We hadn't talked in almost 10 years. The last time I saw her she was just a kid, full of enthusiasm for life and ready for all that life was offering. After my initial greeting, I asked her the simple standard conversation opener: How are you?!
Ready for the simple standard response of 'great! and you?', I was unprepared for hers. Her life was a mess, she said. She hated her job, recently broke up with her boyfriend, abandoned her faith, and didn't have a clue where her life was headed.
I read her words while I looked at her pictures. Her smile was brilliant in each, a bottle of beer always in hand, friends surrounding her on every side, and status updates that belied all that she was telling me. Every picture spoke a thousand lies.
I met up at the park with another friend this week. She's the one who always jokingly insists that I look like I have it all together. And she speaks for others too, she says. I've heard it before from others as well. I intimidate them, I've heard. It seems I have achieved the American Dream (in Canada, no less). I have four beautiful kids, a man who still takes my breath away, somehow find time to be involved in this and that, occasionally receive compliments on how well behaved my children are, and live in a gorgeous home (sans the white picket fence).
I laugh because it's easier than crying. Easier to joke that I'm really do have it all together, at least on the outside. A better choice than bursting into tears about all that I still so do not have together. It's a little white lie really because she knows the truth. She's heard it straight from me, all the questions and quandaries about how I should deal with this and how will I get through what's next. But to the outsider looking in, taking a snapshot with their eyes, their view speaks a thousand lies.
A good friend of mine is a role model to me in every way. A kind and gentle mother who serves her children with little thought for her own ambitions. A submissive wife who adores and always speaks well of her husband. A woman with a heart sold out for her God and a life that matches her convictions in every way.
She has a smile for everyone every time I see her. She sings the loudest on Sunday morning, letting her soul shout out all it's praise to her King. If anybody ever had it all together, it just might be her.
But she's open and honest about her life. It's not always easy. In fact, it rarely is. She too has moments of hurt and tears, these days it seems hardly one goes by without both. She loves her children but she grieves their choices. She loves her husband but even he has the potential to hurt and offend. Though her face shows joy and her hands give and give and give, she allows me to see the truth behind the thousand lies I used to believe.
Why is it we always assume that we're the only one struggling? Why is it we are so prone to putting on our happy face and desperately hoping that no one knows the truth?
Why do I compare myself to another, my marriage to theirs, my mothering to hers, my cooking to...shoot! everyone can cook/bake/fry/grill/saute better than I! Why do I set up this impossible dream of someday achieving a status that no one can criticize, no one can improve on, no one can deny that I really do have it all together?!
"Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here's what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It's the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn't wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn't wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn't wisdom. It's the furthest thing from wisdom—it's animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you're trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others' throats." James 3:13-16
Instead of trying to keep up appearances, I want to be one who speaks the truth. I want to let others know that I lack wisdom, that I lack the right answers, the best solutions. And I want to hear your truth. I want to know that you're just like me, wanting and seeking truth. And that we can dispel the thousand lies one miserable shortcoming at a time.
So that others who are struggling will see that we are right where they are.
Yep, that's my house up there. Desperately sending out a thousand lies that we can too keep up with the Jones. We couldn't exactly afford luxuriously wooden garage doors so I stained them for a cost of $20 a door. Just don't look too close because the metal sheen of the door might show through. And that gorgeous front door? A facelift that cost $3 for a oops! tint of paint at Home Depot. Just please, don't open it or you'll see the piles of laundry on my living room couches or smell the tell tale scent of apple cider vinegar serving as a death trap for a million fruit fly invaders. Oh, and whatever you do, do not zoom in to inspect the grass. No amount of weeding can completely eliminate those pesky eye sores. But then who weeds?!
