“How are you?”
“Fine.”
You notice the dark circles under your friend’s eyes, the drawn look of their face, the slump in their shoulders. That one word, that “fine”, was a lie, and you can see it. But you don’t push, don’t ask, because you really need to move on and see the next friend, ask the same question, maybe get another lie in response.
I see this scenario plenty of times. I’ve done it plenty of times. And right now, I want to ask a question:
Why?
Why do we see that someone obviously isn’t “fine”, yet we breeze on by? Why are we so frightened of honesty and truth? Here are some of my (disjointed) thoughts on that.
We want to present a pretty, bright candy-colored shell to the world, when inside our life is like the expired Reese’s peanut butter cup my grandpa once ate—rotting and full of worms.
It takes courage to be honest, both by bringing yourself out in the open and being honest with other people. It takes discretion—believe me, it takes a lot of discretion. You don’t want to go telling someone something at the wrong time, or telling the wrong person something. You don’t want to air everything on the Internet or even among your friends.
It takes being heartfelt and caring. I’ve had both honest criticism and nasty criticism directed at me, and the nasty stuff sticks to me to this day, festering just when I think I’ve finally purged it. You don’t want to do that to someone. You have to truly love someone and be as positive as you can, even if what you’re being honest about is negative.
Being honest takes not being afraid of people being nasty to you. It takes not being afraid of what people can do or say when you reveal a secret for someone else’s benefit.
Maybe that’s why we’re scared of being honest. We’re afraid we’ll hurt someone. Maybe, with all the cautions and pitfalls of being honest, it just isn’t worth it. It’s way too much work.
But think of what you could do. Telling a story from your past might cause some to criticize you, but it will inspire others. I can’t tell you how thankful and amazed I am at Diane M. Graham’s willingness to be open, honest, and truthful about her life. She has blessed, inspired, and encouraged me many times, especially since I lost Matthew.
Maybe your honesty will help someone heal. I heard a lot of peoples’ miscarriage stories in the weeks after Matthew was born. I heard a lot of “God will get you through it” platitudes, and I appreciate how they meant to help, but they didn’t. No one mentioned how they got through it, or what helped them heal—they just said that they healed. It wasn’t until my mother-in-law, Tammy, began talking about how she got through losing her two-day-old girl, that I began to feel as if anyone was being truly honest with me.
I know that’s going to sound awful to some people, and I recognize that those who told me, “God will get you through it,” were only trying to help. And yes, God did get me through it. But I needed true honesty, about how I would feel, how I would want to break something, how I would want to push away everyone who tried to love me.
Being honest and truthful with others takes time, it takes effort. But if you truly care about people, you have to make that effort. Do it carefully and cautiously, but do it nevertheless. Since I’ve begun being open and honest with the people I care about, and since I’ve invited them to do the same with me, I feel like my life has become richer and more satisfying.
Do it in love, do it carefully, but at least try being open, truthful, and really honest with yourself and those you love.
Beautiful post, Heather. I agree! Although, I think sometimes we hold back on honesty because we’re not sure others really want to hear the truth. We’re afraid maybe they are asking just out of courtesy and all they want is that “fine.”
I do think that when we are going through something very difficult we NEED to open up about it. We often won’t discover that someone else has been through the same thing and find that connection we so need if we stay quiet. I was always a very private person, but when I went through cancer treatment I found I had to open up or go mad. And when I did open up, I found people who had been through similar things. And now, what I find even more important, is that when I am open I find people going through similar things now and I can help them
.
Heather, it’s good to see people being honest. I’d far much rather they told me the truth when I ask them how they are, than lie. I have a tendency to be that honest, and then I see the other person’s eyes looking through me, and I think, “You’re just going through the motions yourself, you’re too busy to do anything else, and you don’t really know how to connect.” And I am grateful for the people in my life who are NOT like this, who know how to treat me and each other as real people.
How does healing happen? I think it’s a personal journey for each wounded person, but I think that it has a LOT to do with recognizing the truth, accepting that there is a reality we can’t change; acknowleding the terrible pain and the burden that this reality visits upon us, and taking it all and putting it in God’s hands as many times per hour per day–for as many days as it takes–until we can leave it there and not take it back again. Oh, and asking God for healing and a restoration of joy along with handing Him those weighty burdens.
And then, remembering those things we have learned in the midst of our pain, and the goodness and grace God brought into our lives in spite of it, and the happy moments–because it’s a rare situation where there is absolutely nothing to remember that is good about it.
Someone else titled this “growing through your pain,” and I like that idea–that pain does not have to stop us dead in our tracks and make us less than we can be, but that we can somehow become more through the process of growing beyond it.