Befriending the Awkward

The questions. The overwhelming flood of questions.

Will they like me? Will they think I’m too intrusive? Too familiar? Too lame? Will they begin plans to sell and move if I invite them over for dinner? Do they secretly wish they could avoid me?

I get it. The unknowns. The assumptions. The what-ifs. They paint this picture of awkward, and all the obnoxious colors collide in gaudy streaks across it. And we are terrified.

So much could go wrong. Will I mess this up? Can I live it down if I do?

Inviting friends in close enough to see all the things I know so well aren’t perfect about me is one thing, but to invite my neighbors into that place, well, that’s a completely different story. My neighbors see how how often I mow my grass, what kind of vehicle I drive, what window coverings I’ve chosen for my front windows, what color of paint we wish we never tried on our shutters. The proximity means they already know things about me and my habits some of my other friends may never see. Should I really make it any more awkward by inviting them into my home? Should I let them see the inside of me too, when they already can see and judge so much from the external picture of my life?

So much of the becoming ready happens after we have started, not before. The words speak to me gently, massaging loose the tension in my shoulder, turning my picture of awkward into a watercolor—the colors masked, diluted, less intense.

Keeping a safe distance is safe, but is it good? Does it fill me with life, this choosing against the vulnerability, the risk, the awkwardness? Am I better for it? More alive through it? Capable of greater love?

I pause. I’ve been here before, at this too-familiar crossroads of choosing between risk and regret. Regret. The word sounds sticky, heavy, suffocating. I stay here for a moment, mulling it over, examining it like a pebble I turn round and round in my palm.

The things I regret are often not the things I did, but the things I didn’t do. The things I wasn’t bold enough to take the risk and therefore never tasted the reward.

What makes me hang back in the shadows, determine that the way forward takes more courage than I can muster? Fear? I don’t like this word either, but I know it’s true. Fear kept me from so many conversations and friendships when I was a child. Fear has kept me from voluntarily being vulnerable, even as an adult. Fear has stopped me from downhill skiing in Minnesota, parasailing in Mexico, and throwing myself into a skit during a mission trip to New Zealand that required singing.

We all fear different things, but we know the struggle to facedown the biggest, baddest fears that make us quake on the inside.

“But in the day that I’m afraid, I lay my fears before you and trust in you with all my heart” (Psalms 56:3, TPT). In the day that I’m afraid. Not if I’m afraid, but when I’m afraid.

Laying down my fears before him means I have to first face them, identify them, acknowledge their existence.

Then this: When I am afraid, I am to take action. I lay my fears before him—and leave them there—and I trust him. Trust comes more easily when I know the character of the one I trust. When I know that He is infinitely good.

I read more verses. I want these truths to sink in deep, to hold onto them and never let them go.

“The Lord your God wins victory after victory and is always with you. He celebrates and sings because of you, and he will refresh your life with his love” (Zephaniah 3:17, CEV).

“Don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God. Then, because you belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with peace that no one can completely understand. And this peace will control the way you think and feel” (Philippians 4: 6-7, CEV).

 “For God will never give you the spirit of fear, but the Holy Spirit who gives you mighty power, love, and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7, TPT).

God is always with me. I belong to him. He gives me peace, power, love, and self-control. I can move forward.

I can step into the risk, embrace the vulnerability, befriend the awkwardness of the moment, because I am not alone. “Do not fear,” he tells me again, “for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God” (Isaiah 41: 10a, CSB). I am so very, very not alone.

When I’ve been bold enough to walk hand-in-hand with the awkwardness—befriend it, if you will—I’ve soon discovered it to be a more amiable companion than I credited it with. Awkwardness is also a worthy teacher.

My house is a far cry from spotless, but I have something that gets under my skin, and that is the things that no matter how well I clean them, they don’t look clean. Discolored and scuffed linoleum. Stains even a professional carpet company using microban can’t keep out of carpet. Flat paint that holds telltale marks of every drip of water that’s ever touched it. Old toilets and bathtubs that no cleaning product I’ve tried has turned them completely white again.

I felt that squirmy, uncomfortable feeling often when I would look around at the small house we were renting and know I could either invite our friends into the imperfection of our home or miss out on the relationship-building opportunities. It forced me to take a teaspoon of humility every time I opened my door to welcome others in. And this was a lesson I really needed to learn, over and over and over again so it could sink in deep.

Maybe that’s the answer I’m looking for: humility. When I approach potentially awkward moments and conversations with humility, I give others space to breath and drop their pretenses as well. I invite others to be un-apologetically human when I take the first step.

Befriending the awkward takes grit. It takes staying in for the long haul. It means being committed to being vulnerable to give space for others to meet me there and sigh, “me too.”

I find, too, that when I press through the initial awkwardness of inviting a neighbor into my heart, my home, and my life, I find God there. He’s been with me the whole time, but choosing to be vulnerable and humbly stay in the awkward opens my eyes in a new way to see where he’s always been.

Likewise, pressing through the awkward moments positions me where God has access to my heart, and I simply can’t be drawn ever closer to him without shedding more of what is not like him.

Being near him makes me look more like him.

I close my eyes and listen for the sound of birds singing outside through the worship lyrics lilting through my ear buds. I feel it. The peace. This peace that is available to my heart even when I step forward into the awkward, even in the midst of the unknowns of how it will go when I welcome neighbors to step over the threshold of my front door.

I can be vulnerable with my neighbors because I am seen and known by a God who already knows everything about me and loves me the same.

I can stay there in the awkward because the “me too” moments are the building blocks of the type of friendships I really want.

I can start small, and have grace for myself as I learn to navigate my heart through the awkward.

I can befriend the awkward.

Friend, may I pray for you before you go? I thank you sincerely for reading, for letting your heart open a little to consider the good what if’s that could result from walking in humility and vulnerability and letting yourself be known and seen by your neighbors.

I pray, dear Father, for my friend reading this right now. I pray that you ignite hope deep within, that the comfort of your nearness would bring sure and steady peace. You are here, and you are good, and the plans you have for my friend are good, so very good. Bring a renewed understanding of the identity you bestowed on us when you chose us, called us yours, and commissioned us to be disciple-making-disciples everywhere we go.

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