A few days before my husband entered treatment, I asked him how he wanted me to handle questions from the community, and he replied, "Tell the truth."
People are naturally curious, and people will talk. My husband and I decided that we would rather have people talk to us than about us, or at the very least talk about the truth.
Interesting thing, telling the truth; it is incredibly freeing. As startling as it may be to some for us to be so candid, several positive thing have already come from our choosing to be vulnerable.
First and foremost, I have been completely humbled and overwhelmed by the number of people who genuinely care about the health and well-being of our family. (My husband would be overwhelmed, too, but he is unaware, as he is currently in "blackout". More on that later.) Thank you one and all for being so gracious! (You know who you are.)
Second, telling the truth kind of takes the wind out of the sails of people who are predisposed to being malicious. There's much less fear of gossip or embellishment (or what people might say to your kids) when you choose to tell your story yourself.
Third, believe it or not, being open about our current struggle has made it much easier for me to be in public. I don't have to pretend that nothing is wrong; there's no "elephant in the living room", so to speak.
On a practical note, writing to this blog keeps me from having to repeat the same information over and over again, which is emotionally exhausting. Every time you try to bring someone up to speed when you are going through a trial, you end up reliving the events that you are sharing and having to deal with the fresh emotions of the listener, be they empathy, anger, pity, or concern, and that can really set you back, even if you had initially been okay.
Truth opens the door to authentic relationships. Relationships suffer when we edit our stories for public consumption; and make no mistake, the public will consume. So what shall we feed them? Authentic, sometimes hard-to-swallow truth, or shallow, candy-coated nonsense?
The choice is yours, but we choose truth, and our prayer is that this journal will not only serve as a reminder of where we've been and all that God has done for us, but also provide hope and encouragement to anyone who may be wandering through a wilderness of their own.
Hey Kelley... I'm praying for you. Lifting up your family to our Abba Father!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Gloria. :-)
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