Growing up in Rock Hill, my friends and I spent a good deal of time right up the road at Carowinds, an amusement park on the South Carolina-North Carolina border. I had friends who had season passes to Carowinds. I had friends who worked at Carowinds. And I even had a friend or two who got banned from Carowinds.
Carowinds is known for its exciting rides, as well as its special events, but there was one other reason my friends and I thought it was so great . . . the recording studio. For a small fee, we could finally cut the demo that was going to bring us fame and fortune. And we knew just which song to record . . . a cover of Paula Abdul’s Opposites Attract.
Sadly, we never made it to the top of the charts with our version of the song, but it did make a lasting impression on me, mainly because I know it to be true.
Alex and I are definitely opposites. I like Clemson, he likes Carolina. I’m an early bird, he’s a night owl. I majored in English, he majored in finance. I don’t like for my food to touch, he mixes everything together (although I’m starting to think he does that just to freak me out). The list goes on and on.
But our biggest difference comes in our ability to talk to people, or in my case, my inability to do so.
Alex is an extrovert. He’s a greeter, a hand shaker, and a hugger. He’s comfortable in his own skin, and he gets energy from talking with others. This is what makes him a phenomenal salesman. The man could sell ice to an Eskimo.
I, on the other hand, struggled to sell Girl Scout cookies when I was little. I mean, y’all, that’s bad. Those things pretty much sell themselves. But I’m an introvert, and the thought of talking to strangers, and sometimes even people I knows, scares me and exhausts me all at once.
When we go to a social event, Alex jumps right in, while I like to hang back, hugging the wall and trying my best to be inconspicuous until I feel comfortable.
A few months ago, we were sitting in Sunday school waiting for the lesson to start, when Mr. John, the true backbone of SUMC, rolled in with the coffee cart. The guys at the door quietly welcomed him in and moved some chairs out of his way. Then, all of a sudden, Alex yelled, “Hey, Mr. John!” across the room, waving to him like he was landing an airplane.
I scrunched down in my chair, thinking, “Calm down. You’re so loud. Stop drawing attention to us.” I just knew everybody was staring at us, thinking we were weirdos.
Once everything was set out, Alex got up to fix his coffee. That’s when God sat right down beside me in Alex’s empty chair, gave me the side eye, and said, “You know, Katherine, instead of thinking about how Alex’s greeting made you feel, maybe you should think about how it made Mr. John feel.”
Nothing like being put in your place by the big man himself.
I didn’t have to think very hard about how Mr. John felt, it was written all over his face. He felt noticed, he felt appreciated, and he felt loved. Isn’t that how we all want to feel?
I learned an important lesson that day: I can’t control what people think about me, but I can control how I make other people feel.
Jesus went out of his way to make people feel welcomed. He talked to lepers, to sinners, to the lost, and to the least. And he really didn’t care what other people thought about it.
I would love to say I no longer care what people think about me either, but that’s simply not true. I’m a work in progress. Sometimes my fear still overtakes me. I revert to my shy side, and I don’t reach out the way I know I should. But I’m trying to be better. To step out of my safety zone and truly treat other people the way I want to be treated–welcomed and included.
To be more like Jesus, sometimes we have to do the opposite of what feels comfortable. For me, that’s making the first move and speaking to strangers, even though it makes me nervous. For you, it may be taking cookies to the new family down the street or talking to the homeless person at the grocery store or calling a friend to apologize.
It’s not easy to be vulnerable, to do something that runs counter to our normal, even when we know it’s the right thing to do. But let’s agree to put ourselves out there . . . we may feel weird, but we may also make somebody feel loved. And ultimately, that’s what we are all called to do.