Relationships and Death

Before that day, I trusted easily. Faults had to be revealed--people didn't start with them. Now, people start with them and trust has to be earned.

That day, my world crashed and relationships were never the same...because I realized no one is unbreakable. Everyone will shatter, even if someone else does the breaking. And because everyone will shatter, every human relationship will end in death. Every one. Oh, we try to ignore, hide, avoid a reality as disheartening as this one, but ultimately we cannot escape the truth.

That day, the truth tackled me like a giant sumo wrestler leveling his opponent.

Some days, I hate it. I hate that I think the worst, that I prepare for death before life has even begun to sprout. I hate it. And I wonder how Jesus related...the One who knows the heart of every man on earth. How could He know the truth and still relate? How could He see the black reality of sin--of pride, greed, jealousy, anger--and still make Himself vulnerable in relationship?

How do I share myself, knowing the end reality? A painter can create a brilliant masterpiece, but why should he fashion it if he knows it will only be thrown in the fire upon completion? Therein lies a deeper contemplation I rarely dare to visit.

Can it be that the momentary beauty of the painting is of such surpassing brilliance that even death cannot thwart it? Can I claw away the layers of who I am on top--the skin, the muscle--and expose my inner reality, not knowing if I will be picked clean or healed? Right now, being eaten alive overwhelms me, so I rest in this shroud of anonymity.

Maybe someday I will once again venture into nakedness, glorying in the momentary beauty of the painting rather than honing in on this reality that now stands before me, taller than Goliath.