Love starts with know we live inside-out lives

​Jesus lives inside us.

Have you ever deeply wondered why that is?

Yesterday I spoke to a group at a local church. I was the only person in the room who looked like me. But I told the group, I think we live in a world that can become so obsessed with what one looks like on the outside that we lose sight of the healing power that comes from discovering what folks are going through on the inside.

The color of one's skin tells us very little about one another. What one has experienced inside the color of that skin tells us everything.

The minister asked me to give a simple definition of trauma, a definition that everyone can understand. And I said, some people have experienced things in life in ways that those experiences live inside them as pain for a long time.

Sometimes forever.

The challenge is, we don't always see that pain. People often adapt to pain by getting good at hiding or masking it. I have lived that story. Or, also, as a society we get so good at making assumptions about people based on their outsides that we never take the time to explore how people are experiencing life on the inside.

And so - often - pain goes unseen.

And therefore unhealed.

I think that's the main reason Jesus chose to make his home inside us. So we'd always know no matter how hard we try to hide it or no matter how convinced we get that no one wants to see it, Jesus can always say, I do know it and I do want to see it.

How could I not, I choose to live right in the middle of it.

That's important to know, but maybe just as important for us is to know that's where Jesus lived when he walked the earth. Right in the middle of other people's pain.

The Leper that Jesus refused to heal from a distance, the leper that no one else in society would come near, Jesus reached out and touched the man. This is a Jesus who had no interest in social norms and the Jesus overflowing with compassion.

The woman at the well who Jesus engaged in a deep conversation. He didn't shy away from her messy past but actually dug into that past on the way to leading her to emotional and spiritual transformation. Her whole community had abandoned her because of her choices; Jesus showed up and loved her in the middle of them.

The paralyzed man lowered through the roof of a building in hopes that Jesus would let him walk again. Jesus did help that man walk again, but not before healing all that the man was battling on the inside.

The adulterous woman about to be stoned by the Pharisees. Jesus didn't condemn her but instead condemned her condemners. Jesus wasn't nearly as interested in saving her from punishment as he was in restoring her dignity and offering her a chance at new life.

Over and over, Jesus showed us that what people are struggling with on the outside pales in comparison to what they are battling on the inside. When he walked the earth as a human, he went right for people's insides.

And today, in you and me, Jesus refuses to leave our insides.

I told the group yesterday, my life's mission today is to be a healer. All healing starts with understanding, all understanding comes from curiosity. And curiosity starts with acknowledging the people around us aren't living outside-in stories, but inside-out.

We have a Jesus living inside us forever curious about what we are going through. I feel certain that's because he wants us to feel seen and always know we are on a path toward healing.

And more and more, when I hang out with people who don't look like me, I come to know people have very little desire to look like one another, what they mainly desire is for people to know what they are experiencing beneath what they look like.

That was and is the greatest gift of the Jesus in my life; making sure I know he knows my insides. I'm sure because he wants me to know that he loves me in the middle of my deepest struggles. But I'm also sure that's because he wants me to know the best way to love others.

There are a lot of people who know Jesus loves them, and yet, feel unloved. I think Jesus would tell us that's where we come in. With understanding and curiosity and compassion.

That is love.