The Willingness to Show Up for Another
Last month I made the decision to embark on a brand new journey that admittedly had me and all of my feelings of social awkwardness feeling a little nervous.
It should be noted that the ability to show up and be vulnerable with any person at all is a major feat, but the willingness to do it amongst many in a group is all the more courageous. So when I first began feeling the nudge to become a part of a small group at my local church, though I had my fears, I took the leap and did it anyway.
To my delight, over the course of a few weeks I quickly began to realize that this decision would become one of my most fruitful ones yet. Not only did I meet this wonderful group of brilliant and like minded individuals, I also began forming connections with a diverse community of women each hailing from different backgrounds but fully committed to being present for one another.
Then I began thinking about this idea on a larger scale. What does it really mean to show up for someone?
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While I’m sure that there would be multiple interpretations of this, the ideas that I kept landing on were the concepts of awareness, empathy, and will. To be present for someone, there is a level of awareness and empathy that I have to possess towards their life and plight, and then I have to be willing to meet them in it somehow, which could look like listening, learning, helping, or simply just standing in solidarity.
This is something that I’ve been thinking more about lately as I’ve watched certain events take place in our world especially in communities of color, and even more recently within the Asian community. Now more than ever, there is a deep need for empathy and awareness and a willingness to share in the plight of our fellow sisters and brothers around us.
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While going through the process to form our small group one of the scriptures that we meditated on came from Acts 2:42-47, but the part that stood out to me most were the verses 44-46 where it says that, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.”
I’m impacted by these verses especially because they speak of fellowship and of people who were willing to prioritize the wellbeing of others as an act of love and also as a display of God’s kingdom on Earth. As a result, every person in the community was seen, validated, and taken care of, which is an attitude that we all in theory should be able to get behind.
So Question…
How can you show up for someone around you today?
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P.S. If you want to learn more about what’s been going on in the Asian American community, or about ways to show support, I recommend checking out these resources:
Stopaapihate.org
Advancingjustice-aajc.org