An Unexpected Gift
I've spent most of my life not telling the whole truth.
Some of that was ordinary. “Did you do your homework?”
“Yes, mom.”
Alas, I did not.
Some of it was protective. Some of it was rooted in shame. Some of it lived in the long gray space of omission, where you don’t exactly lie, you just don’t say certain things out loud.
Many people know that my children and I experienced significant trauma in 2008. I will save the details of that story for another time. What matters here is what came after.
Since then, I’ve done what I have always done with heartache, trauma, and shame.
I pretended everything was fine.
Of course we went to therapy. And then we moved on.
Remarried.
New house.
Graduations.
Weddings.
Grandchildren.
All good.
And honestly, what else would you say publicly? We survived. My kids are resilient. They are remarkable humans. It wasn't untrue. But it also wasn't the whole truth.
This year broke me open.
Again, there are more stories that belong to other posts, but the short version is that my husband chose to leave rather than face his decisions and change. I fell apart. I could barely function. Depression and anxiety took over in ways I could not push through.
And I watched my now adult children watch me.
I could see fear on their faces. I saw them suffer alongside me. I knew I needed to get better but I didn’t know how. Everything I knew to do was not working.
Then one day I had a thought. I believed it was new. But as I have been rereading some of my old writing, I can see it is something God has been weaving into my life for years, maybe my whole life:
“You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”-John 8:32ESV
I do know the truth. Some of it is terrible. Heartbreaking. Devastating. Hard to face.
But I know what it is. And I begin to wonder what would happen if I stopped avoiding it and started naming it. So little by little, I did.
I started writing. I started telling the truth. About pain. About shame. About things I had learned to survive by not naming.
For years, people have told me not to revisit the past. Not to bring up the darkness. Not to reopen wounds that have already done enough damage. Most of them were well meaning. That's what our culture believes healing looks like.
But I have spent many years training in trauma care. I know what happens when people are allowed to speak about what has happened to them and receive care for their story. I also know what happens when they aren't.
Somewhere deep inside me, there has always been a voice begging to be heard. I ignored it for a long time because I believed there was nothing that could be done about the past. This year, I started listening.
What will this writing become? What I do know is this: it’s the truth.
One day recently, I joked online that people should be grateful. I don't have a podcast because I have a lot to say. My brave, beautiful daughter, replied with two words: "do it.”
Now, with my other children's consent, here we are.
Something unexpected has happened since I began telling the truth. My children have started telling theirs. Some are writing. Some are asking hard questions. Some are sharing wounds I had never heard before. But I did not realize until now is that my silence was silencing them
I carry deep regret about that. I always will.
But trauma care teaches that when a person receives care for their story, the parts of them that have been longing for healing can finally began to breathe. There is a way through.
To make amends for harm does not mean explaining or justifying. It means living differently. It means choosing truth over comfort even when it costs something.
This Christmas, I do not have the money to buy my children gifts. But I do have this. The greatest gift I can give my children, today and every day, is the truth.
“You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”-John 8:32ESV
If this season has left you with less than you hoped for, may the truth give you freedom as well.
Sending love and prayers. I had no idea what you were walking through this year.