Perception and Truth

“You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Those most likely to befriend strangers, in other words, are those who have been strangers themselves. The best way to grow empathy for those who are lost is to know what it means to be lost yourself.”

I have reached the age where I require a box fan to sleep. On high. Both because I run warm all the time and am a light sleeper who needs the consistent white noise. 

As the summer heated up, I began to move my box fan around with me during the day. In the kitchen when I'm cooking and teaching. In the living room when I am working and relaxing. 

I read something last week when I was researching our basement ac problem. 

"Fans cool people not rooms."

I promise you my bedroom feels cooler with the two fans running. 

However, the thermostat says otherwise. 

The only real change is my perception of the temperature. 

I've been reading and studying and listening to sermons on the idea of loving your neighbor as yourself. Loving your enemies. 

Loving His people. 

Over the last few months, I'm going to say, I'm finding His people harder to love. 

I realized this morning that His people aren't different because of some virus, some political differences, some opinions. 

I only perceive them differently because I am now aware of what seeps when they are stretched. 

People haven't changed. 

Just my perception of them. 

I'm finding that sort of hard to digest today. 

I turned on a podcast by one of my favorite authors this morning on my walk. As soon as her voice came on I immediately thought "That's not what she sounds like."

You see, I had never heard her voice before but when I read her- she sounds differently in my head. 

I was surprised this morning when the truth was so much different than my perception. 

I think that's what we are all struggling with during the time of the pandemic more than anything else. 

The truth is much different than our perception. 

Perhaps you, like me, are struggling with the space between your perception and truth. 

As I walked this morning and adjusted my perception to match the truth in this author's voice,  I began to wonder what I was supposed to do with this space that exists. 

I wondered what I was supposed to learn from this space I'm sitting in. 

I realized so many of my struggles are sitting in this space between perception and truth. 

Mama Warriors, perhaps you too are struggling and sitting in a place between what you perceived and the truth. 

Maybe it's as simple as how you viewed this school year would go and how it actually is. 

Maybe it's a little more challenging like how you perceived those you do life with believe and what they actually do. 

Maybe loving your neighbor is a little more complicated as we see what each of seeps when we are stretched. 

I'm finding today that there are also differences between what I have always perceived to be truth and what scripture actually says. 

And maybe that is the space I'm going to sit in today. 

In the space where we might otherwise think we are disappointed, perhaps that's the space we are supposed to grow. 

Maybe this space between perception and truth is where we are supposed to learn to love each other. 

Maybe this space is where we are supposed to learn to seep grace and kindness when we are stretched. 

Maybe instead of looking outward at how the world isn't how we thought it was, we are supposed to look inward and ask how we are responding to what really isn't new truth. 

Maybe we are supposed to love ourselves in that space. 

Just maybe we are supposed to love one another in that space. 

Maybe the bridge between perception and truth is love.