A while back I learned something from a “smart phone”, and I didn’t even need to use it to GOOGLE something…for this learning, no internet was required.
Over the course of several days, a friend of mine and I were having a conversation by way of text messages. This conversation was not of any great personal depth, or we would have actually been using the “phone option” on our smart phones. If it was of great importance, we would have picked up our phones and called each other.
During the text messaging conversation, my friend responded to me in such a way that was confusing. It was really odd, and it was so odd that I double checked the message I sent him to see if auto correct changed anything that I might have misspelled. The message I sent him was just fine, but his response concerned me.
It was quickly revealed that during the course of our text conversation, my friend had shattered the screen on his phone. This damage did not allow him to clearly read my communication to him. He misread my message to him, and he was responding to what he thought I said and then in return I did the same.
I can’t help but make a connection between this shattered screen on a smart phone and the times in our lives that we too become shattered; how this brokenness spills over into how we interpret things around us.
When something happens in our lives that creates fractures, we begin to no longer see things as they really are. We can only process or comprehend bits and pieces of the truth in the world around us. The more we process the world with fractured lenses, the more fractures we create in our relationships with each other.
If this instance with my friend had caused actual separation between us, who would be to blame? In each of our realities, the other person caused the fracture in our communication. If the miscommunication had continued, our focus could have shifted from being in a healthy relationship, to being in the middle of the destructive nature of the blame game.
As we live in relationship with those around us, it is important for us to stop seeking who is to blame and begin opening ourselves up in a way that allows us to actually see when someone else is broken. If we can begin to allow ourselves to see the brokenness others are experiencing, then we can respond to them in the light of grace and be an instrument of healing instead of being added fuel to the fire.
All of us from time to time find ourselves looking at the world through shattered lenses. When it is my turn to look at the world around me through shattered lenses, my hope is that you will know me well enough to realize it and love me enough to help bring healing. In real relationships things go both ways, so when it is your lens that becomes shattered, I hope I can recognize it and do the same for you.
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