Labels

Tonight is my first high school reunion.  I have not seen the majority of my classmates in 20 years

when we were all 17 or 18 years old.  As adulty or mature as I've gotten there's still the lingering fear of: being labeled.

My wife recently has gotten a label from some friends at church.  They call her "the Mayor" because it seems like everyone knows her one way or another.  The title is given affectionately due to Beth's love of greeting and connecting people at church, but it was met with a little apprehension on her part.  Even though it's good-natured, it feels unsettling to get a label.

Last year my wife helped coordinate her high school reunion.  Good friends threw old labels her way.  Again, it was done jokingly, but it felt frustrating to her.

As I head into my reunion tonight, many of us are going to be taking our old labels of each other with us.  What else do we have?  The only memory most of us carry of each other is from a four-year span in our teenage years.

What is it about labels that cut so sharply?  Predominantly, I think it comes from our longing to be known.

We are complex.  We have so many desires, motivations, idiosyncrasies, passions, triumphs, failures, experiences, histories.  The most aching hunger in our souls is for someone to fully know us.

Life, however, makes this painfully difficult and we all go through periods, some longer than others, of loneliness.  This pain can be exacerbated by then being labeled by others.  To be labeled is to feel this pronouncement: "You are this and nothing else.  You are 2D without distinction."

This is the beauty of Father's gift of relationship.  He gives us family to know us.  We pursue friends
and spend time with them hoping to be known and enjoyed.  Many of us pursue a spouse by dating for this very reason: for someone who will both know us fully and love us fully.

Yet, we all know the above relationships can sometimes have their share of labeling as well.  There is a rock, though, a fortress, that will know us fully.  The Father.  He knows us intimately, every joy, every struggle, every deep thought, every hope, every lust, every anger, every dream.  We are fully known-even the thing you are afraid of-and still He walks up and embraces us in full sight.

Because I have this kind of Father, and because He's given me a wife who loves me so much like He does, I pray that I can go to my reunion and, despite my fear of being labeled, I can extend a heart to my former classmates that lets them be who they are, seeks to get to know them again in our few hours together, and will take pleasure in having a chance to reconnect.  Amen.