"because they cannot repay you" {why we need relationships that don't pay us back}

the monthly letter

When I was in high school, I spent time every week with a younger girl at my school who had unique needs. I never knew exactly what those needs were — I never asked — except that she couldn’t speak and she couldn’t walk. I wheeled her into our “commons” area, did small projects with her, and gave her gifts. I spent portions of my senior year investing in Lauren, who nodded and smiled at me. (And I received high praise from her parents, and acknowledgment from teachers I respected, and I put it on my college resume that I spent time with her.) I saw this as selfless. I don’t discount that some portion of my heart cared for her, just for her — I remember that care, but thirty years later, I see also the way I especially liked how it all made me look.

Born into Adam and Eve’s skin, most humans think of themselves first, unthinkingly. So much of parenting, marriage, friendship, and even mentorship can come from the place of loving oneself first.

Here are some ways that we can see it:

* The friendship is thriving until you can’t show up for that friend in the way that you used to, and then, without all the over-the-top effort you’ve given, slowly it … fades.

* The boss pays careful and wonderful attention to you when you are producing for her. A life-shift happens, and you can’t produce in that way any longer, and the attention wanes.

* You are the “strong one” among your friends and colleagues. They love that. Then you hit a weakness you can’t surmount, and slowly, their resentment towards your weakness defines the relationship.

* Your church or ministry leader sees so much potential in you — you’re their wingman. But growth doesn’t happen as they hoped, and you become less useful, and they consider you less.

We’ve all been on the receiving end of being praised for our gifts or wanted for what we can do — all of which are part of being in someone else’s plan … someone else’s gain.

If we’re wise, we see that we’re not the only ones being used. We, too, garner strength from what others can bring us. Lauren made me look good, all those years ago. (Gulp. I have Eve’s skin, too.) If unfettered, I see the world and its people through the lens of what they can do for me. We hate to admit it, and perhaps we even fight against it, but inertia drives us toward the love of self first.

And the way we often wake up to ourselves — this Eve-and-Adam-like reaching for what benefits us — is when our reach is thwarted, when our run is intercepted by those who don’t benefit us (at least not how we think they should).

[Jesus] said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just (Luke 14:12-14).

“Because they cannot repay you” is for the mother of a child with special needs, a child who may never walk across a stage to the words Summa Cum Laude.

It’s for the quiet employee without accolades or promotions (or flash), who faithfully shows up and does their job.

It’s for the father of angsty teenagers and the husband tending to his wife with a long-term illness. It’s for the nurse of a patient with angry family members or the adult child with a parent failing from dementia. It’s for the family member who has spent hours researching solutions to the medical needs of one who may never know all that they’ve given. The wife of a husband lost in digital worlds, lost in himself.

Later, after that senior year of investing in Lauren, the stakes grew higher. The ways I invested, expecting a return, revealed themselves in the anger I felt when it became clear that some, scattered across my life, would not repay me. I had my own version of being a nurse caring for a sick patient whose family members begrudged me, or being an employee appreciated only for my strength and overlooked for my less-flashy investment.

We all have our own version.

“Because they cannot repay you” opens our souls to the exposure that will ultimately heal us.

It does. It might very well be the best of scenarios for the growth of our souls in God. (Gulp).

The motives that drive us are also the ones that kill us. When they cannot repay us, we stand a chance at re-wiring … a chance at life. A chance at receiving a response to the inner-craving to be known and seen and loved by Him … alone.

One thing I’ve noticed in a few wise ones, older than me: they are no longer scanning a room for who will benefit them. They are alive, investing where they feel led, and often into those who cannot (or will not ever) pay them back.

That person you “invited” — whether by accident or intentionality — who cannot repay you … their showing up in your life may have been an act of God. Yes, it’s painful for a time to wake up to the reality that our investment may never be repaid, much less thanked (so painful). It is a deep human craving to want to surround ourselves with the “kind of people who will return the favor” (in the words of Eugene Peterson) …

… but, oh my, the ones that pay us back aren’t often the ones who change us.

Until next month,

Sara

*And a caveat: this is a newsletter, not a series of conversations with a friend or mentor who knows you well. It is limited, by definition. The downside to one thousand words in your inbox is that I cannot possibly hold all the nuance you are walking in. There are also those relationships that include harmful personalities with abusive behaviors or tendencies. This post is not intended to encourage staying, boundary-less, within friendships or relationships with those who harm us physically, emotionally, or spiritually.