Good morning Reader,
This morning, I’d like to start with a question:
Have you ever been to a place that didn’t exist, but in your mind was as real as the things you hold in your hand? Have you ever sensed a void, one that you couldn’t really feel - I mean, it doesn’t exist - and yet it coursed through every vein, muscle, organ, and neuron in your brain?
And then as if there is no off switch, that void manifests itself as a stream of thoughts that regenerate themselves until, they are all you hear. This inner noise is so loud that it fills the void with a debilitating mental state that can seize and overtake you in this most vulnerable of moments. That void, that mental state?
Doubt.
I don’t know about you, but I can tell you that doubt rears its ugly head way too often in my mind.
Am I good enough?
What will others think of me?
I should be further along in my career and life by now.
With thoughts like these racing through us, it is no wonder we often find ourselves paralyzed from taking the action that deep down we want to take.
This thought of how doubt can seize us into a state of feeling unworthy, inner shame, and even despair came to me in a recent weekly meeting with my partner Bethany. Before we start each Monday meeting, we set the clock for 10 minutes to catch up over what we have termed Water-Cooler Chat.
That Monday morning, Bethany told me a story she heard the day before during the sermon at her church’s 10:30 am service. As she retold the story, it was as if I were there in the pew, because this was not idle water-cooler chat; Bethany was sharing a life story. A life of doubt.
At the center of the story was a homeless man who, some years before, walked through the doors of Good Shepard United Methodist church in Kansas City. The congregation learned he had been homeless for ten years. Then one day he stepped into Good Shepherd’s non-profit ministry, A Turning Point, which is focused on supporting families and equipping them for self-sufficiency.
He stepped out of that place that didn’t exist, that void in his mind that held him back, and into something real.
Can you imagine the doubt?
I’m talking to myself here because I only know this story second-hand, but can you imagine the doubt he had to overcome just to walk through that door?
But walk through it he did.
He came looking for help to source his birth certificate. Bethany told me this was the one piece of paper he needed to begin anew. His birth certificate stood between him, a job, and an apartment.
At this point, this story doesn’t have a happy ending for him. As much as the volunteers at A Turning Point wanted to help, all they could do was promise: locating a birth certificate wasn't part of their day-to-day mission, but they would look into what could be done and asked him to return after they'd had a chance to investigate.
With that, he got up to leave.
But before he walked out the door, A Turning Point’s director, Ricki, who also happens to be the church Pastor’s wife, stood to give this man, this person, this human being a hug.
And with the hug, she said to him:
“I believe in you.”
That’s it. Four simple words.
“I believe in you.”
And then he walked back out onto the streets of Kansas City. Still homeless.
When he stepped back through the doors of the mission, as they agreed, he told Ricki that for six hours after he left, he walked those streets, rolling just one question around the void of doubt in his mind.
“Why would a stranger believe in me?” he asked himself for six solid hours.
I can only imagine that these six hours felt like an eternity with every step and every crosswalk traversed, and yet, in the grand scheme of things, it was just a micro moment of the doubt he must have carried hopelessly for ten years.
In some of my discussions with Athens John (my philosopher friend who lives in Athens Greece, and whom I meet with each week) we have discussed the concept of “Colonizing the Imagination.” That state of doubt that becomes so rooted in our own belief system that a pessimism and resignation settle in to inhabit our very being, making us believe that no change is possible and that all alternatives are equally unsatisfying.
We feel trapped.
And yet, we can all walk through the door that our homeless friend did.
I went back and found a journal entry of my own. There is no context for the entry itself, but what I wrote, a premise, a thought, a worldview of mine was proven the day A Turning Point’s door was swung open by a man who couldn’t prove his birth.
I wrote:
“I BELIEVE IN YOU” could be the most powerful words in the history of mankind.”
An overstatement? Maybe.
And yet, with Ricki’s help, this gentleman not only got his birth certificate, which led to a job, and then an apartment and car; but years later, he’s now the one standing at that same door, swinging it open for the next person who needs to hear:
I believe in you.