Experiences--can we ever really say we've been there? Can we ever really say we absolutely with 100% certainty know how someone feels? Can we say we've had the very same experience? Can we ever really experience anything the same way as someone else? I think the answer is no, and I think that is extremely painful when you see someone you love in pain. It is all the more painful when you know you're close to knowing; there are similarities, there are crossovers, but the truth, the absolute bottom line painful gut wrenching truth is that no matter how much I want to know, no matter how much I want to take the pain, experience the pain myself, I can't.
I can say I have been and I am lonely. I know the pain of feeling not connected. I have felt it before, and I feel it now. I know how hard it is to be "on" all the time, to feel you're on a perpetual first date. I know how hard it is to hear other people talk about all their plans and their friends and know that if I want something to happen, I have to do the work. I have known and I know now how it feels to feel that you don't belong. And I know how it feels to feel that you've been left behind. Those are our overlaps. There's where our circles meet.
But I don't know what thoughts are going through your head or what hurts are in your heart. I hear you talk, but I can't climb into the corners of your heart and see the words that you cannot even speak. I can't feel the pain you have for which you have no words. I don't know how those feelings manifest within you.
Because we are not the same. We are connected, we cross over; we overlap, but we are different. I must honor your difference. I must honor that you are a person with your own feelings, thoughts, needs, desires, wants, and even pain. To try to put your circle within mine is to deny your goodness; it is to deny your uniqueness as a child of God. It is, in fact, to deny your personhood. To deny that, regardless of the benevolent intent, is to deny Christ in you.
But where our circles meet I will always be. That is where we honor the similarities and hold the difference. It is the place we stretch to when there is no one or no where else to be. And I am not now nor will I ever leave you in your pain alone.
