Labeling

Leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”

—John 4:28–29

There was a person in my life who made me crazy. She was control, control, control. Perfection, perfection, perfection. Her anxiety brought out my anxiety and exhausted me. I’m sorry to say I did what we often do with people who make us crazy. I labeled her: control freak. I congratulated myself for being so laid-back compared to Little Miss Hand Sanitizer.

Then one night she told me about what life was like for her as a little girl, about how she practically lived at the hospital when her mom was dying and how careful they had to be about germs. Her little-girl self had taken it upon herself never to be dirty because it could make her mom sick.

I blushed with shame, furious with myself that I had done it again: I labeled and distanced. I didn’t listen. And when I finally did listen, the story made it all make sense.

Aren’t we all like that in some way? Impossible. Crazy-making. Until someone sticks around long enough to hear the story of how we got here, what winding journey brought us along and made us who we are.