The Power of “Me, too.”

I sat in surprise yesterday as y’alls comments kept trickling in, both here and on Facebook.  This morning when a few new notifications showed up, I sat and reread some of them and I felt tears forming in my eyes.

Tears always blur your vision a bit, but today, they also made me stop for a few seconds.  In my mind, I could see so many women like shadowy figures bending, walking, picking up babies, making food, kissing boo boos, folding laundry.  Tired sometimes, often wondering how they can reach around, but unspeakably strong in love, commitment, and tenaciousness.  Do you have any idea how beautiful that is?

But maybe what hit me more was the level of honesty and vulnerability that was surfacing.

It’s interesting what shifts inside of us when we have the courage to dig hard enough to be honest with ourselves.  To look and pray and seek and sometimes get help until we find the beliefs that are holding us back from who God really designed us to be.  I could write for a long time about that, but maybe another time.

There’s a different and equally powerful shift that happens when we are vulnerable enough to be honest with each other.

Honesty creates a feeling of community.  It’s really interesting to me how quickly people know this.  {Adam needed to write an essay on friendship this year and one of the things he talked about most in that essay was the need for honesty.}  But it’s even more interesting how quickly we hide.  I think it was Brene Brown who said that vulnerability is the single most important factor in meaningful relationship; and shame is the thing that most holds us back from being vulnerable.  If you have a minute, you should take a little time to think about that.  And if you don’t have a minute, you should do it anyway. 😉  That phrase rocked my whole life a few weeks ago during our revival meetings when I realized that shame was holding me back from a full relationship with Jesus.

There is so much community that happens when you see people raising their hand and whispering, “Me, too.”

The other thing that happens is the way it leaves us feeling empowered.  Maybe that’s just one and the same and the feeling of community is empowering, but they feel like separate entities to me.  You would think that voicing your own struggle is only going to be discouraging to the next person.  Somehow, it has the opposite effect.  Even though we’re not in the same house and sometimes not even in the same community, knowing you are over there fighting your battle well gives me courage to fight mine.  I feel stronger because I know this isn’t for the faint of heart, but over there and over there and over there, you are doing the same thing, too.

Today I just want to say thank you.  Thank you for being vulnerable.  Thank you for listening to my story and sharing pieces of yours. Thank you for being women who not only are women of courage in your own family; but also women who are strong enough to be vulnerable and build community.

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