"Biblically, tenderness is what follows when someone reveals to you your own inner beauty, when you discover your belovedness, when you experience that you are deeply and sincerely liked by someone. If you communicate to me that you really like me, not just love me as a sister in Christ, that you take delight in me, then you open up to me the possibility of liking myself. The look of amiable regard in your eyes banishes my fears, and my defense mechanisms (such as insulation, name-dropping, and giving the impression that I've got it all together) disappear into the nothingness of my non-attention to them. Your warmth withers my self-disdain and allows the possibility of self-esteem. I drop my mask of pretentious piety, stop impersonating Mother Teresa, quit disguising my sanctimonious voice, start to smile at my frailty, and dare to become more open, sincere, vulnerable, and affectionate with you than I would ever dream of being if I thought you didn't like me. In short, what happens is I grow tender. (Brennan Manning, The Wisdom of Tenderness)
Thank you to all of those people in my life who allow me to grow tender. It is a precious and priceless gift, one I could not live without.
2 comments:
LOVE Brennan Manning
I'm so glad your mom passed the quote along to you! This one so resonates with me in that it touches deeply into that place in my soul that does long to enter into relationships where the delight of knowing and liking each other is the cord that helps to bind one heart to another. To be enjoyed in such a way that I can, as Manning says, simply become unaware of my insecurities...I long for that. And I am finding that as I open my heart to that very possibility, God has unexpectedly and lavishly brought a couple of remarkable women into my life that are helping me to live, not just hope for, that reality. I feel rather Mary-ish....blessed am I among women!!
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