Es extraño ir volviéndonos extraños...de vez en cuando se desliza un té amo, de vez en cuando le pido al amo que todo aquello que fue dolor te lo envíe como una flor, por momentos recuerdo detalles que solo vos y yo guardamos en el cofre, ese objeto que todo los días pierde un poco de color sin embargo lo cuido para preservar tu amor o lo que queda de el, todos los dias creo oir tu voz pero en realidad es el eco de mi pensando en vos.
SasuSaku. A canon pairing between Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura.
I posted earlier that I wanted to do one of these, so here this is!
This is an analysis for only part one, not for Shippuden. It’s too long for one for Part One as it is.
I spent a long time on this and I’m really proud of how this came out. In this I’ll be addressing some, if not most arguments against the ship and I’ll be using the manga and databooks as well; not the anime. I’m getting the manga translations an screenshots from Kissmanga.
I’ll also be doing this with an open mind, while inputting my own thoughts as a shipper of SS.
Now, let’s begin.
WARNING: THIS IS VERY LONG, THOUGH ITS MAINLY THE AMOUNT OF MANGA PANELS THAT MAKE IT LONG...
CHAPTER 3
When Sasuke and Sakura are officially introduced to the series, Sakura is shown and described by Naruto:
Naruto has a lil crush on her, and she’s shown as a Sasuke fangirl shortly after.
Sasuke then gets introduced right after, described as the class heartthrob.
Then yes, Sakura is officially portrayed as a girl who has a crush on Sasuke, a fangirl of his. And he pays no attention to her advances. As well of two girls there hissing “who does she think she is” which I find kinda funny by the way. It also proves the whole “class heartthrob” comment by Naruto, it’s shown that not only Sakura, but other girls also have a crush on him. Though it’s based on his looks and his coolness as the rookie.
He ignores all the advances by his fangirls. Right after Naruto comments how Sakura looks totally ecstatic while she has heart eyes at Sasuke. And then the little funny comical scene happens where Sasuke and Naruto kiss accidentally.
Let’s skip ahead a bit. We get to where Iruka is pairing up the three person squads. Team Seven is paired together as: Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke.
Skipping ahead again...
After Sasuke gets free from the restraints Naruto put on him he finds Sakura who was basically just in an encounter with Naruto disguising as Sasuke. He obviously doesn’t know about that and he asks where Naruto is and Sakura does her little rant about how he keeps ‘getting in between them’ and how he has no parents and how kids with none grow up selfish and annoying, then right after he tells her that being scolded by your parents doesn’t compare with loneliness. Sakura is oblivious to this and then Sasuke calls her annoying then leaves.
Some SS Shippers I now have said that he didn’t really think of her as truly annoying here, but yes, he did. She rambled about something that hit his nerves. He was actually annoyed at her here.
So here, he isn’t very fond of her.
CHAPTER 4
We are introduced with this cover which is really nice foreshadowing by the way.
Where they are talking about themselves, while Sakura talks about herself like everyone else did, this happens:
Take it as embarrassment or moved, I personally think he’s embarrassed since she’s basically fawning over him in front of his teacher and yeah. I also think he’s just embarrassed because this takes after he called her annoying, where he wasn’t really liking her.
CHAPTER 6
After Kakashi puts Sakura under a genjutsu of Sasuke on the verge of death, she screams and passes out. Meanwhile Sasuke hears the scream:
CHAPTER 7
After Kakashi sends Sasuke underground, Sakura arrives and believes that she’s seeing his severed head and passes out again.
She wakes up to see Sasuke leaning over her, he waited for her to wake up to see if she’s okay or not, despite wasting his time.
She sees that he’s fine, not dead, and hugs him in relief, and he reassures her that he’s fine and tells her to let him go now.
And he explains to her how it’s almost noon and time is running out (cough, and yet he stayed with her until she woke) and that he almost got the bells last time.
*clears throat*
I don’t think this is embarrassment. What even is there to be embarrassed about? Nobody else is around except for Sakura. And there isn’t any reason to be.
Boy, I see you.
After, she says how “there’s always next time!” and that he should give up, and then he opens up to her by saying:
Pretty sure he’s never told anyone this yet other than briefly hinting it when he was describing his likes, dislikes, goals, etc.
Also going to mention she’s concerned here.
And she remembers this.
She may be his fangirl in this part, but she isn’t dumb.
CHAPTER 8
:o
moving on
CHAPTER 9
Included that because I found this panel to be humerus, and that eye smex is a big part of his ship. *giggles*
CHAPTER 10
The team is on a mission and they get attacked. Sakura gets in front of Tazuna with a kunai and tries to protect him, Sasuke goes and gets in front of both of them, if Kakashi didn’t step in here he could’ve died or gotten seriously injured.
Proving the statement wrong: Sasuke didn’t care about anyone or anything in part one, he was only focused on revenge.
Yes, he’s focused on getting stronger and getting revenge. But stepping in front of two people where he could have died, where he would be unable to get his revenge, yeah.
There are also more examples that prove the statement wrong, but I'll go over it when I get to those parts.
Another example that Sasuke does indeed care, even if it’s slight.
Mhm~
CHAPTER 19
During chakra control training, Sakura could easily walk up the tree with ease. Meanwhile Naruto and Sasuke were struggling. Sakura gave Naruto tips, and then after a while...
Sasuke asks Naruto what Sakura told him earlier about the tips, with a blush on his face.
You can interpret it as a blush of embarrassment or a blush that he’s interested in her, I take it as embarrassment. I mean, he obviously isn’t one for asking people for help or advice and he’s embarrassed that he had to ask Naruto of all people.
CHAPTER 26
Another example that Sasuke does care for his comrades this early on in the story. He heard Sakura scream and was panicked that something bad might’ve happened to her and Kakashi back there.
CHAPTER 27
Another example that he cared or his comrades this early on...
CHAPTER 31
Then comes the scene where Sakura see’s Sasuke’s supposedly dead body.
-And she is shocked to see this.
You can see it in her expression. She’s shocked that the Sasuke, top rookie in the class whom she praise to be cool and good at everything he does, is laying down dead in front of her.
And she’s holding her emotions back now. She states that this isn’t an illusion this time and says he feels cold, rather than the warmth that he’s supposed to have and that confirms it in her mind that he’s actually dead.
She is holding her emotions back until Tazuna says that it’s alright for her to shed tears.
Sakura hears this, and talks about how she always got good grades on all her tests in school.
And she states the 25th rule of the Shinobi Conduct, and finally lets her emotions out and she cries.
This moment here, I think opened her eyes about how anything could happen, and how easily she could lose somebody. I also think this moment, her character develops. She obviously really cares about him more; more than his looks or his “coolness” or else she wouldn’t be crying this hard.
If she truly didn’t care about him then she wouldn’t be this affected by it.
CHAPTER 33
Sasuke hears someone crying and recognizes it to be Sakura.
And he wakes up.
She is grateful that he’s alive, and quickly hugs him. This is like a parallel to chapter seven, except this one has more emotion and it’s more meaningful.
While she hugs him he tells her he’s hurting him so she lets go and apologizes. And Sasuke’s eyes are concealed.
He tries to get up and she is against it, because he might worsen the wounds he already has. He reassues her (just like chapter 7) that he’s all right and asks about the situation about Naruto and Haku and she answers him.
CHAPTER 34
No, he didn’t insult her. He reminded her that instead of flirting, she should work on her skills more. Sasuke is Sasuke. He’s blunt about his thoughts and he’s not afraid of letting them out.
If you want to know what or who he insults, it’d be Naruto from the amount of times he’s called him an idiot and made fun of him.
Calling someone an idiot (which is making fun of how smart they are) and mentioning to someone that they should they should practice on their skills instead of using their time of flirting are two different things. You can take it as an insult, but just don’t forget he’s called Naruto a variety of things that are rude.
Also, again, Sasuke is extremely blunt.
She actually even admits that he’s right.
CHAPTER 36
The next day, Sakura is still reminded of what Sasuke told her the day before. She’s reluctant to join the chunin exams because she knows she isn’t good like Naruto or Sasuke are.
And Sakura puts on a front, and Sasuke of all people saw right through her.
When two people are standing in front of a door, not letting anyone through to enter the exams.
Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura come up and see this and:
And:
He compliments Sakura on her genjutsu immunity skills in front of everyone, winks at her, and has a smile on his face when see sees that her mood has been lifted to happiness.
CHAPTER 38
This is quick, but:
After Sasuke’s fight with Lee, Sasuke is falling and Sakura saves him from falling and hurting himself.
And she asks if he’s alright because she’s genuinely worried.
CHAPTER 47
While in the Forest of Death, when Orochimaru approaches Sasuke and Sakura and forces them to see their death and are paralyzed, they cannot move.
Sasuke looks over and notices Sakura cannot move either, and that she’s shaking from fear.
And he needs to do something. He needs to get them both out of there alive, so he stabs his leg and goes to get Sakura out of there.
And she tries to talk to him and he puts his hand over her mouth to shut her up so he can think of a plan to get them out of the situation.
She also notices that he’s more jumpy and that she’s never seen him like that before, and she’s worried about that.
CHAPTER 48
We’re given this as a part of a cover. (I don’t know if you noticed but I’m putting the covers here as well)
CHAPTER 49
Something that we haven’t seen from Sakura yet, is if she’s as submissive to Sasuke as she usually acts.
She may seem like she doesn’t, but she doesn’t take shit from him, and she’ll call him out if she ever needs to or if it’s necessary.
And what she says here, pushes him to snap out of it and then he proceeds to fight Orochimaru.
And when he loses and gets bitten, getting the curse mark, Sakura is angry and wants and demands to know what Orochimaru did to Sasuke.
After not much of an answer she goes to try to comfort him, to try to help him in any way.
And their hands get intertwined, Sasuke squeezing hers, trying to ease the pain he’s getting.
She pulls him close to try to ease the pain, trying to figure out what to do and what’s happening to him.
She is NOT taking advantage of him. She is NOT trying to take advantage of him. She’s worried about him and she’s trying to figure out what to do to help.
CHAPTER 50
Sakura is taking care of both Naruto and Sasuke.
And she is determined to protect the both of them.
CHAPTER 51
She’s taking care of them to the point where she isn’t letting herself sleep. If she didn’t care about them dearly, she wouldn’t be doing this, and she wouldn’t be this determined.
When three sound ninjas come in and want to fight Sasuke, and Sakura obviously declines, he’s still injured. So she demands answers about the mark on Sasuke’s neck, and about Orochimaru.
CHAPTER 53
It shows that she has liked Sasuke ever since she was really young.
Later on, she tries to protect them as well as Lee, now, and she gets pulled by the hair by a sound ninja.
She goes on in her head about how she feels llike a burden, and how she always has to be protected. She wants to protect the people she cares about, and now she feels useless, like she just gets in the way. And so she then cuts her hair to get free from Kin’s grip on her.
CHAPTER 54
Sakura thinks about how her teammates protect her, and how she just watches them from the back.
She thinks of her teammates + Lee, and guess who’s right in the center.
She then proceeds to fight for her teammates.
A series of flashbacks show with Io and Sakura, and it’s revealed that, again, she’s like Sasuke ever since she was at a young age, and she didn’t even know he was popular and that a lot of girls liked him, too. She didn’t start liking him because he was popular.
CHAPTER 55
Sasuke wakes up.
...But it isn’t the sight she thought she’d see.
Sasuke wakes, the curse mark is active, and he’s angry at seeing how injured Sakura is and demands her to tell him who hurt her.
He is pissed.
The background behind Sakura is black, and I learned recently that when the background of a panel is black, the thing in it is the sole focus of a character is looking at.
It indicates her state of injury is the one thing he’s focused on at the moment. That is the reason he’s so angry after all.
CHAPTER 56
Sakura is worried about the marks on Sasuke’s body, and she points it out.
And he reassures her that there’s nothing to worry about and that he feels strong with power.
And once again. he opens up to her.
And yes he gets even more pissed. Especialy when he figures out who hurt Sakura.
Also, he pays no mind to anyone else around, not Naruto who’s right next to him, he woke up demanding who hurt Sakura, not Naruto, not Lee, not why or who these people are, but who hurt her.
He then goes to defeat Zaku by breaking his arms right out of his sockets, and then goes to the other standing sound ninja.
Sakura notices that this isn’t the Sasuke she knows, this isn’t him.
She then takes it upon herself to try to stop him, so she runs up to him screaming for him to stop, and pulls him back from behind.
Even if you don’t ship it, you gotta admit this was a very powerful and well done scene, props to Kishi.
The eye smex:
And then she pleads again but with a softer tone, to stop.
And because of her doing this, the curse mark goes away.
CHAPTER 57
Naruto wakes up, and is alarmed to see Sakura and Sasuke far away, and he notices something.
He notices that something happened to her hair. Not her injuries, her hair.
Sasuke and Ino are not amused xD
CHAPTER 60
Sasuke is determined to get Naruto to get those fish. He’s really into it lmao
And then:
okay then sasuke
This moment isn’t really relevant, but I am doing an analysis on all their interactions, so...
She’s worried about something, and he asks her to explain what she means...if Sasuke didn’t care about her at all and found her hella annoying, he wouldn't have asked her to talk and he wouldn’t be listening to her.
And he’s obvious listening to her proven in a few panels ahead. It is a very important topic. Normal conversation about important matters, nothing more, nothing less.
CHAPTER 61
Another example that she isn’t as submissive to him as some may seem to believe.
:)
CHAPTER 62
Still trying to figure this out...
CHAPTER 63
screeeeech~
riiiiiiiing~
CHAPTER 66
She doesn’t take shit from him...She isn’t as submissive to him as people may think...
He’s pretty shook and alarmed to see her cry like this, especially for him.
She doesn’t want him to get hurt with that mark.
Again: She does not take shit from him.
She doesn’t want to see him suffer, she says it herself.
Some eye smex, though it’s angsty and intense eye smex:
He opens up to her again.
And then he says, not even for your sake.
CHAPTER 68
In the midst of his battle in the preliminaries, the curse mark activates, but he thinks of Naruto and Sakura, and it goes away. He does in fact care for his teammates while people say he doesn't and never did, but he does, and they do have an effect on him.
CHAPTER 69
Apparently, Sasuke made Sakura promise that she wouldn’t mention the curse mark to Naruto, he trusted her to keep the promise...
And she kept it.
CHAPTER 99
Sakura is worried that Sasuke wont show up to the exam.
CHAPTER 111
Sasuke arrives to the match, and Sakura is worried that the curse mark is still there and it might interfere, so she asks Kakashi about it.
And when he answers something positive, her mood gets lifted up.
She isn’t a fangirl anymore. She isn’t obsessed with him anymore. She deeply cares for him as seen here, if she really just liked him for his looks, then she would not have been this worried.
CHAPTER 129
After Naruto jumped into the fight with Gaara, he gets out and goes after Sasuke to attempt to kill him.
But Sakura jumps in front of him with a kunai, wanting to protect him.
If she only cared about Sasuke for his looks, would she have jumped in front of him, knowing full well that she would either die or get extremely injured?
And Sasuke would have probably died if she hadn’t stepped in front of him.
CHAPTER 133
Sasuke gets up, and tells Naruto rescue Sakura from Gaara’s hold, and then to get her and himself out of there. He trusts Naruto to do it.
So he can delay Gaara, so there would be a chance for Naruto and Sakura to get out alive.
If he didn’t care about Naruto or Sakura, he wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t say this, he wouldn’t call him and Sakura precious comrades to him.
CHAPTER 138
Gaara is defeated, and Sakura is getting free. She’s about to fall when Sasuke goes and catches her before she hits the ground and gently sets her down by Pakkun.
He then looks at her softly and tells Pakkun to take care of her while he goes to check up on Naruto.
CHAPTER 144
Sakura thanks Sasuke for saving her, but he tells her it wasn't him, but it was Naruto.
And she's thankful.
But Sasuke isn't happy with it at all.
He felt that he couldn't do anything, he felt useless. He was unable to defeat Gaara when he was his original opponent, and he wasn't able to prevent Sakura from getting held by him when she stepped in front of him, and because she did so was because he wasn't "strong enough" is what I get from this.
And from then, he wants to get stronger, he wants to make sure he's ahead of Naruto because he's catching up to him at a rapid pace.
CHAPTER 153
After the encounter with Itachi, Sasuke is put in Konoha Hospital, and is in a coma. Sakura is shown sitting at his bedside.
CHAPTER 172
Sakura is shown at Sasuke's bedside when Tsunade arrives in the room.
Tsunade then heals Sasuke and tells Sakura that he'll wake up.
And Sakura starts to cry tears of joy that he'll be okay.
Sasuke wakes up and Sakura immediately embraces him. Sasuke doesn't tell her to let go and lets her hold on and just stays silent. He isn't annoyed or angry that he was embraced by her when he just woke up.
Naruto leaves the room, noticing something (:)) and gives privacy.
Maybe he noticed Sakura's feelings for Sasuke were in fact pure, and maybe there would be a chance he (Sasuke) would return the feeling. Still a mystery, but I like the look on Sasuke's face :)
CHAPTER 173
Sakura is in Sasuke's hospital room cutting apples for him, when he starts to get disturbed.
His encounter with Itachi changed a lot of things with his mindset. This is where things start to really go downhill.
He is disturbed, again, that he wasn't strong enough to defeat Gaara, he wasn't strong enough to prevent Sakura from getting captured, he wasn't strong enough to do anything. Naruto did everything while he sat there injured, he feels weak.
He is so disturbed, he gets angrier and angrier the more he thinks about it, and even smacks the apples Sakura cut for him out of her hand.
He's angry and yeah, things went really downhill. His mindset is completely different. The Sasuke before the Itachi encounter chapters prior to this wouldn't have done this.
He's different, and Sakura notices that something is wrong before anyone else does as proven in a few chapters.
Also, keep in mind he looks away from her after he smacked it out of her hand.
CHAPTER 174
Naruto enters the room, and right off the bat Sasuke looks at him like he was the one who ruined everything, even though he didn't.
They are both alarmed at the look on his face.
Sasuke demands Naruto to fight him, he's really out of it, he's really angry now, he isn't himself.
Naruto agrees, totally oblivious to the way he's acting and agrees to fight him with enthusiasm, while Sakura protests Naruto not to.
CHAPTER 175
Sakura protests no, to cut it out but they don't listen to her.
She notices the darkness now, she notices everything now, before Naruto or Kakashi have. She did experience that certain darkness herself when the curse mark activated and went out of control the first time.
And his darkness really makes an appearance when he goes at Naruto on the rooftop with an intent to kill him.
CHAPTER 176
She jumps inbetween them, and that's what snaps them both out of it, but they can't stop the attack. Thankfully Kakashi stops everything.
Then Kakashi states how they were too into it to be just a normal fight. And there, it's proven by what Kakashi says and Sasuke's expression that he really was intending to kill Naruto there with the Chidori.
And he gets angrier.
So to those who complain and use Sasuke smacking apples out of Sakura’s hand as the worst thing on the planet that makes the ship bad, keep in mind too that Sasuke was completely out of it and he tried to kill Naruto right after.
CHAPTER 177
Kakashi has a talk with Sasuke, and does nobody remember the crazy look in Sasuke's eyes? No? Nobody is paying attention to what he told Kakashi? And people throw a hissy fit over Sasuke smacking apples out of Sakura's hand and then they ignore the entire reason why he did so, forgetting that he tried killing Naruto and was acting mentally unstable in his conversation to Kakashi right after?
Why is Sasuke smacking apples from Sakura more brought up than this?
And if things couldn't get worse he gets an invitation to go to Orochimaru for power.
CHAPTER 178
Naruto noticed Sasuke's darkness and truly knew his intentions before Sakura who?
"Sasuke wont be tempted by him!"
That's exactly what happens. He decides to leave Konoha because he was tempted by Orochimaru and the four Sound Ninjas.
CHAPTER 181
Heavy chapter...
Sasuke decides to leave, and before he does that he looks at the Team 7 picture...with an expression of longing maybe, or something that indicates when he leaves he'll miss them? It's definitely a pained expression.
Right when he's about to leave Sakura comes and meets him near the gate. She knew he would be leaving, while Kakashi and Naruto assured her that he would be fine and everything would be okay. But she knew.
Another confusing facial expression from Sasuke on the bottom left panel.
She knows he's leaving Konoha.
And she asks why he never tells her anything, and why he's so silent, and why he never lets her in.
But she fails to notice that he let all of Team 7 in, and failed to notice her how he did in fact tell her things he didn't tell anyone else. He has opened up to her in the past but she didn't notice.
And then Sasuke tells her that he shouldn't have to tell her anything, that it's none of her business.
Sakura asks him if he remembers the time he called her annoying at the same exact place they're standing now before when they first became genin.
He says he doesn't remember.
sasuke stop talking out of your ass
She talks about the old happy times. How it was so fun during missions with each other and Team 7.
And she tells him that getting revenge wont make anybody happy, including him.
And then he tells her that he's different than everyone, and how yes, they worked together for a while. And that yes, maybe, they were a team once.
And she starts pleading.
She tells him that how she knows the feeling of loneliness now, and if he left she would feel lonely. (which I didn't necessarily like and i'm a shipper)
But then there's an unknown expression in Sasuke's eyes, which I still fail to see the emotion to this day.
When he refuses, she drops the bomb.
Notice he stops walking, like he just stops.
Also keep in mind he listens to her the entire time. He doesn't interrupt her with a rude ass comment, he doesn't reject her, he just stands and listens to what she has to say.
And then he says:
Creating a complete parallel to when he first called her that in their first actual conversation. Sasuke "I-don't-remember-but-I'll-make-a-parallel-anyway" Uchiha, you really were talking out of your ass when you said you didn't remember...
moving on :)
No, that wasn't a rejection. Sasuke is blunt, and if he really attempted to reject her he would have outright told her: I don't like you, leave me alone, go away, I won't ever return your feelings.
But instead he does a parallel to their first conversation.
Sakura then threatens to scream and yell when he starts walking away, and then he quickly goes behind her and...
He thanks her.
He doesn't say, I don't like you, leave me alone, go away, I wont ever return your feelings. He thanks her.
And Uchiha Sasuke doesn't thank anybody unless he actually, truly means it.
And his eyes are not shown, they are cut off.
And he knocks her out, picks her up and carries her to the nearby bench and sets her down.
If he seriously didn't give a crap about her at all, he wouldn't have wasted his time listening to her confession, he wouldn't have thanked her, he wouldn't have carried her to a bench, he would've knocked her out and left her there with no words spoken from him.
And I've already put down panels showing he indeed cares for all of Team 7. Just because you hate Sakura or the ship doesn't mean you should spout bullshit. He considers all of Team 7 as family, Sakura isn't an exception just because you don't like her or the ship.
CHAPTER 182
The next morning, Sakura's still laying on the bench, and she wakes up. And she remembers Sasuke's "thank you" right off the bat.
I find these panels so very sad. The boy she loves just left to the enemy and walked into the darkness and she couldn't do anything to stop it, all she could do is get a thank you from him and that's it.
CHAPTER 183
Even after Naruto hears of Sasuke's departure, he still can't understand why Sasuke left.
And then Sakura shows up before the Get-Back-Sasuke Squad leaves.
Wait- Shikamaru?
The second time she's reffered to as an "even you" related to Sasuke. First time was when Sasuke told her he couldn't forgive even you.
It's like people around know her importance to Sasuke. She is his teammate after all, she has got to have an affect on him, right? Just like everyone else in Team 7, and Team 7 only at this point.
Moving on, she is heartbroken that she can't do anything else, and all she can do now that she isn't allowed to go with the squad, is to plead Naruto to bring him back, because now he's the only one at this point who can do it, except Naruto would have to do it physically, not having a conversation like Sakura tried.
Honestly if you see this as an obsessed fangirl, I don't know what to tell you anymore.
Even Naruto says it right in the same page.
She does, and it's genuine.
And so Naruto promises her that he'll bring him back.
CHAPTER 236
Sakura goes to visit Naruto in the hospital, and then she hears that the mission failed: They couldn't get Sasuke back.
And she's heartbroken again, but she refuses to show it.
She wants to keep a smile on, to be postitive here even though it's the opposite of what she really feels. She avoids Naruto's apology.
And then shortly later, she approaches Tsunade and asks to be her student.
And she thinks of both Naruto and Sasuke.
She wants to get stronger to protect the ones she loves, and to do that she needs to train hard, and she will (and she did)
That's the finished analysis for part one. Want me to do a Part Two? Doing this was fun despite how long it took me to finish.
I made this for one of my friends who recently just joined the Naruto Fandom and she ships SS, so I made this little analysis for her so it's more understandable.
I actually would like to do more of these but not just for SS...Not sure though, but I do like doing these.
It is the portion of us untouched by our difficult circumstances, our cutting-edge need to belong, and the all of the outside forces that morph and mold us.
The sensitive, artistic, generous, whimsical, outlandish parts of us have slowly buried themselves against the steel we have created against the harshness of this world and all of its expectations.
We feel it ache whenever we see a hungry child or a piece of art on the street. An unexpected pang. “Hello? I’m still here. I’m still with you. You haven’t forgotten, have you?“
That is the part, those are the parts, this world yearns for.
All of those soft parts that are so sensitive to the blade of criticism and rejection are what this world craves.
Do me (and you, and your neighbor, and the child you love, and your local grocery store clerk) a favor: do what you’re afraid to do.
Turn over to the underbelly of all of those things you’re afraid to show and brave the weight of the world.
Yield all of those quirky parts of you against the winds.
Be still. Be vulnerable. Be open. Be funny. Be soft. Be all of those things you never thought you could let yourself be.
Because Jesus made you that way. He crafted you, knitted you, and transformed you to be who you are.
And it’s okay to be you.
Because it might save someone.
It just might save you.
