When I Was Young: The Hard Beauty of Vulnerability
By Jacob Lungaro
“When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful…”, — Supertramp, The Logical Song (1979)
“Please tell me who I am.”
“The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.” — Proverbs 20:5 (NIV)
Formed by Faith and Family
When I was young, life did seem wonderful. My parents were loving and faithful, raising their children in the church. It was there I first learned who God was—and began to notice how different His love felt from what I experienced at home. My parents cared for me in their own way, but something in me longed for more. As I grew closer to God, I began to understand that longing as an invitation, not a rejection—to love more fully than I knew how to then.
I learned logic from my father, and responsibility from my mother. When high school began, my ailing grandfather became our live-in caretaker—between naps and insulin shots—so my parents could both work: one as an engineer, the other as a paralegal. In the end, I became independent and dependable in my mother's eyes. She “didn’t have to worry about me,” she often reminds me. The storm she couldn't see would not surface until my father passed away following my freshman year of college.
The Curse of Self-Sufficiency
Independence is praised by the world. We are expected to manage, provide, and be resilient. But spiritually, independence can become a subtle enemy. As Scripture warns, in wisdom is sin born—what seems like prudence can become pride, a life centered on self (see Genesis 6:6). Independence can harden the heart and make it difficult to be known.
God’s first question to humanity, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9), is not a geography question but an invitation—an invitation into relationship. We are made to be known and to know; the deep waters of the heart rise when someone draws them out.
Why Is Vulnerability So Hard?
It starts with awareness—and our reluctance to feel. Vulnerability requires self-awareness. Many of us do not know ourselves well enough to put words to our feelings. To be known we must first know—and that often requires someone else to help us notice and name what is happening within us. As the character from Platonic quips, “Don’t ask, don’t get.”
For me, independence was modeled and rewarded. My parents—formed by a faith tradition and a culture that valued strength, discipline, and moral composure—believed emotional restraint was part of maturity. “Don’t cry.” “You shouldn’t feel that way.” Negative emotions were corrected rather than held. So I learned to hide. At school, boy-culture added its own pressure: labels like “sissy” or “wimp” ensured boys learned to repress displays of emotion.
The Masculine Dilemma
A colleague once captured a complementary truth: many men experience vulnerability as a direct threat to identity. In this model, strength is silence; emotion is weakness. To protect the self, men cultivate a tough exterior that attempts to preserve a tough interior. The cost is that the interior becomes isolated and, often, wounded.
I’ve also noticed a pattern in what men choose to share. When they do open up, the content often looks like confession—admissions about porn, failures, addictions, or moral failings. These confessions are real and important, but they are frequently the presenting problem rather than the root problem. Confession addresses behavior; vulnerability seeks the hurt beneath the behavior.
Confession can feel safer because it is clinical. It is the story we tell the doctor, the pastor, the counselor. It aims at accountability and absolution. But it can stop short of connection. Vulnerability requires that we move from describing what we did to describing what happened to us, what we feel now, and what we need. That movement—from clinical to relational—is where healing begins.
What Does Vulnerability Look Like?
Vulnerability looks like honest sharing: thoughts, fears, hopes, and regrets offered to someone who listens without immediate judgment. It is not dramatic performance or oversharing; it is the steady revealing of inner experience.
When people find relationships that support self-awareness with truth and grace, they begin to practice vulnerability. Simple practices—asking open-ended questions, reflecting back what was heard, offering gentle affirmations—create a container where the heart can be explored.
My colleague’s contribution is practical: many men need a language of emotion that goes beyond confession. They need help moving from describing a behavior to naming a feeling — from “I did this” to “I felt this” and “I need this.”
How to Practice It
Motivational interviewing—a therapeutic approach that resonates with pastoral care—offers four practical techniques to foster vulnerability:
Open-ended questions – invite reflection and exploration rather than one-word answers.
Affirmations – recognize courage, intention, and truth; they validate the person, not just the behavior.
Reflective listening – echo back what you hear so the speaker feels understood and can clarify.
Summaries – connect the conversation; they help the speaker see the pattern or the movement in their own words.
These techniques create safety. They help a guarded person lower the defenses and discover the longings and fears beneath the presenting problems.
To Be Known
At its heart, vulnerability is about being known, being listened to, and being loved. It is the space where truth and grace meet.
“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me…” — Psalm 139:23–24
“Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord!” — Lamentations 3:40
We cannot do this alone. We need others who will ask good questions, listen without rush, and love without calculation. We also need God—who searches, knows, and meets us in our hidden places. Only in that relational soil do the deep purposes of the heart rise and become life-giving.
Conclusion
Vulnerability is not weakness. It is the bridge between independence and intimacy, confession and communion, behavior and story. When someone asks us the right questions and meets us with patience, we can begin to answer the haunting plea: “Please tell me who I am.”
In vulnerability we find not only humility but also healing—the rediscovery of wonder, the beauty we first glimpsed when we were young.