Have you ever noticed how the people who have loved us the longest… often know us… the least?
That sounds backwards, doesn’t it?
After all, they’ve lived our stories with us. They’ve celebrated our victories, witnessed our failures, watched us survive grief, raise children, build careers, and weather life’s storms. No one has accumulated more memories of us than the people closest to us.
And maybe that’s exactly the problem.
The people we share history with have also gathered the most evidence proclaiming who we “are”. It’s often quite damning! And frankly, their evidence can be pretty hard to get away from.
“You’ve always been shy.”
“You’re the strong one.”
“You’re too emotional.”
“You’re just like your Mother!” or perhaps…
“You’re just like your Father!”
“You’re afraid of change.”
Perhaps all of those things were true.
At twenty-three.
Or thirty-two.
Or during the years you were drowning in responsibility.
Or while you were surviving heartbreak.
Or when your world was turned upside down and you were simply doing the best you could.
But humans are not photographs.
We’re living, breathing souls.
We continue becoming.
Somewhere along the way, many of us quietly learned to shape ourselves around the expectations of the people we loved. Not because anyone demanded it, but because love often asks us to bend, compromise, and make room for another person. Over years, those little adjustments can become so familiar that even we forget where accommodation ended and authenticity began.
Then one day, mortality quietly enters the room.
You realize there are fewer years ahead than behind.
Suddenly the questions you’ve been able to postpone become impossible to ignore.
Who am I becoming?
Who did God create me to be?
What parts of me have been sleeping beneath responsibility, routine, fear, or the need to be liked and understood?
The painful part is that while you’ve been growing on the inside, the people who love you may still be relating to the version of you they came to know years ago.
“The baby of the family.”
“The black sheep.”
“The class clown.”
“The screw up!”
Not because they don’t love you.
Because they do.
You see… Love remembers.
But memory, for all its beauty, has a limitation.
It can quietly convince us that yesterday’s version of someone is still today’s reality.
Maybe that’s why so many relationships begin to ache.
Not because love disappeared.
But because we might be desperately trying to become an upgraded version of ourself, while someone else is lovingly —or perhaps begrudgingly— holding onto who we used to be–with both hands!
I wonder how many people have walked away from relationships not because they stopped loving the other person, but because they could no longer bear to look at the outdated reflection of themselves that was being presented to them.
Because every conversation reminded them of someone they no longer were.
Because every mistake had become part of their permanent biography.
Because every attempt to grow was met with, “Here we go again!” or “That’s just how you are.”
Except…
maybe it isn’t.
Maybe it hasn’t been for years.
Perhaps it isn’t a “lack of love” as so many proclaim! Perhaps that’s a kind of stifling which can actually suffocate “love”. Perhaps it’s simply realizing that you can’t breathe under the restrictions that have been created and walking away or going “no contact” feels like the only way to escape the outdated version of yourself that you’re unhappy with?
Of course, running away doesn’t solve the problem either.
Every new relationship eventually becomes an old relationship.
Every fresh start gathers history.
Every person eventually builds memories of who they believe we are.
The answer isn’t escaping every mirror.
The answer is finding people who are willing to polish it.
People who can say, “I know who you’ve been, but I’m curious about who you’re becoming.”
Isn’t that what grace has always done?
God never introduces Himself as the One who only remembers who we were.
He is the One who continually calls us forward into who we are becoming.
Perhaps we should love one another the same way.
Perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can give the people in our lives is permission to surprise us.
Permission to heal.
Permission to mature.
Permission to outgrow old fears.
Permission to lay down identities that were formed in survival rather than freedom.
Permission to become—even when the process is messy.
Because love remembers who we’ve been.
But mature love also tries to make room for who we’re becoming.
Maybe that’s one of the holiest ways we can love another human being—not by insisting they remain the person we once knew, but by having the humility to believe God may still be writing chapters neither of us has read yet. And, the confidence to trust that what He’s creating will be beautiful.
Until Next Time–
Keep Becoming!
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