If I'm Being Honest
Which I guess I'm often not...
Sometimes when I struggle to think of what to write about, I ask myself the question, what feels most honest today?
It’s not a question I love.
Honesty isn’t always a default position of my mind. Not in the sense that I intentionally deceive myself. It’s just that I’m much more at risk of falling victim to honesty’s other, more frequent, enemy: distraction.
To answer the question, what feels most honest today, I have to really pay attention. There are layers to dig through, red herrings to strip away, and it can take a long time to do such precious, focused work.
Let me give you an example.
My immediate thought about what feels most honest right now is that I feel like crap.
I shared last week about my long, embittered war with first trimester nausea. And while I’m pleased to say that, here in the second trimester, the nausea seems to have subsided, her stepsister, dizziness, has come to take her place.
Some combination of increased blood volume, low blood sugar, or just the general effort of growing a human, has left me incredibly lightheaded the last few weeks.
At its best, I just feel a bit cloudy throughout the day and have to try to remember not to stand up too fast. At its worst, I passed out at the counter after ordering a bagel in NYC last week, which, though wildly embarrassing, did serve as a somewhat welcomed reminder that so many weird things happen in New York every day, people hardly even notice when you pass out in front of them.
If I’m being honest, which is, of course, the goal of the question, pregnancy continues to be very challenging, both emotionally and physically, and that leaves me feeling angry and a little ashamed a lot of the time.
So, feeling dizzy isn’t what feels most honest today.
Feeling angry is a little closer. Feeling ashamed about feeling angry, closer still.
Isn’t pregnancy supposed to be the most magical time of a woman’s life? Shouldn’t I be glowing and feeling like I’m fulfilling my lifelong purpose?
Aren’t I aware of how many women, how many close friends of mine, have struggled to get pregnant and would give anything to feel this lightheaded? Don’t I remember that not too long ago, I, like so many others, thought my chances at a family were narrowing with each passing year?
In short, yes, I do remember and I am aware.
And I don’t want to be someone who recognizes those things and doesn’t immediately feel a sense of compassion and gratitude that wipes out whatever complaint I have at the moment.
But the reality is, that while I do feel compassion and gratitude, I also feel dizzy and angry. And I wish that weren’t the case, but it is, hence, the shame.
So maybe shame is what feels the most honest today.
But is it just shame about this? Is it isolated to thinking I must suck at gratitude – that if I were better at it I would be like one of those holy, happy pregnant women – the ones who glow while I pass out in line for breakfast?
The anger seems slightly more visceral than that. The shame, a bit darker in hue.
Focus. Be honest. Be even more honest than that.
OK, it’s not just that I feel like crap. And it’s not just that I feel mad about feeling so puny or that I feel guilty about feeling mad about feeling that way.
If that were it, I think I’d let myself off the hook. We’re allowed to be human, aren’t we? We’re allowed to have emotions that don’t always reflect a perfectly sanctified soul (right??).
It’s that beneath those things lies a much more tangled web of emotion. One I’ve maybe admitted to my husband a few times here and there – one I’ve barely uttered in prayer despite everything I know about God and grace.
The truth is, I’m angry that there’s no promised ending I can claim about this pregnancy. There’s no finish line I can be certain that we’ll cross. Tragedies happen all the time and get boiled down to awful statistics. I could be puking and passing out for it all just to end in loss.
And I’m terrified.
And yes, the odds of that are low and each week our chances improve and I can reason my way through the these thoughts like any logical, Type A, have-already-read-too-many-pregnancy-books gal can.
But the fear is still there, and it’s deep.
I’m angry that I can’t be certain this thing ends on a happy note.
And I’m so ashamed that my faith is proving in pregnancy to be so small.
Yep, there it is. There’s the answer. There’s the most honest thing I can say today.
And that’s why I don’t always love this question. Because the answer can be really hard to find, harder still, to admit.
This one was buried in bagel shop anecdotes and nursery inspo pinterest holes, lots of internal judgement about why I shouldn’t feel this way and other learned practices of distraction and deceit that so often keep me from true self-awareness, from depth in community, from an unguarded intimacy with God.
But God is not afraid of my lack of faith; He’s not even surprised by it. I’m the only one in this relationship who thinks I should be “better than this by now.” I’m the one convinced I’m ToO MaTuRe for doubt.
I’m the one deceived and distracted, not Him. He is single-minded in His lavish pursuit of us. He is generous and pure in His compassion and grace.
And so I know – beneath the doubt, or beside it maybe – that He sees me as His child, who is so overwhelmed with love for her tiny, unborn daughter, that the thought of anything happening to her challenges every ounce of white-knuckled faith she has.
Which is why He isn’t asking me to white knuckle it. He’s just asking me to be honest, to bring it to His feet, to rest in a power and a love far greater than my own.
Not just this once. Not just today because I’ve finally said these things out loud. But every day, every moment, every single second, from now on, that my lack of control and my fear of all that is bad leaves me struggling to trust the sovereignty of He who is good.
Just as He asks the same of you, in whatever your struggle is, however you answer the question, what feels most honest today.
The question is worth asking because the answer tells us truths about our hearts that the enemy tries to shield us from. The work is worth doing because however hard the process is, however deep the layers go, there is nothing to fear in what you’ll find.
There is no confession beyond the bounds of grace. There is no truth too harsh to be brought into the light.
So beneath your distractions and any ounce of deceit, what feels most honest today?
And that exact struggle, while common to man(woman), is what it means to be a parent! Trusting this most precious gift (from God) to God’s will; when we only want safety and smiles for our little ones. God wants so much more!! But to trust, even though it means our little bundle might experience pain and struggle and therefore WE WILL experience that with them, is a beyond-human ask. And that is where our faith is poised to grow as we learn how to work through it while stumbling along holding our babies while in His nursery.
I love this! The principal im working on this month is honesty and this was perfect for that :)