What If Becoming More Human Doesn’t Disqualify Me?

What If Becoming More Human Doesn't Disqualify Me?

I’ve carried a belief most of my life.

Not always consciously.

But it was there.

The belief that if I indulged too much in what the church called worldly, fleshly, or human, I would somehow lose access to what was spiritual.

That if I became too ordinary, I would become less useful.

Less available to God.

Less qualified to help people.

Less anointed.

I don’t think anyone ever sat me down and said it quite that way.

But the message was there.

Stay close enough to God and the gift will show up when you need it.

Drift too far into the world and something important may leave.

The problem is, life has been testing that belief.

Not in a classroom.

In reality.

I’ve experienced loss.

Disappointment.

Questions.

Doubt.

The collapse of identities I once thought would last forever.

I’ve become less certain about many things.

More human in some ways.

And yet something unexpected happened.

The gift didn’t disappear.

If anything, it became more accessible.

Not because I became more spiritual.

Because I became more honest.

More willing to sit with pain.

More willing to sit with questions.

More willing to admit I don’t have all the answers.

The older I get, the more I wonder if I had the equation backwards.

What if becoming more human doesn’t disqualify me from being spiritual?

What if the very experiences I once feared would distance me from God are the same experiences that allow me to sit more deeply with another human being?

What if compassion grows in the places certainty once occupied?

What if wisdom emerges where performance ends?

What if authenticity isn’t a threat to the gift?

What if it’s the doorway through which the gift arrives?

I don’t have an answer.

But I know this.

The more honestly I show up, the more available I seem to be when someone needs me.

And that feels worth paying attention to.

I’m still working on that one.