What role does vulnerability play in our relationship with God? Is it a weakness or a strength? This week Tania compares vulnerability and victimization, and writes about how they connect to our relationship with our Creator. -Editor.
It seems like life pretty consistently asks us to be strong. Stand on your own. Make a something of yourself. Follow your dreams. Do the right thing. Stick to your goals. Live your principles. A lot is expected. And while these more external expectations of strength can seem hard to meet, even more is asked of us. The Lord asks us to be strong: we have to take action in order to allow Him to work in our lives. So with all this strength required, what role does vulnerability play? Lately I have been thinking about vulnerability as both its own kind of strength, and a tool to find strength in a world that defines strength as something else.
Perhaps one of the reasons vulnerability is overlooked is because we sometimes confound being a victim and being vulnerable. Both involve an acknowledgement of weakness, even helplessness. But one says: the world is against me and I can’t do this, while the other says: this is hard for me and I’m going trust you enough to let you see that I’m hurting. I have written before about the incapacitating power of the victim mindset; it’s no good. But vulnerability is something else, something with a power of its own. What is this power, and what is its relationship to strength? How can it help in our relationship with the Lord and with others?
It is first necessary to clearly distinguish victimhood and vulnerability. Perhaps the crucial difference between them is in accepting responsibility for our part in the situation.
In thinking about this distinction, I was reminded of the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:2-11). It is striking that while Jesus does not punish the woman, neither does He indulge her. Jesus’ final words to the woman are: “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more” (John 8:11). Dragged before a crowd with her sins bared, the woman most likely felt victimized, pitiful. But the Lord asks her to accept responsibility and change. We do not know how this woman’s life ends, we do not know if she did indeed “go and sin no more,” but where we are left with her is one example of vulnerability; her transgressions opened to the world. But also from this place of vulnerability and hurt, the woman has the glowing chance to choose something new. Had she not been so exposed, would she have been faced with this clear chance to reform? We cannot know, but it raises the idea that from a place of vulnerability comes an otherwise unfound power to see choices, and to act.
Another example of vulnerability is found in a different story from the Bible. A man with a demon-possessed son comes to Jesus asking for healing. The man describes his sons’ traumatic symptoms:
So He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” (Mark 9:21-22)
In this moment, the man surely feels that both he and his son are victims, victims to something awful and beyond their control. But the Lord does not help him yet. It is only when the man takes responsibility and pledges to do something himself the Lord helps:
Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” When Jesus saw that the people came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it: “Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more!” (Mark 9:24-26)
The man’s desperate cry, where he bared his weakness and placed his trust in the Lord—that was vulnerability. Before, he had been acting more of a victim. It was only in his place of action-from-hurt that the Lord could help him. But without an acknowledgement of his hurt, would he have ever sought the Lord’s help so fiercely?
The Lord’s Word illustrates the role we need to play with vulnerability: He offers safety, forgiveness and a way to change, but we have to trust Him enough to be vulnerable, and from that to act. He knocks and we have to open the door (Revelation 3:20). (An additional thought: the Lord Himself models an ideal balance of vulnerability. Every time we open the Word, or touch on things that are Holy, the Lord at His very essence is vulnerable to our abuse, or even just rejection, of His love, His truth—Him. And yet, of course, the Lord remains there, knocking patiently. It is only because He makes Himself vulnerable that we have any chance of connection with Him, let alone salvation.)
If vulnerability is important for connection with the Lord, what role does it play in our relationships with people? When we let others see us at our most weak and hurt, this is vulnerable, and it is important that that hurt is recognized for what it is. It can feel like the world wants us to pick up our wounds and keep walking, but I would say that that is not always true strength. Vulnerability—and the trust it entails— is needed for true connection with others. But does it stop there? Once we allow ourselves to be vulnerable with someone, where does the strength come in?
Perhaps it is simply that we choose to keep walking from a place of vulnerability, rather than in spite of it. I would say it is essential to have others’ support in our vulnerable times, but if we collapse on our supporters, the path from vulnerable to victim is all too easy. There is a powerful interplay between the security that comes from knowing that you can rely on someone, and the self-restraint in refraining from leaning because the knowledge that they are there gives you the strength to stand on your own. This involves such trust. Such restraint. There is a very still and at once incredibly powerful place that we can only find when we let down our guard enough to be vulnerable. From this place we can say: I know you are there, and because you are I can go on; because you are there I can choose not to be a victim.
We need safety in order to let ourselves be truly vulnerable. We need to know that those loved ones’ arms are there, ready to hold us. But it is our friends’ knowledge that they will not be asked to give too much, that we will not cling to them and suck their energy, which gives them the freedom to truly offer their support, and give us the space to feel vulnerable. It takes support to find the strength to be vulnerable, and perhaps it takes vulnerability to find the strength to stand on our own.
Tania is a recent graduate of Bryn Athyn College and is looking toward a master's program this winter. Currently, she is enjoying a life that consists more of people and painting than of work and tasks.