It seems to me that being vulnerable is the key to growing, strengthening, adapting, and actualizing. It is a peculiar thing, is it not? Why is it that man, who props up and assumes a mask (typically of his own fancy and fabrication) is incapable of being the exposed child he once was with his spouse, his family, the world he engages with? Christ Himself says that one cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven, if he has not a heart of a child. When we are weak, then the Lord is strong. Perhaps that the point of where this aimless and ignorant post is going: viz. we need to get ourselves out of the way, for the Lord to come in and bind up wounds, fill in scars, and send us out among wolves.
Yet at the same time, juxtaposed to this, it seems as if vanity is what walls up the heart. We are seeking praise for something we fabricated and propped up for others to see; and, because it itself is very fragile, and we know it is fragile, we seem to seek affirmation that it is not not fragile; thus, I think I now see why St. Francis de Sales calls for us laymen to engage in mental prayer, particularly with a keen focus on the Lord’s cross; what can be more vulnerable than being crucified? Nothing. Yet, that is true strength. In control, total exposure, and vulnerability. No show, no vanity, just reality.
EAR