While a friend told me some exciting news about something that had happened in her life, I was carefully listening and taking it all in. When she finished, she looked disappointed. She said, “I thought you’d be more excited and happy for me.” She had taken a big step in her life, and my expression did not match the excitement she believed her story deserved. She was right! Although I was very, very excited for her, I failed to convey my excitement to her.
We might be surprised by how others perceive us.
I have learned, especially over the past several years, that my facial expressions, mannerisms, and overall reactions in conversations are lackluster in portraying exactly how I feel. I often listen and think so intently that I fail to let myself express the emotions that I have inside. I can offer many excuses, such as…”I’m an introvert”, “I’m not tempered to show a lot of emotion”, or “I just don’t do cartwheels when I’m excited”. Regardless, I have chosen to work on communicating to others how I feel when they share important, exciting, or even sad things with me.
There is a tendency to identify people based on brief interactions, isolated events, and past mistakes.
There is more to me than a stoic facial expression, which, I’ve been told, sometimes makes me look angry. If I were to be labeled by a first impression of me, I might be labeled angry, mean, cold, lost, or constipated. Although I might be any one of those things at times, that is not at all who I am. I catch myself making this mistake with others. I find myself wanting to make up my mind about who they are and whether I want to be around them, based on short interactions, Facebook posts, or something I heard they did to so-and-so. I even do it to myself. I will remember a mistake I made 10 years ago and focus on how stupid I must be to do something like that. It was 10 years ago! You’re not stupid! Let it go Neil! There’s so much more to all of us than can be identified in just one or two pages of our story.
It’s important to read the whole book, not just a few pages, before making a judgment call.
I can pull a few sentences from the Bible that might make God look like a vicious, unforgiving, tyrant. But when I take everything that’s been told about Him, I find that He is not at all like that towards His children. When I read the whole story, He’s actually quite prone to forgiving us. He even chooses to not focus on our past mistakes. I can even make Him look like Santa Claus…”“Ask and it will be given to you . . .” (Luke 11:9, New International Version). Again, this is not who He is. God provides for our every need, but He is not a genie we can use and call on to constantly get what we want.
Knowing others, God, or even ourselves, is not something that can be done quickly. Knowing someone takes time and patience. It takes effort. It takes courage. It requires us to look past a rude interaction, a bad choice, or even mere words. Who a person is begins to be revealed over the course of many experiences. One’s identity can remain hidden for a few scenes, for many reasons, but their true self will be seen throughout the course of the entire play.