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Friday, August 15, 2014

NO. ACTUALLY, YOU DON'T KNOW

It’s popular say, “You don’t know my story.  You don’t know my struggle.”

Well sometimes we do.

For example, we all know the professional and personal life of actor and comedian Robin Williams.  You and I know the story of his life.  We can download a list of his struggles.

We know his story and struggles so well that when he committed suicide, we assumed that it had to do with his past struggles with drugs, or the past story of depression off-setting his manic stage presence, or the old story of an ego crushed by waning popularity.  We knew that these were problems he’d faced repeatedly in the past.   So people speculated and pontificated based on what they knew of his story and his struggles.

But we didn’t know until days after he died that Robin Williams had Parkinson’s disease.  This incurable, degenerative disease of the central nervous system gradually robs its victims of control of their body, their voice, and their mind. Advanced Parkinson’s brings dementia, but every stage of the disease causes depression.

So maybe Robin Williams wasn’t too “weak” to stay off drugs.  Maybe he wasn’t too much of a “coward” to deal with being less popular on camera.  Maybe he was, in the most basic, literal, physically observable sense of the word, just SICK.

Maybe Robin Williams wasn’t looking back at the stories and struggles we commonly knew of his past, but ahead at the new struggles and the impending story we didn’t suspect were in his future.

Robin Williams lead a very, very public life.  We knew his story.  We knew his struggles.

But we really didn’t know.

We didn’t know his whole story, and the struggles we knew weren’t the toughest struggles he had to face.

Which is true for EVERYone. 

No matter how well you know someone either publicly or personally, you never really know their whole story.    You may know what they HAVE struggled with; but until (and unless) they tell you, you don’t know what they ARE struggling with.

But we assume we know, don’t we?  At a certain point, we have so much information about them already that we stop listening. 
 
They start a sentence and you finish it for them----- but do you see the look in their eyes, a pained look that says, ”No.  That’s not what I’m feeling”?

They tell you what they feel and you waive it off because you’re certain it’ll pass like all the other times, but do you see the hurt in their eyes that says, “It’s not going to pass this time,” and maybe, “It’s NEVER passed.  You just stopped paying attention”?

Jesus’ disciples knew His story.   They’d been to His hometown of Nazareth.  They’d met His mom and siblings.  They’d heard the stories of His birth and early years in Bethlehem and Egypt.  Some of them were there,\ the day John baptized Him.  They witnessed the Pharisees' attacks.  They sat with Him at night and reviewed each long day of healing and preaching.  They asked Jesus about what he did in the years not recorded in the gospels.  They watched His every move for 3 ½ years.  The disciples knew Jesus’ story.  They knew Jesus’ struggle. 

But they really didn’t.

When Jesus said, “I’m going to be killed.”  They said, “No, you ain’t.” (Matthew 16: 21-23)
Jesus told them and showed them who He was.  They affirmed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” but they didn’t really see Him for Who He is. (John 6: 69; 14: 1-12)

Jesus told His disciples what He needed from them as followers and as friends, but they assumed that it wasn’t that big a deal or that it would pass like every other previous storm had passed.

 And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.”…
Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping. (Matthew 26: 37-38, 40)


They didn’t see; they didn’t understand.    This wasn’t just a passing request.  This was it.  This was what it has always been, but you think you know me so well that you don’t take me seriously anymore.

“What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?”(Matthew 26: 40)

The night Jesus was taken away to be killed, He was alone.  He was in a garden with his 11 closest friends just a stone’s throw away, but He was alone because His friends didn’t really know His story.  They didn’t really know His struggle.

The disciples only really learned Jesus after His death and resurrection.

The public is learning Robin Williams after his death.

So sad, that we wait that long to really know someone’s story and struggle.

We don’t have to. 

Listen to the ones you love. Hear them for who they are not just for who you already automatically know they have been.

Give them the space to tell you what their story IS, what their struggles ARE.

You never know when morning will come and they won’t be there to tell you.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to  
Miles Chapel CME Church
P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

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