To Be Human

To Be Human

by

Amber Stephens

    Somedays I feel it all. The whole gamut of human emotion. The joy, the sorrow, the empathy, the pain, the anger, the utter fulfillment of tremendous love. I love these days, as funny as that may seem, I really do love them. This emotional journey called life is what makes being a human being so inexplicably beautiful. I love to laugh and cry within the same 30-minute time span. I love seeing two elderly people holding hands or a young couple deeply in-love, only to then feel heartbroken for a friend’s sorrow the very next moment. 

    It’s the raw power of deep and ever-changing human expression that captures my heart. I want to surrender to it and truly learn the meaning of living by grace. We are capable of so much more than we typically allow ourselves to experience. I want to learn to live slow, with less stuff and less spoken words. I want to live in the sweet vulnerability of my humanity and not hide behind a mask. 

    I want to experience the frustrations of parenthood only to be overcome with joy when I finally see them happy and succeeding as an adult. I want to love with wild abandon all the right people and even some of the wrong people who will never love me back. I want to be alive. I want to laugh, A LOT! I want to kiss in the rain. I want to bawl my eyes out reading a good book or watching a sad movie. I want cry big salty tears with my arms wrapped around a stranger who suddenly becomes a friend. 

    I want to sing and dance when no one is looking. I want to yell and scream when I’m angry or hurt. I want to challenge myself physically and mentally. I want to have quiet moments of solitude in the forest or experience the rush of the crashing ocean waves ringing in my ears. I want to know pain so that I may hold and support someone else in theirs. I want to take risks even if I don't succeed. I want to keep learning about who I am and who God is. 

    I know my current mood is only a sentence in my life's book, but I want it to be the beginning sentence for each remaining chapter in my life. There is much I have done, yet a seemingly impossible list of things I haven’t. By God’s grace, I want to live it all. Afterall...I am wonderfully made and beautifully human!