The Truth Is...

God is good. Psalms 119:68 says so. When the sun is shining and you have money in the bank and you’re healthy and everyone thinks you’re wonderful, it’s not hard to believe that God is good. But when you lose your job or a loved one is diagnosed with a terminal illness or your church goes through a nasty split or your husband or wife says he/she doesn’t want to be married to you anymore, the Enemy will move in and cause you to question God’s goodness.

The Truth is, regardless of the circumstances, regardless of what we feel, regardless of what we think, God is good, and everything He does is good.

God’s grace is sufficient for me. 2Corinthians 12:9 says so. As a child of God, I will never face a circumstance that exceeds His grace. Where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. When I am weak, He is strong. When I am empty, He is full. When I have no resources of my own left, His resources have not begun to be depleted.

The Truth is, whatever you are going through right now, His grace is sufficient for you. Whatever you will go through tomorrow – or next year or fifty years from now – His grace will be sufficient for you then.

His grace is sufficient to deal with the memories, wounds, and failures of the most scarred or sordid past. His grace is sufficient for a lifetime of singleness or for a half century of marriage to an ungodly man. His grace is sufficient for the single mother trying to raise four children. His grace is sufficient for the woman caring for her elderly parents, for the empty nester, for the man or woman going through the change of life or midlife crisis, for the widow living on Social Security, and for the invalid in a nursing home.

We need to speak the Truth to ourselves; we need to speak it to each other. In every season, in every circumstance, His grace is sufficient. It is sufficient for me; it is sufficient for you!

The Truth is… I am blessed! It’s my birthday! Thank you oh God for giving me life…

Secrets

The saddest aspect of secrets in a relationship is that you are alone with your fears and problems. Obviously, that is counterproductive to intimacy. When there are sad and serious problems in a relationship, secrets are sometimes the means by which people try to hide from that truth. Instead of facing the problems, getting help, trying to change, or realizing the sick futility of their predicament, people will use the glue of secrets to shore up the dam. It ultimately doesn’t work.

I know a person who had to tell his girlfriend that he was cleaning the house instead of the truth that he was just watching his favorite tv series (perhaps Attack of the Show, House or Dexter?) and forgot to call her. He kept this as a secret instead of facing the fact that their relationship must be unhealthy, not allowing them to be an individual with responsibilities, rights, respect, and discipline. Secrets usually are kept to avoid a confrontation.

Clearly, this is not a relationship of loving, equally sharing, caring adults. This is a relationship of fear and domination – deceit and manipulation. Not much chance for improvement, repair, or relief when the truth is hidden. Secrets in this case replace dealing with truth and reality.

Another person I know was paying monthly bills when she suddenly realized an error she had made to the tune of $200. She then took the same amount from a savings joint account to make up for the deficit. She planned not to tell her husband. She didn’t want him to know that she goofed and wanted to avoid a fight. When he inquired about the savings account, she lied and said it was the amount it had been for a long time. But he found the savings book one morning and saw what she did. Oops! He demanded an explanation. But, as she gave him her reason, she began to see how stupid it sounded.

When you’re working on improving a relationship, making sure you look good or don’t get caught making errors or seem always to be right, are not the means to a healthy, loving relationship. First of all, they’re all about you – not about him or her or us! Keeping secrets about mistakes in judgement or action is a form of lying and can do serious damage to the relationship by hurting your credibility and trustworthiness. Probably one of the most important elements of a relationship is the confidence you have in the other person’s fundamental intent never to hurt you or the relationship.

In order to gain that credibility and trust, you must never give your partner an indication that you would be deceptive to avoid a confrontation, keep out of trouble, be held accountable, look bad, be wrong, or not be in control. The “us” has to be more important than that.

On the flip side, instead of making sure you look good, it does little for the long-term health of a relationship to protect your partner from him or herself.

Secrets make you live in fear.

All this said, there are times when truth becomes cruel and destructive. Perhaps we could call these “good secrets.” For example, you should never tell your partner that you’re turned off because of receding hairlines, ripples in thighs, sagging, postpartum breasts, crow’s feet, graying hair, slower gait, a few extra age pounds, and so forth. We all need to age gracefully and accept the aging and imperfections of our loved ones graciously.

Yes, you also should never tell your spouse that you’ve had sexy feelings about anyone real or unreal. Instead, you should remove yourself from that temptation and hike up your attention and affection with your partner. It’s amazing how being more attentive gets more back in return than just fantasizing in anger does.

Sometimes the worst secrets are the truths we keep from ourselves. It’s generally downhill from there.

The Seven Stages of Healing

The Seven Stages of Healing was written by Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty. When you hurt, you don't know how to start anew. We have all been there before. Didn't we all go crazy and almost lost our minds? It's hard to deal with pain, whether physically or emotionally. We need a manual or some guidelines to get ourselves back. I just happen to stumble on this piece, and I'm sharing them with you. A friend of mine is hurting right now. He suggested that I should put this up for those who are hurting like him. So here they are...seven stages of healing.

1. Get Started

The most basic human need always takes priority. Our most basic need is for love and belonging, and healing is always about finding, or rediscovering, that central core, that island buried deep within all of us that is most of who we are. In terms of well-being, all there is is love and love denied.

2. Get Lost

If the need to love and be loved is not adequately met, the individual can't develop. That's the essential meaning of the word "lost." Lost means not knowing where you are or where you are headed. Lost means sitting alone in the dark because there isn't a scrap of light anywhere to follow.

3. Get Hurt

Once we get lost, we get hurt. We desperately try to cope, to cover up, each of us according to our different personalities. But in spite of that they are all just sticks thrown into the River, the restlessly ongoing effort to be found and so to find or rediscover what we were all made for.

4. Get Stuck

Follow the Hoop and see what happens next: we get stuck. Stuck means "can't move". The dynamics of stuck invade our innermost parts and become familiar. Whether it's being abused in a relationship, dying around food in one way or another, filling our bodies with drugs, shutting down all feelings, surrendering to violent rage, or isolating or hiding. These behaviors become our pimps, so to speak, and we jump when they beckon.

5. Get Called

How can there be healing if there is not first a call, an invitation to break through all the emotional and intellectual concrete holding us stuck in some dreary expression of diminished life? Any knock that invites us to move deeper into our humanity comes from the hand of God. The knock has a thousand different faces and forms, yet the invitation is the same. Once the call is heard, it is time to get up!

6. Get Up

To "get up" means just that: you make a start. Getting up doesn't mean all of a sudden you turn into a world-class sprinter. It just means that you are standing up, like a tender blade of new grass, reaching for the sun. After the call, there is a getting up, but no one ever gets up alone. There is surely a part of this process that no one can do but us but the problem of love hunger simply can't be addressed alone.

7. Get Going

Once we finally get up, once we see the wound and the systems that keep the wound active, the next step is to get going and keep going. By getting going, I mean just that: get moving and don't stop. That's the trick-keeping it up. An occasional companion on my morning walks says, "It's all practice. Simple as that. We are what we practice. You want to change something, practice it until you are there."

My Independence Day

This is another year where millions of Americans right now are enjoying the word “freedom”. But are we really free? Free from what bondage? I would like to personalize this day to be my day of independence instead. I think it will be more appropriate and meaningful, at least for me. Today, very early in the morning, I was given the opportunity to ask forgiveness from an individual I hurt so bad. I hurt this wonderful person with lies, not just small lies, but “life-changing-lies”. Yes, that opportunity was not something I even imagined would come, but I took advantage of the situation, and blurted, “Please forgive me.” I did not get a response yet. I was not expecting to be forgiven right away. However, I felt relieved by just saying those words. It felt wonderful to be righteous, and truthful. Just being free from the bondage of lies. You gotta be kidding me, it was awesome! I am not sure how enormous the damage was though, or how repairable it will be, but deep inside of me feels that I was already forgiven. Forgiveness, perhaps not from this person, but from God, and myself. With this thought, I look back at the cross where my beloved Jesus suffered. Yes, I remembered, He suffered for me, and for all those who lied, and even those who are still covered with a life of lies. Now, I take part of this freedom today. Completely healed. No to "bondage". No longer a captive of untruthfulness, but a survivor of the Truth. As long as my Beloved is in my heart, I shall overcome lies. “Truth shall set you free.”