She was just like me -her kids swinging from a jungle gym a little too high, her youngest braving a fast slide, her little girl out of breath from skipping. We were standing on the side of playground in a city far away while our children laughed together. She began to tell me about her youngest. I hadn’t been paying much attention to her, but as I turned to her while she spoke, something incredible happened.
It was like I really saw her.
I looked past all of our very obvious differences.
I saw past the chew in her mouth and the cigarette in her hand. I saw past her children’s tattered clothing. I saw past the lack of concern for her toddler’s saggy diaper. They didn’t define her. They were not the story of her life. They were merely a few sentences. Not enough to know her. Not enough to judge her. In the middle of the playground in a city far away, I saw a woman, and she was just like me.
I wondered about her life. I wondered what choices those around her had made which shaped her. I wondered about her heartache and her triumphs. I wondered what she considered success. I wondered what she hoped for… what she dreamt of… I wondered where she found joy.
I know that she will go home to a life very different from my own. The words that she shared that day painted a picture of a world I do not know. But I do know that in a home unlike mine, with a husband unlike mine, there will be a woman who sits with hopes and dreams and a desire to be known and appreciated and loved – just like me.
The heart of every woman is very unique. But the truth is our hearts are all built the same. In the deepest places of a woman’s heart, she desires to be loved. She desires to be seen and understood. She desires to know that she is accepted.
We overlook these great similarities. We overlook the sisterhood that should unite us in common purpose to encourage and edify and bring hope to one another. We trample each other with our words and our conclusions. We stack up other women like stairs that we must climb to measure our own success never stopping to look into faces of women just like us.
I didn’t even realize that I was guilty of this until that day. My life changed the day that I stood and spoke with that woman on that playground. I didn’t speak with her like I was doing her a favor by giving her the honor of my company, but like we were dear friends, real true friends who need each other.
I wonder how many other women that I have failed to “see” because they are so unlike me… or were they?
You know something really remarkable happens the moment that we look into the hearts of the women around us and recognize ourselves. I think sometimes we are afraid to relate to those who are in situations unlike our own… as if their lives will define us. But what if we were brave? What if we made an effort to really see each other? What if we freely offered other women the love and acceptance we craved for ourselves?
Today, I promise to see you. I promise to look for all of the ways that we are just alike, and not focus so much on our differences. I promise not to use you as a measure of my own worth. Instead, I promise to look for ways to walk with you as together we realize that our worth comes from our Father in Heaven who made our hearts the same, who loves each of us with an unending love, who calls us worthy, who says we are more than enough, and whose Love is the perfect completion of our hearts.
It is a gift that costs me nothing, but one with a reward which has the power to transform lives (including my own.)
