Like most of you, I have spent a lot of my life with the desire to be understood. I think we can all agree that’s a very human longing.
We want people to understand our intentions, our decisions, our hearts, and the reasons behind the things we do. If someone misunderstands us, the natural response is often to explain a little more, share a little deeper, or provide a little more context. Surely if we can just find the right words, we’ll be understood. A lot of my life looked exactly like that.
What I thought would bring peace often created more work. Continuous clarifying, defending, and proving ultimately meant more access for others and less peace for me. Why would I want others to have more access to a person they don’t understand?
How can I expect someone to fully understand me when I am still growing and forming? Why would I want someone to fully understand me when I am working diligently to understand myself?
I am not who I used to be, and I am not finished becoming who I am meant to be.
When I sit with those truths, it only makes sense that I will sometimes be misunderstood. During my growth, I have seen that this isn’t a bad thing.
Being understood often requires sharing some of life’s most intimate details. It means asking someone to hold a part of you that should be handled with care. There is risk in giving depth to relationships that only exist on the surface. Not everyone who has access to you needs access to all of you. The older I get, the more wisdom I find in that.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the gaps we fill, the narratives we create, and the assumptions that bring us relief when we don’t have the full story. We gather pieces, form perceptions, and create pictures.
Sometimes those pictures are about other people.
Sometimes you’re the person creating the pictures.
Sometimes you’re the person they’re creating pictures about.
Nobody is the hero.
Nobody is the villain.
We’re all human.
As uncomfortable as it can be, it makes sense. When we don’t fully understand a person’s behavior, decisions, or journey, we often do the most comfortable thing available to us: we fill in the gaps ourselves.
I’ve done it.
I’ve gotten it wrong.
I’ve created narratives from fragments only to discover there was far more to the story than I realized. For that reason, I am continuously working on being slower to assume and quicker to leave room for context.
I’ve also come to realize that we live in a world where observation is often mistaken for invitation. We see someone’s table and assume we’ve been invited to sit down. We study the place settings, analyze the meal, and form opinions about conversations we were never part of. Just because we can see the table doesn’t mean we’ve been invited to sit at it.
I’ve also learned that sometimes people get it wrong, and that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.
People can misunderstand your decisions.
Your growth.
Your boundaries.
Your season.
Your silence.
Your healing.
Your intentions.
And still be wrong about who you are.
I still have my “please understand me” moments. Moments when I want to clarify, explain, and make sure people see what I see. However, the observation that continues to bring me peace is that the misunderstanding is simply the price of authenticity.
The more authentically I live, the less control I have over how others interpret my life. I’ve come to see that as a gift rather than a burden. Because the more I see me, the less desire I have to be accurately seen by others.
Not because I don’t value connection.
Not because I don’t care what people think.
But because my value can no longer be directly tied to someone else’s understanding of me.
I know my heart.
I know my intentions.
I know the work God is doing in my life.
Now I recognize that understanding isn’t something I can force. It is something that is built through trust, relationship, access, and time.
What I hope you gather from this reflection is what I have been discovering myself:
I don’t need everyone to understand me in order to be at peace.
That peace is available to all of us.
Not when everyone finally understands us.
Not when everyone agrees with us.
Not when everyone sees us correctly.
But when we become secure enough in who we are that we stop making other people’s perceptions responsible for our peace.
So, continue growing.
Continue changing.
Continue becoming.
Shine in the spaces where you are understood. Lead with grace and patience in the spaces where you are not.
Because sometimes people get it wrong. Sometimes you’ll get it wrong too.
The older I get, the less interested I become in being right and the more interested I become in becoming better. That’s why I’ve found it easier to spend my energy understanding myself rather than convincing others to understand me. In doing so, understanding became authenticity, and authenticity became peace.
There is a scripture in John where Jesus speaks about the peace that He gives that is different from the kind the world offers. Lately, I’ve been experiencing this in real life.
I knew something felt different. I just didn’t have the language for it yet. Then a scripture I have known for years began speaking to me differently. It wasn’t a new verse. It was already in my spirit. I could have recited it from memory. But this time, I wasn’t simply reading the words, I was living them.
One peace seems dependent upon what is happening around us. The other remains steady regardless of it.
Turns out, the peace that surpasses all understanding was what I was looking for all along.
I love you, but God loves you more.
In courage,
Carnell
Thank you for another beautifully written post. I am getting so much peace and perspective from your writing.
Yes,I have been sitting in the space of getting to know me. I started asking God; “Father, who are You showing Yourself to be today?”
Because as I come to know Him more deeply, my identity will become clearer. I won’t have to force it. My identity will grow as I walk with Him.