I love people, but not enough.
People are funny. We are all so quirky and unique, holding a thousand different stories in the palms of our hands. Sometimes we want others to ask us about these stories, and sometimes we don’t. We are full of passion and depression and fear and joy. We all carry a few scars, some of us more than others. We have freckles sprinkled over our noses and pain in our eyes; we hold onto hope like a lifeline from our sinking ships. Most of the time, we are wandering around just searching for the lighthouse that points the way back home.
I will never stop being amazed by people—their stories and tendencies and the subtle making or avoiding of eye contact. I will never stop being amazed by humans and our ability to love and hate and hold hands, run and fall and get back up again. We are crazy and misunderstood and a misfit tribe of rebellion. We’re all a little mysterious, aren’t we? Even those who wear our hearts on our sleeves, like we’re slipping on a favorite shirt… we all keep changing eventually.
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The one thing that seems consistent, though, is that people keep surprising me, and I keep surprising people. We will constantly disappoint and hurt each other, stumbling through the everyday with our wounds wide open. Despite all of the good and love we pour out at times, we are imperfect and flawed and failing. There is only One who can satisfy our thirsty souls.
This truth doesn’t mean I don’t love people. Gosh, I love people. Sometimes my heart actually hurts because of how much I love people, each and every one of you brave, beautiful souls. But my one true hope does not rest on any of us.
I empathize with people, too, because I think all of us are trying to find God, even if we don’t realize it yet—that He’s the patch to the hole in our hearts we’ve been trying to fill. We try to fill up our hearts with sex and slander and booze, soulmates and sports and careers. But when we look to the world to fulfill what only God can, we will be hit with a wrecking ball of disappointment every single time. What we thought could make us whole left us with a more noticeable hole, and maybe what we've been searching for all along is holiness. Because these things and people of this world will keep us searching until we find that there is only One who remains enough to patch our broken hearts.
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The love of Jesus is the only thing that can hold me up. The cross is the perfect and holy sacrifice that I so desperately need. I am shattered pieces of china that God keeps gluing back together. I am just a heap of bones that God chased after and breathed life into, tripping over myself and aching for glory.
I will keep failing you, and people will keep failing me, but He will remain faithful.