Honesty

I’m hard wired to put others before myself. To a fault.

My automatic response to “How are you?” is to immediately respond with “I’m fine.” and change the topic to the other person. I’m probably not fine. I’m most likely swimming in a sea of spastic thoughts that can’t contain or regulate themselves. But I can’t let you know that, and I certainly can’t let you in.

It’s a disorganized mess in here. It’s chaos. It’s negative. It’s ugly. I can control what parts you see by never letting you in. I have it down to a science.

This brings me to honesty. It’s crucial in a relationship. You fundamentally need honesty and trust. They go hand in hand. I trust that my partner will be honest and open with me. And he expects the same of me.

I haven’t been that honest and open person in my relationship. I automatically hide my emotions and feelings and thoughts if I think they are going to cause a fight because I’m hurt about something I haven’t communicated to him or what I am feeling would cause my partner to be hurt. But in doing this, I have only been hurting him more. With each “I’m fine.” I have been building a wall. Layer after layer, lie after lie. I have been building a wall between us. We can’t function with this wall between us. It’s an impossible task that can’t work unless I let him in.

So begins my journey to honesty. Honesty with my partner. Honesty with myself. I will tear down this wall that I built and cultivate trust in my relationship.

Ephesians 4:25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all one body. 

Luke 6:31 Do unto others as you would have them do to you. 

Proverbs 12:22 The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy.

 

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Surrender

I have held it together for so long I forget what it means to not put on a façade. I hold it together until my breathing is shallow and quick and the walls close in around me and I’m on the floor in a panic attack. I hold it together so the outside world doesn’t know that inside I’m a ball of crippling anxiety and depression.

Holding it together isn’t what God is asking of me. He isn’t asking for perfection. He is asking for surrender.

I’ve been drowning for years in a state of constant struggle for perfection. Hiding what is really going on because no one can know that every aspect of my life isn’t held together and everything isn’t perfectly in it’s place. And I’m going to die as completely tense and panic filled as I lived if I do not learn to surrender my thoughts, my actions, my way of living, my everything…to the Lord.

I don’t want to die in these waters.

I’m ready to surrender.