Chemo and radiation were complete, and I was hopeful I could finally enjoy a long-overdue meeting with my counselor, a little too hopeful… It was approximately ten minutes into the session when it happened. I puked. First on her office carpet; next, into her very cute, very permeable wicker wastebasket. I apologized profusely while she graciously reassured me, moving about to help clean and comfort. What a mess. I mean if there were ever a place to spill your guts, I would say it’s in your therapist’s office, but come on… Yet, I began to learn something after baring the contents of my soul, and stomach, that day in counseling with my humanity on full display… “This awareness of my humanity creates a deep need for me to be understood.” Have you ever felt as though the painful parts of your unique story, the messy, the complicated, the uncontrollable, rendered you as totally “other” to those around you? So much of life is outside of our control, and yet we experience the effects of others’ decisions, of illness, and of tragedy as if we’d consciously decided to stand directly under our own anvil. Like the coyote constantly stumbling into the traps he set for the roadrunner, we are frequently rendered dumbfounded as to how our own lives have become almost unrecognizable in comparison to who we thought we’d be by now. This painful humanity leaves us longing to be seen, known, understood. How is it that suffering, something so universal, can leave us feeling so isolated and alone? What’s interesting is that it is in this space where our deep need pushes right up against our limited capacity to meet others in their brokenness. “I have a limited ability to hold space with them in their pain. There are some days that their woundedness is overwhelming to me, and I can’t hang there as long as they need me to hang there. I bump against my limits to offer reciprocity & attunement all the time.” Do you have a memory like that?  Staring at the longing face of a loved one, knowing they are desperately seeking connection, and quietly dying inside because you know it’s just not in you today. It can feel shameful to even admit out loud while knowing how badly we’ve needed the very same thing for ourselves. While it’s important for us to seek to love and care for one another in our suffering, it’s equally true that as humans, we will never do this perfectly. In chapter 7 of Relentless, we discuss the life-changing truth that there is one who can, and does, care for us perfectly, abundantly, and comprehensively. “This is the beauty of the incarnation… we need somebody that can attune with us. That can push into our humanity… respond to us, hold space with us in the place of our greatest pain.” God himself attunes to us in all of our messy humanity. He enters into our broken reality, and in the process he brings safety. “Out of desire to bring us wholeness, God chose to enter into our human experience and hold space with us. God knew that what we needed to heal ourselves, more than anything else, was the presence of himself.” This picture of God’s sacrificial attunement for our wholeness leads us to Altar Stone #7: I want you to look for evidence of God’s presence in your places of humanity. Our valleys contain equal amounts of glory as our mountain tops… Where do you see him at work in your valley?