Today I want to talk about a little thing called truth, but I want to begin with a bit of backstory.

My husband, Stan, is a chatter. He chats. He is not a talker. He does not relish deep conversations, especially about painful things or his feelings. In the 15 months between the spring of 2018 and the summer of 2019, he received four significant blows, the last of which was a terminal ALS diagnosis. After stepping away from 36 years in public safety, including 25 years as an FBI agent, he found himself with a lot of time on his hands and not much of a future to plan for. I don’t care who you are or what you believe in, stuff like that seriously messes with morale. And for someone who does not process verbally, there is no place for all those thoughts and feelings rattling around in a troubled mind to go. If you are one of those people, or if you are the person caring for someone like this, please keep reading.

You see most of us tend to think of confession as admitting to our wrongs and then apologizing for them, usually while drowning in a sea of guilt, shame, and regret.

But Jamie Winship, author of Living Fearless, reminds us that confession is simply a matter of telling the truth. When someone is arrested for an alleged crime, law enforcement officers attempt to gain a confession–an accurate description of what actually happened.

For the past three-plus years, I have watched my husband silently wrestle with his mortality while trying to protect those around him from the discomfort of his confession. His particular ALS experience has included a great deal of anxiety and depression. That’s an accurate description of his reality, and he is beginning to understand the freedom that can be found in admitting the truth of his experience. Freedom for him as the one living in it and freedom for his person–me–the one living with and caring for him.

I’m not suggesting everyone needs to open up the floodgates and confess all the secrets hidden away in their hearts to anyone who will listen, but I am confessing that finally being able to speak honestly and adjust our lives accordingly has brought tremendous relief. Confessing our truths to one another means we don’t suffer in silence, alone and isolated. God did not intend for us to live in fear and lies. He invites us to trust Him and to trust the people He has brought into our lives so that healing can happen. While the ultimate healing will not happen in this lifetime, there is much we can do to step into the blessings God has, both big and small, in the midst of a broken world.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

James 5:16