And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
John 1:14-18
Truth. God is the Word and the Word is truth and grace. The act of creating, of bringing something good into the world requires us to speak with truth. Speaking truth isn’t going to build heaven on Earth, but it can build the tools we need to survive the hellishness we will face.
I have truths I’m terrified to share. I’m lonely in the most juvenile of ways. I want to hold a pretty girl’s hand, but I don’t feel whole enough to make that a fair deal for anyone. I don’t want my loneliness to hurt anyone else, so I’ve kept it to myself. I’ve hidden the truth and it fed my pain for not being spoken. It became a physical pain and it came close to breaking me until I decided to reveal it.
I was playing terrible soccer in a terrible game and feeling terrible about myself when a lightning storm cut the game short and sent me off towards a terrible fork in the road. Seriously, a lightning storm. Sometimes God really gets how thick-headed we can be.
But I still didn’t get it. I was aimed at a bar and the first drink I’d had in two months and I’ll be damned if I wasn’t going to close that place down and cry all over the bartender and anyone else I could find. I had that vision and knew I had to literally drive past Mary’s resting place to get to that first drink. There it was. I looked at the clock and a grief support group that meets at our church might still be there. Looking, and smelling, pathetic in my soccer kit I crashed the meeting and tried not to fall apart. The leader stayed after the meeting and we talked about the nuts and bolts of going from “dad and husband,” to “dad and ______” I didn’t go home with many answers, but I was reminded of the value of truth.
I’m not as ready to rebuild my mind as I thought I was, there is a lot to clean up first.
Mary and I worked hard at being truthful with each other. We knew that a marriage could fall right through your fingers if both parties didn’t focus on maintaining that foundation of truth. Mary knew my weaknesses and that made them lighter (even when I wasn’t in the mood to hear about them).
I don’t expect this to be the last precipice I toe up to; but like any other anticipation anxiety, I’m healthier for choosing to look into the chasm rather than blind myself to it.
God bless,
Jason