Wednesday, April 18

The Hard Conversations

When I entered into my thirties, I promised God, and myself, that I would become more honest. Not that I've been lying my whole life, but that I've held back many opinions, thoughts, and feelings because I was so scared of people's reactions.

Now, I think this fear is healthy in a way. I want to watch my tongue, because I want kindness and healthy thoughts to flow from it. However, I realized that many times that I wasn't being kind to myself by holding these thoughts inside me for long periods of time. Recently I've realized that we're a very damaged society. Most people are somehow broken, depressed, weary, or moving on from some type of baggage. And I understand that as a Christian that I should always lay those things down and not carry them around. Unfortunately, just like with human forgiveness, it's easy to let go of something, but not forget it entirely. And so because I never want to step on toes, or hurt feelings, or cause anger, I stay quiet. But I realized that I'm not standing up for what I know is right in so many instances. And often, I'm not standing up for myself when I let others wrong me. 

And so I finally decided that I would put my fear aside and try to say what's on my heart and mind. It's so easy to answer a simple question such as, "How's are you?" with a standard, "I'm good." I would say most of the time this answer isn't necessarily true. Why are we so afraid of an honest answer? Women especially should be happy to talk, listen, and support each other. We should celebrate each other's triumphs, laugh at our silly mistakes, and lend a hand when we fall. At least that's what I think should be innate in people. If our country, and our world were more honest and real, we'd have far fewer problems, and be a much more compassionate society. 

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