By April Terry (http://faithwarming.blogspot.com)

When I was a kid, I loved to try to touch the bottom of the swimming pool.  We swam in a large, Olympic-sized pool in our small town and it had a twelve foot depth at the deep end.   We use to dive below the surface and try to hold tea parties at the bottom.  It wasn’t always easy to stay submerged that way.  I have learned that diving into people’s stories is much the same.

Someone told me a story once about an experience they had in a restaurant when a sourpuss of a woman came in.  After dealing with her stony countenance, someone commented that she was very difficult.  That was when someone came by and mentioned that she had just lost a loved one and at that moment she went from being just another sourpuss to being a person suffering.  The story always made me think about the things that are going on beneath the surface of those around us.

The fact is we rarely really know what goes on in people’s lives.  A coworker of mine lost his daughter once and when he came into work, there was no outward difference in his manner.  He had always been a quiet, yet cheerful man, and he remained the same.   There was no outward showing of his grief, although I am sure that it was great.

I live my life at face value.  I verbalize nearly everything that I experience and analyze and reanalyze any experience that I confront, but not everyone is like me.  I often have to remind myself that I should not judge others based on my own standards or experiences.  Pain is relative and not everyone who suffers from the same experience reacts to it in the same way.

Diving into the depths of someone’s life can sometimes be fraught with hidden dangers.  I asked a recently married coworker how married life was treating her and she quipped cheerfully that she was nearly divorced.  It had been less than a few months since her marriage, and I stumbled over my words while trying to remove my foot from my mouth.  I don’t think that it was the divorce that stunned me so much as the cheerful way she delivered the answer.  To a closer friend, I might have inquired about the reasons and dove a little deeper, but for this person, I kept it light and wished her happiness however she found it.  Still, as someone who loves to hear the stories of others, it sometimes pains me to encounter those who keep their stories secret.   I respect their wish, but don’t always know how to react.

I am a person who shares her life openly with others, and because of that, I share my experiences and my thoughts.  As I share my experiences, more often than not, others begin to open their stories to me and share more with me as well.  This is the value of being a good storyteller.   A storyteller can often dive below the surface before anyone has even noticed the barrier has been broken.

I don’t know the formula, if there is one, for connecting with others below the surface level, but I believe that it often starts with making relationships safe.  By not judging someone based on your own standards and not trying to change them so that they fit into your mold, you are offering them a safe haven within your circle.  Once safety has been assured, one can easily lead someone into the deep waters of their story and that is where the real person lives, behind the eyes, beyond the mask.  That is also where God makes Himself available to His children and where love lives.  Jesus’ last words to his disciples was that the world would know them by their love.  This kind of love is like a perfect ten dive from the highest platform, but it’s most important after we slip beneath the surface of our relationships and plunge the depths of the heart.