Fragile on the Inside

I had been considering posting thoughts on my blog url for some time now, and for various reasons feel led to do so today.

The phrase “fragile on the inside” originally comes from the song Orchard of Mines by Globus (if you haven't heard it, LISTEN. It is epic. Whether you like rock, classical, or anything in between, there's a good chance you'll at least vaguely like this song). It's part of the chorus, which in full is as follows:

You seem like an orchard of mines

tread careful, one step at a time.

And you seem to break like time

so fragile on the inside

you climb these grapevines.

Would you look now

unto this pit of me on the ground.

And you wander through these

to climb these grapevines.

Those first two lines are my favorite, and have been since I first heard the song, more than a year ago now. It conveys an idea, an idea that has become more and more firmly rooted in my head and my heart these past several weeks and months.

Everyone is fragile on the inside.

All of us have our battles, our struggles, the ghosts that haunt us. All of us have been or will be broken, betrayed, and alone at some point in our lives. And all of us will hurt. Every single person I pass on the street is a broken person, in some way or another.

I am a broken person. I am fragile on the inside.

What does this mean in the end? It means that I have to be aware of that in all of my interactions with every single person I meet. They may look so much stronger and so much more confident than me, but they are fragile on the inside too, and what I choose to say and do could either build them up or shatter them. Tread careful, one step at a time. Even the people who really are happy and peaceful inside have either been broken at some point or will be. That means that every single person on the face of this planet shares the exact same need: they need to be loved.

Even my teachers. Even my boss at work. Even the patrons I serve at the library. Even the guy and the girl making out in front of me in chapel. Even the guys who make crude jokes and use ugly language. Even the people who have hurt me. They are all fragile on the inside. They all need to be loved.

I think we, as humans, often start to think that we're the only one feeling the way we do. We start to think that no one else has ever felt so alone, so in need of someone to love us. In truth, everyone has felt that. God made us that way, because He made us to need Him, and if we were not fragile, we wouldn't need Him.

What would happen if I dared to look at everyone I meet as being fragile on the inside? What could God do with that? It's an interesting thought.

God bless,

- Elraen -