A Risk Worth Taking

It is so entertaining to watch kids engage in the world.  Sometimes you can tell so much about who they are just by observing (they certainly observe us and know us well!).

And sometimes, as I watch and learn from my most entertaining little characters, I find myself challenged.  I wonder if they possess qualities that I should or could still have, if I were really following my heart.

On a recent trip to the playground, I watched an interesting little drama unfold.  As you might have picked up from other blog posts, our daughter, Lela, is an extreme extrovert.  She is five and has exuberance for life, for people, for all things sparkly.

In her sparkly purple tutu, she happily approached a little girl and gave her a big smile and wave.

No response from the little girl.

So, she added some audio and this time she smiled and waved and said “Hi!.”

The little girl turned her head.

Undaunted, Lela leaned over to make sure the little girl could see her, and gave her another big “Hi!.”

This time the little girl walked away.

Lela was mystified.  She came to me and said, “Mommy, I don’t think that little girl knew I was saying hi to her.”

So she followed the little girl and this time asked her name.

No response.

The little girl’s Mom answered for her, but Lela was not satisfied with that.  She came to me and said, “Mom, she won’t tell me her name.  I just want to be her friend.”

When the little girl came back over to the playground, Lela sought her out again and tried another big smiley, “Hi.”

The little girl walked away.

At this point, Lela was starting to get the message, but it was not a message she was willing to accept.  She came to me and said, “Mom, every time I try to talk to her, she just walks away!”  I told her it was nice that she was trying to make friends, but maybe the little girl just didn’t feel like playing.  This was also not a message Lela wanted to hear.  “But Mom, I just want her to talk to me!”

The next thing I know, she tracked down the little girl, this time touching her arm to get her attention and asked, “Do you want to be my friend?”

The little girl walked away.  Lela followed.

I had to warn the girl’s parents that Lela was not going to give up, and that’s when they told us that their daughter was very shy and practically mute, barely ever talks and especially to new people.  I informed them that she had met her match because Lela was not going to take no for an answer.

FINALLY, the parents got the little girl to tell Lela her name.  Lela wasn’t fully satisfied, but she was glad the little girl finally talked to her.

After observing all of this, I wondered if this is a character trait that will persist or if Lela will lose some of her extroverted persistence once she realizes that not everyone in life will want to be her friend.  Right now, she believes herself to be amazing and fabulous and can’t comprehend that people might see her any differently.

On one hand, I want her to learn social graces and not “pester” people, but on the other hand, I love it that she will not take no for an answer.  If someone rejects her, it just fuels the fire.   In life, where she will face rejection, I hope she can maintain her tenacious spirit.

Although I am an extrovert, I have never been willing to “convince” people to like me.  This is wasted energy.  People will like you or they won’t, and my Dad taught me that if people decide they don’t want to like you, then they will find a reason, no matter what you do, so you have to come to an acceptance of yourself regardless of what people think (he is in ministry, so having thick skin  – not being easily offended – is part of the job description).

But what if there are people who need to be pursued?  Lela’s interaction with that little girl made me wonder how many people get labeled as “rude, uninterested, unmotivated, snobby, etc.” just because they are painfully shy or because they have anxiety or fear.  If I had been Lela, I would have immediately assumed the little girl was rude and did not want to be my friend and I would have moved on.  But as it turned out, the little girl wanted friends, but she didn’t know what to do, what to say (and certainly didn’t know how to handle someone like Lela!).

While considering this line between pursuing and pestering, I thought about the life of Jesus.  He didn’t follow people around begging them to like Him, and many of His encounters were because people were seeking after Him (many of the people He healed, Nicodemus, the rich young ruler, etc.), were naturally drawn to Him, or because He “ran into” people along the way.  BUT He did reach out to people and sometimes He went out of His way to find them (when He called the disciples for example).

I guess the key thing about His life that stands out to me is that Jesus “saw” people.  He reached out and opened the door of conversation and relationship with all sorts of people that others disregarded and overlooked – the Samaritan woman at the well, Zacchaeus, the hated tax collector, Mary Magdalene, who had been demon posessed.  He touched lepers, He let kids hang around, He kicked back with “sinners.”  If He had not engaged the woman at the well in conversation, she would not have known Him; if Jesus had not stopped to chat with Zacchaeus up in the tree and then invited Himself over (how rude, right?), Zacchaeus would not have had a life changing experience with the living Christ.

So I guess this is the question I have to ask myself:  “Do I SEE people?”

Do I just assume that someone does not want to be engaged in conversation and wants to be left alone?  Do I “keep to myself” because I’m too busy and distracted? Do I “mind my own business” because I’m afraid of coming across as “intrusive” or socially awkward?

Yes, there is always the possibility of getting shut down (like Lela on the playground) and I’m not going to pester people if I get a clear message.  But most people long to be seen and to feel significant.  And most the time, you get what you give.

And you don’t have to be an extrovert like little Lela.  Sometimes a quiet spirit can be the most effective way to draw people out.  Our son, Luke, is more cautious, more of an introvert (Lela calls strangers “friends” and Luke will say, “They are not my friends.  I don’t know them.”), but his preschool teacher told me, with great excitement and joy, that Luke engaged an autistic boy in cooperative play.  She said she was going to document it because it was the first time the little boy had connected with someone else during the school year.

It doesn’t matter if you are an extreme extrovert or extreme introvert or somewhere in between, God just wants us to see people, to love people, and to take a risk sometimes.

Jesus, without question, knows what it is like to be rejected in the worst way.   But He is also our example of love that sees beyond circumstances, labels, assumptions, and outward appearances.

He loved recklessly.

I wonder, if I were really living out God’s love in my life, if I would be accused of doing the same. . .