I have spent much of my life trying to get smaller, both literally and figuratively.

I’m afraid of taking up too much space. Of being a burden. Of being too needy. I want to be small and petite. Cute and beautiful all at once. There are times when I want to fill a room, but I want to fill it with laughter and joy, love, fun and connection. Those things, the essence of goodness in life, are far too difficult to come by. And so instead of chasing after them and creating a way to embrace and enjoy the bigness of life, I focus on being smaller.

I want to avoid conflict and discomfort. That takes up too much space.

Yet at the same time I want to be known. I want people to look in my eyes and know me. To know what I need without me having to ask. I don’t want to have to take up their space, I want them to want to give it to me. I want to create bigness together.

So what would it look like to get “bigger”? What would it be like to tell people what I need and ask for help so that they can get to know me? What would it be like to take up space in their lives? Isn’t that what connection is all about?

One of my deepest desires is to be connected. To have friends and family and community blend together so well that you can’t tell one from the other. To have a life that’s bigger, and fuller. But to do that I think I have to get bigger. I have to take more chances. I have to put myself out there. I have to share my needs. I have to risk being seen and judged as too much, too big, and tossed aside.

And that risk — the fear of what could happen — keeps me longing for smallness. I know it. I can manage it.

The truth is, in some ways I know what it’s like to feel too big. To have people look at you and to tell you you’re too much. Too depressed. Too introspective. Too sensitive. Too emotional.

Too big. Too big! TOO BIG.

Some people in my life have shown me that they don’t have time for me. “Maybe if I was smaller,” I think. “If I could squeeze myself into a little part of their life, maybe then they could still love me.”

But what about the other side? What if I am just the right size? What if I am fearfully and wonderfully made and perfected in Christ just as I am? What if you are too?

What if we all stop trying to get smaller — or bigger— and just learn to be?