On Being Human

I have really been wrestling with my humanness lately. Do you know what it means to be human? According to Merriam-Webster, “human” means “representative of or susceptible to the sympathies and frailties of human nature.”

Susceptible to frailties = Human.

Dang.

I don’t know if it’s my age or the events of recent years, but I’m finding myself confronted by the reality of my humanness with undeniable regularity. This has not been an easy adjustment.

I realize that from one perspective, the fact that I am human is kind of obvious, and it might be surprising that I’ve been on the earth this long without noticing. But to my credit, there have been a lot of years where my frailties were minor inconveniences that could be brushed aside like an annoying fly. I considered them outliers.

A few examples:

• When I dealt with chronic migraines in middle school, I would go to a dark room until I was mostly functional and then run onto the court for basketball practice. (Fly successfully swatted.)
  
• When I threw out my back in my late 20’s, for months making it excruciating to sit in a chair, I attended all church events anyway. I simply laid on the floor in the back. A little odd, yes, but I would not let the pain cause me to miss out.
  
• When I turned 40, life and ministry had really taken a toll, and my husband was burning out. What could be done? We spun that problem into an adventure and hit the road with our family for 6 months of travel and friends.

Some have said, “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.” I wouldn’t have considered this to be my motto. I was just doing what needed to be done. I was living. Sometimes life is hard. OK; deal with it. Then move on.

The concept of being “susceptible to frailties” didn’t come on the scene for me until the last decade. You might have felt it in the last number of years yourself.

It was as if, swimming in the ocean, I got hit by a wave. No problem, I thought, just come up for air. But as I tried to reach the surface, I got hit by another wave. Sputtering and dazed I tried to come up again and wham! Another wave. Then came panic and fear as I got hit again and again by wave after wave.

Maybe I passed out. Maybe I was rescued. But at some point I found myself laying on the shore of my life wondering what had become of me. Never do I remember getting knocked out so definitively by the circumstances of my life. I was utterly leveled.

Let me tell you, it did quite a number on my sense of self. Who was this woman who couldn’t do? I’m Gen X. I grew up doing it all, and doing it all by myself. I believed in Girl Power and was known to tell my 3^rd grade classmates that anything boys can do, girls can do better (Who’s with me?!).

I was a strong, independent woman! And for strong, independent women, frailties by definition don’t belong. If you see one of those annoying little pests, you squish it and pretend it never happened…

Over the last number of years, though, I’ve found myself having to develop a sense of compassion for my own weaknesses. It has not been easy.

I didn’t like my weaknesses, much less the thought of looking at them or treating them gently. At some point, though, I was out of other options. So I tried a little self-kindness. It was nice, I’ll admit, but I was still hoping that it would do the trick quickly, and I could get back to being capable and independent with no more need for that kind of thing.

But life, it keeps coming at you. Wave after wave after wave…

There’s been one thing or another most of the time for years now. Not to mention that I’ve gotten older; that also somehow came as a surprise… There are more aches and pains and aging family members, so the temporary nature of life on this earth is harder to ignore. Also, my world has expanded, which means I have more people I’m looking out for than just my four children (who were much easier to coral when they were little).

To tell you the truth, though, I don’t know a single person who hasn’t been kicked in the teeth by life in recent years, no matter their age or life stage.

Human: representative of or susceptible to the sympathies and frailties of human nature.

It strikes me that the Almighty God made humans and called that creation very good. I wonder if Adam and Eve got sore muscles or blisters when they were working in the Garden. Surely they got tired, even before the Fall into sin. (Being tired isn’t a sin, right? Hmmm… That’s worth remembering!) Maybe they even got emotional, caught up in the wonder and beauty of it all. Do you think they ever got lost traversing the Garden? They were human after all. Human, and frail, and still declared very good by the Maker.

Not only did God come up with the design for being human, Jesus became one himself. He must have been fond of it, because he kept the body, even though it was susceptible to frailty.

It turns out, God has a tender spot for our humanness.

As a father shows compassion to his children,
    so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.
For he knows our frame;
    he remembers that we are dust.

Psalm 103:13-14 (ESV)

I think Jesus knows how hard it can be sometimes simply to be human. He knows the times we can trample our challenges and the times they trample us. He sees the inspiration that leads us to risk, and the broken dreams we try to tuck away. He feels the heartbreaks that we just can’t seem to recover from, and our wary desire to find a way to live again.

Lately I’ve been thinking that being a strong, independent woman is not all it’s cracked up to be. Have you heard of the Maturity Continuum? It’s a model for how humans develop in an upward spiral: from dependence, to independence, and ultimately to interdependence.

I don’t tend to like it when I can’t do something all by myself. I am prone to viewing that as a personal weakness, maybe even a failure. But it turns out, my human limitations are nudging me toward interdependence. Who knew that my weakness was a part of my growth? Ha! This life surprises me all the time.

I have a lot of independent habits still lurking about, but I think I’m beginning to get a vision of a new goal. I no longer need to aim for strength and independence; rather, I just want to be human and interdependent.

Humans have good days and bad days (and lots of days in between). Sometimes humans tackle amazing obstacles, sometimes they cry (sometimes both at the same time), and sometimes they can’t get themselves out of bed. Sometimes they are the helper, and sometimes humans need help. They are amazingly complex and a frontier holding endless discoveries.

Humans are susceptible to frailties, and therefore in need of great compassion and kindness… gifts that the Father delights to lavish on beloved children.

If we’re honest, there might be some other humans who would love to treat us with compassion and kindness, too, if only we’d let them know that we needed it.

Humans are deeply loved by the Father in heaven … and probably by some people here on earth, too.

Yes, I think I’ll be human.

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This blog was also posted on the Next Step Community. You can find it here amid other articles by like-minded authors.