You Were Meant to See This.

You know…

Sometimes it is the people that drive you craziest that are the most like you.

When I counsel locally, and even in my own life, I have noticed that it is the things that drive us wild that need the most inner reflection. I am not talking about abuse of any kind. I mean that moment when you just cannot understand why someone is not reacting the way you like.

For years, I had a student who tested my patience to the roof top. Then one day, during worship, he hit me with a mechanical pencil. I turned around and pointed at my eyes… then his. He smiled. I smiled back because something changed for me that day.

This little six year old “terror” was not really terror. He came from a home like mine in a few ways. I learned that later. He picked on the other kids sometimes. But with adults, he usually just listened when he got in trouble even if he acted like he didn’t care. With me, he had created a game. It was fun for him because it got him attention. But more than that…

He felt seen.

The more he tried to wild, the more I met him with equal amounts of playfulness. “Pastor Brooke isn’t going to come over here,” he’d say as he looked me dead in the eye running away from the church campus. And I learned to switch on my joy and not my worry or frustration. “Hmm. I’d sure miss ______ if he ran away.” He was still running but now in circles around the children’s campus.

Little by little, he listened to me. He trusted me. And I understood that he was just like me. I often ran from my problems while wishing someone would come for me. I tested people’s trust. I tried to get people to not like me so that they wouldn’t ever stop loving me because it was already done.

Science links to the story I tell you. It is the kid, the spouse, the friend, the person that challenges you most that might offer some inner reflection into what you also need to heal. Consider you have a husband that is emotionally unavailable sometimes. So you stop talking to him because he is “emotionally unavailable.” He says, “Good morning.” You say, “Hey” and go about your business.

Sometimes in an attempt to not get hurt, we shut down. Does that mean we don’t need our spouses, our friends, etc. to work on their stuff too? No. It means that God will show you what you also lack. Emotionally intelligent people do not shut down because someone didn’t respond the way they liked. But someone who runs and hides to stay safe will.

The Lord will help you through moments of others trying your nerves and your feelings. Likewise, He will work on you while you wait for them to figure out their current funk. Be patient with yourself and others.

It worked for me. Somewhere in a little special box, is a green mechanical pencil that a little boy hit me in the back of the head with once during Worthy of it All. And you know, that little kid was so worthy. And he is one of my favorite kids I’ve ever taught to this day.

Keep pressing on. That thing that drives you crazy one day might become one of your favorite memories.