My little girl was given an older iPad Mini a year or so ago, and she loves it. She LOVES it. It has screen time restrictions, parental controls, and limited apps, but she loves it.
Last summer the iPad was accidentally dropped, and the screen was broken. It cost more to replace the screen that the iPad was actually worth, but again, my little girl loves it, so I replaced the screen.
Sometimes, the games she plays can be frustrating, and being a little perfectionist like her dad, my little girl struggles with this at times. Recently, she was playing a game on the iPad and got frustrated, and in her frustration she squeezed it with her strong little fingers and a part of the case under the screen broke and the screen cracked. She was heartbroken.
Thankfully, the iPad still works and after she settled down she began to play with it again. She can see that the iPad is broken, she can see more of its fragility, and this has changed how she plays with it and cares for it. She began to think more about how she needed to take care of the iPad, and even wanted to explain to me the ways that she would take extra care with it from now on. She said something I think is profound, she said, "it's more precious to me now."
Isn't that interesting? The iPad is more precious to her now - now that she can see its brokenness and fragility every time she interacts with it. Even as she made this comment to me I thought it was a parable.
If only we could see the brokenness and fragility of the people around us every time we interact with them, I think we would interact with them in a different way; I think they would become more precious to us. Because in reality every person I interact with today is broken and fragile; they are wounded and scarred by life in a broken world. The brokenness and fragility of every person does not mean that they are not in another sense, strong, talented, and capable. The broken iPad still works, and is still a strong, talented, and capable machine. How much more should we not embrace the reality that the women and men around us, all made in the image of God, are each in their own way strong, talented, and capable, while at the same time, broken and fragile. To the extent we see more of the whole story of who the people around us really are, I believe they will become more precious to us.
In this sense, I think all of us have a longing to be seen. I do. May God grant us the longing to see others as much as we long to be seen.
