Tell people you feel weak and it encourages others who feel weak

How often have we felt ashamed of being or feeling weak?

We hear our inner critic rise up in his demonstratively raucous voice, “Look at you, you’re hopeless... [amid other things your personal inner critic says].”

Is it true that other people are only proud of us when we’re strong, when we’re achieving, when we’re easy to get along with, when we’re making a success of ourselves?  Yes, some do.  And maybe their voices are like our inner critic — i.e. important to us.

But there are other voices, and many of them.  Important voices are these!

Important because they think truth without speaking for fear that their truth won’t be honoured, just as it seems your truth isn’t honoured.

Important because these are the voices that would lift you in a heartbeat — like Sadness in Inside Out lifted Bing Bong — if only they would speak (like Sadness chose to)!  See how simple Sadness made it.  She just sat there.  She was simply present.  She didn’t try to fix anything, because there was nothing she could fix.  There was nothing to be fixed.  All that was needed was presence.

Important because these voices are the power of God through human compassion and soundwaves, giving power to the truth, making Jesus real in the moment.

We don’t like to be weak.  Nobody does.  There’s pain in weakness.  In it is all sorts of messaging that feels anything but human but feeling weak is about as human as one gets!

Imagine the strength others glean when they’re weak when just one person says, “Life is hard right now” or “today feels like hell” or “I have no drive whatsoever today” or “I cannot believe how I feel” or “I just cannot stop crying.”

There is always another person on the other side of our social media who is feeling at least a little the same way.  Our declaration of tears might meet with their being triggered, or they might feel just a teensy bit better about their anxiety attack because you said today is hard for you.

There’s no magic in encouragement.  It’s simply about being honest with each other and choosing to speak for the voice that’s quiet that you might not hear, while ignoring the inner critic and those we think might have critical thoughts toward us.