to Him for some kind of relief.
I suppose that the pain and loneliness I was talking about dealing with in my last post have been God's tools to make my heart soft toward others. I know what it feels like to hurt deeply, and so now it hurts me to see others feel that pain. I asked God to teach me compassion, so He gave the gift (albeit a somewhat dubious gift) of pain. Or so my Fundy upbringing would say. But as I've said before, not all Fundy ideas are completely out in left field. And though I know somewhere deep inside that He is the healing for all that pain, I'm still waiting for Him to come through and fill in those deep, lonely places that haunt me. Without His healing, I can only look on the pain of others with compassion; I have nothing else to give them. I'm just one more patient in this huge hospital of terribly broken people, wishing desperately that I had something more effective than snake oil to offer to my fellow patients.
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