I have joked in the past that I have enough secrets to ruin 14 people. People tell me things. I will never forget the first time that someone bared their soul to me, and I realized the weight of their secret. I was working at a discount retail store in Austin, Texas. I was 18, and my exposure to weighty matters was negligible. I went into the bathroom of this store and found standing at the sink one of my coworkers. She was a drop dead gorgeous latina with legs a mile long and a face that could strike a man dead, it was so beautiful. She would come into work with a captivatingly flirty smile and a personality to match, but when I walked into the bathroom, that charisma was gone. She had been throwing up. She looked up at me from where she stood and let out a half hearted chuckle. "I'm pregnant", she told me. "I had to come in here to get sick" she told me with her heavily accented words. Then she looked up into the mirror and adjusted her hair to cover the bruise near her eye. "I have a bad boyfriend", she explained. I was horrified. How could a man strike someone so stunningly beautiful - especially when she was carrying a baby?! My reply was so weak. I don't think I was any help at all....except for this. She had gotten to share her secret.....with someone...and that someone was me. I kept that secret. I eventually told a person here or there throughout my life but never with her name attached. Now I don't even remember it. I'm not sure I would even recognize her face if I ever saw it again....but her secret and the weight of it, I will always, always remember.
I can no longer count the number of people who have shared secrets with me. The number is far above 14, but I have learned to keep secrets very, very well. Know this. If you have told me a secret, no one knows. Even if I have shared vague details of your secret with someone who shares a similar or identical burden in order to offer some aid, your name is never attached nor are any specifics that would indicate to someone the person to whom said secret belongs. Secrets are sacred. They are more than just private. They are something to be protected and revered - yes revered because even the stuff of our deepest pain requires that we acknowledge a level of reverence. Sadly, in our human experience, it is commonly only the things that cause us the most damage that are able to find their way into the innermost parts of our souls. The truest parts of ourselves. That part of us deserves reverence, and I give it - fully. Your secrets have my reverence.
Here's the thing with secrets, though. The reason we keep them is because we, at least in part, feel that these painful, ugly things hold for us at least a portion of culpability. We have these stories to share because we have fault in the things that caused us damage. Do you see that for the lie that it is?
Let me tell you this. There are things that happen in our lives because of our own neglect or carelessness or selfishness. Those are pretty easy to recognize. Then there are those experiences that hold for us this strange feeling of unrest. We know what happened was "off" or "wrong", but the thought that someone would do something to us out of pure selfishness or lack of regard for our souls is so far from what we understand to be healthy that we give them a pass, and we share the blame.
No.
Don't share that.
I'm going to share these words with you. They are magic. I have seen them unlock captive ones that felt before that they had no hope. So here goes.....
It is not.....your.....fault. It never was. Your foolishness to trust or your need for acceptance or your lack of judgement were not grounds for you to be mistreated. No. Pureness of heart or desire to get what you're willing to give NEVER means that you deserve the infliction of pain from another person or persons. No.
Your secrets are something that you are forever allowed to keep. That is fine. Know that there is liberty in sharing them, but the sharing can absolutely be limited, but that thing - that weird unquantifiable thing for which you cannot find the right compartment because it is so strange and off - is not your fault. It never was, and it never could have been.
Also know this. You are never alone. There are not only people with whom you can share your secrets that will not pass judgement, but there are legions of souls with whom you actually share common ground. For however many times you feel like you were the only stupid one to find yourself in a compromised or painful position, know that there is another one who has felt the same way for the exact same reason.
You are not alone. You are not a freak, and you are not defective. You are a human with a heart and a soul and a purpose. You were designed from the foundation of the world by the One Who cares more for you than any human ever could. This is not trite. This is not rote. This is something that I have experienced. I have been through the mire of hate from another. I have inhaled the stench of injustice and deterioration of my spirit.....and I have found Him waiting there for me right in the midst....with no judgement. No condemnation. Nothing but heartbreak for my pain and arms to cradle my battered self.
You have worth because the Creator says that you do. You have hope because the Creator says that you do. Do you not believe in that particular Creator? Fine. There is still nothing in this life that says that you must be limited from the point of having those things. Feel that? Feel that weird flutter in your belly? That indignation towards the injustices or the times of pain? That's truth. Embrace THAT. Seek that. Go to THAT with your questions. Mine is God. My "that" is God. It doesn't have to be yours, though I wish it was. I have spent many skeptical periods in my life wondering about my "that", and I have felt the loving presence of God come and offer me peace and hope and restoration in those dark, dark days.
Either way, though, you've got those things. You are still breathing air and have a heart that carries a beat, so your hope is not gone. Your purpose is not gone. You legacy is not complete.....and you are still not limited by the tragedies. They are not your fault. They never were, and they never will be. They cannot any longer rob you of the ways that you can affect positive change in this world. You are still beautiful.
I use a lot of the same words in many of my posts. I realize this. I use the words pain and soul and spirit and beauty maybe more than the others. I hope this does not lend itself to me being redundant, but I do not mind if it results in me just being repetitive. We learn through reason but also through repetition. We have to hear things (or read them) are certain number of times before we actually understand them to be true. I am okay with that.
Truth. There's another one I frequently use. That is maybe my most important word. You truly have nothing in this life if you have not truth....but if you have that, you are definitely rich. There is power in knowing the truth. There is freedom in it as well....so much freedom. You can carry any number of burdens even if they are being carried at once if you have even just a shred of truth.
So let me give to you again the ultimate truth about that "thing" that gnaws at you every time it enters your mind. You have beauty. You have purpose. You have hope and .........that "thing"........cast it away into the depths from whence it came because, my love......it is not....your...fault.
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