I've spent many years pondering the point of labels. Wondering what is gained and what is lost. Some labels provide necessary and information, like food labels for example. I wouldn't want to open a can while cooking something, to find it's contents surprising. But labels on human beings can help bring clarity or confusion.
To segregate classrooms by catagorizing children into age groups, labels them but also allows for them to be treated appropriately. Labeling by gender also can be helpful, as opposed to labeling them by something like race or ethnicity.
As adults there are reasonable labels that are descriptive, like defining a line of work someone does. Oddly even that begins to build a stereotype in people's minds. We can label people with traits of physical nature or of the character we see them display, or hundreds of other areas. I wrestle with whether any of this is a good thing.
What if we begin to label people openly with their habits or their past, are these concrete things? What if we could see what is really inside people, would those labels be different? Do you think that knowing more of what is in a person would cause you to see more positive in them, or more negative? What if we all wore signs around listing all the labels that have been stuck to us or that we've picked up ourselves? I don't think any of us would be free from all that.
So what happens is that hiding and shame grow in the dark where these labels have been attached and judged. When a mistake of the past creates judgment over a future, or a misunderstood diagnosis changes how a person is treated, when your very identity is questioned by people who know the labels but don't know you, what then? Is the answer fear or ignoring the problem with all this?
What do we do with this shame driven culture we've created? What do we do as loving human beings when we see this behavior among those claiming love and acceptance of differences? Is one voice in the masses going to change anything?
I know one thing for sure, Silence will continue the issue.
My one voice, instead of hiding and pulling away into a place of darkness, will at least make a change in me.
Any that know me, know I have a messy past. Laced with struggles, victories and moments of complete defeat. This created piles of labels. I have worked very hard at cleaning up my own wreckage. Because of many things that weren't exactly my doing, I still have labels over my life. I have medical diagnoses, and psychiatric diagnoses, and I'm short, and I'm female, and I'm a mom, and I'm a wife, and I'm an artist, and I'm in recovery, and I'm a math nerd, and I'm a janitor, and I'm a friend, and I'm a sister, daughter, aunt, niece, I'm an American citizen, I literally could list hundreds of labels.
I am a child of God. I choose to follow the path He leads me down. I'm completely loved by Him. So i don't have to fear. I'm completely accepted by Him. So I have nothing to prove.
I find it very disheartening at times though, when one of these labels is taken up and held against me. I have no need to defend any of it, but it does draw reason to keep secrets and not live out the freedom God has given me. Where do we really stand when it comes to saying a person cannot serve God because of certain places of brokenness in their lives?
Granted I'm not fond of rejection, but I understand that it's not mine. If rejection comes over a label that someone is unwilling to understand, then they are simply rejecting their misconceptions based in some other experience, not having anything to do with me.
I've watched hundreds of people though, take on these places of rejection and lose life over it. So are we going to continue judging and stigmatizing and shaming people to death, or is healing found amongst acceptance, tolerance of differences, grace, and compassion.
All of us live with some brokenness in our lives, but the expectation to keep it to ourselves and never let anyone in, is not the way God designed people to be. We are created for relationship with God and each other and these relationships are where healing the brokenness is found.
Please love each other as if it were yourself. Assume everyone to have hardship and struggle, walk with empathy and compassion. I won't be shamed into Silence. Even if no one understands, I know within myself that i stand. I stand up with any who are pushed around by adversaries of fear and shame and anger and misunderstanding and hopelessness, we choose to be victors not victims.
To segregate classrooms by catagorizing children into age groups, labels them but also allows for them to be treated appropriately. Labeling by gender also can be helpful, as opposed to labeling them by something like race or ethnicity.
As adults there are reasonable labels that are descriptive, like defining a line of work someone does. Oddly even that begins to build a stereotype in people's minds. We can label people with traits of physical nature or of the character we see them display, or hundreds of other areas. I wrestle with whether any of this is a good thing.
What if we begin to label people openly with their habits or their past, are these concrete things? What if we could see what is really inside people, would those labels be different? Do you think that knowing more of what is in a person would cause you to see more positive in them, or more negative? What if we all wore signs around listing all the labels that have been stuck to us or that we've picked up ourselves? I don't think any of us would be free from all that.
So what happens is that hiding and shame grow in the dark where these labels have been attached and judged. When a mistake of the past creates judgment over a future, or a misunderstood diagnosis changes how a person is treated, when your very identity is questioned by people who know the labels but don't know you, what then? Is the answer fear or ignoring the problem with all this?
What do we do with this shame driven culture we've created? What do we do as loving human beings when we see this behavior among those claiming love and acceptance of differences? Is one voice in the masses going to change anything?
I know one thing for sure, Silence will continue the issue.
My one voice, instead of hiding and pulling away into a place of darkness, will at least make a change in me.
Any that know me, know I have a messy past. Laced with struggles, victories and moments of complete defeat. This created piles of labels. I have worked very hard at cleaning up my own wreckage. Because of many things that weren't exactly my doing, I still have labels over my life. I have medical diagnoses, and psychiatric diagnoses, and I'm short, and I'm female, and I'm a mom, and I'm a wife, and I'm an artist, and I'm in recovery, and I'm a math nerd, and I'm a janitor, and I'm a friend, and I'm a sister, daughter, aunt, niece, I'm an American citizen, I literally could list hundreds of labels.
I am a child of God. I choose to follow the path He leads me down. I'm completely loved by Him. So i don't have to fear. I'm completely accepted by Him. So I have nothing to prove.
I find it very disheartening at times though, when one of these labels is taken up and held against me. I have no need to defend any of it, but it does draw reason to keep secrets and not live out the freedom God has given me. Where do we really stand when it comes to saying a person cannot serve God because of certain places of brokenness in their lives?
Granted I'm not fond of rejection, but I understand that it's not mine. If rejection comes over a label that someone is unwilling to understand, then they are simply rejecting their misconceptions based in some other experience, not having anything to do with me.
I've watched hundreds of people though, take on these places of rejection and lose life over it. So are we going to continue judging and stigmatizing and shaming people to death, or is healing found amongst acceptance, tolerance of differences, grace, and compassion.
All of us live with some brokenness in our lives, but the expectation to keep it to ourselves and never let anyone in, is not the way God designed people to be. We are created for relationship with God and each other and these relationships are where healing the brokenness is found.
Please love each other as if it were yourself. Assume everyone to have hardship and struggle, walk with empathy and compassion. I won't be shamed into Silence. Even if no one understands, I know within myself that i stand. I stand up with any who are pushed around by adversaries of fear and shame and anger and misunderstanding and hopelessness, we choose to be victors not victims.