DO NOT REDUCE ME TO WHAT CHANGED.

Beloveds.

Something can change about a person without becoming the definition of the person.

Read that again.

Because we do this to people all the time.

We meet the diagnosis.

The disability.

The divorce.

The grief.

The unemployment.

The mistake.

The scar.

The wheelchair.

The cane.

The changed voice.

And somewhere along the way, we stop looking for the whole human being.

👀

Yesterday we talked about this:

A changed voice is still a voice.

Today I want to take that one step further.

A changed thing is not necessarily the whole thing.

I can tell you what changed about me.

I can also tell you what didn’t.

I still laugh.

I still think.

I still dream.

I still love.

I still have opinions.

Plenty of them. 😎

I still enjoy music.

I still enjoy movies.

I still have something to say.

I am still learning.

Still growing.

Still becoming.

Still me.

And beloveds, this is bigger than my story.

Sometimes somebody is going through the hardest chapter of their life and everybody around them starts treating the chapter like it is the title of the whole book.

It isn’t.

See what happened.

Acknowledge what changed.

Make room for what hurts.

Help where help is wanted.

But keep looking for the person.

Jesus met people in circumstances other people had already used to define them.

The blind man.

The woman at the well.

The man at the pool.

The woman caught in adultery.

He saw what was happening.

But He also saw who was there.

That matters to me.

And if Jesus is not part of your belief system, the human challenge remains:

Do not make somebody disappear behind the thing you noticed first.

Tomorrow we’re talking about joy.

And that belongs here too.

Because people living with hard thangs are still allowed to laugh.

People grieving are still allowed to dance.

People whose bodies changed are still allowed to enjoy their bodies and their lives.

People rebuilding are still allowed to have a ridiculously good day.

💃🏿

Do not be surprised when somebody you have filed under struggling starts laughing.

Do not be confused when somebody you have filed under disabled starts living loudly.

Do not assume somebody you have filed under grieving has betrayed their grief because you caught them smiling.

Human beings are bigger than one adjective.

🔑 See the change.

But keep looking.

There is a whole person standing there.

You matter to me.

Not just the easiest part of you to describe.

Not just the hardest thing that ever happened to you.

You.

Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe