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| Dare To Go Bare..... |
How many of us actually answer that simple question honestly and authentically the first time around? Not many.
The conversations normally go a little something like this:
"How are you?" Friend One asks.
"I'm fine." Friend Two replies.
"So what's been going on lately." Friend One asks.
"Not much." Friend Two replies. "I've got a couple of tests/projects due next week."
-----5 minutes later-------
"How's the family?" Friend One can tell by Friend Two's lack of direct eye contact and plastered smile that there is definitely something underneath the surface but she is definitely not wanting to share.
"Pretty good." Friend Two's eyes glance at Friend One and then she gets distracted by a cute boy/awkward social moment she sees/or just stares into space.
-----20 minutes later-------
"I have no idea what to do, you know? I mean one day he totally is texting me/calling me wanting to go get coffee and the next it's like nothing happened!" Friend Two wipes a tear that escapes her eye. "I mean what's wrong with me? Why would he just jet out like that?"
----The End------
Why can't we begin our conversations the way we know they are going to end?
Let's skip over the beginning and middle section of our "walls" and just DARE TO GO BARE.
What would it be like if the next time your friend asked you, "How are you?", you actually gave a real, up-front, genuine, honest answer? Try it and see. You might be surprised by their response.
It could go a little something like this:
"How are you?" Friend One asks.
"You know what I'm actually pissed off. I had the worst day today and I feel like there is all of this crap that I can't control and I have no idea how to move forward. My heart is being broken by this guy who is so hot and then totally cold and I literally have no idea what to do!" Friend Two replies.
"Friend Two, I am so sorry! That sounds awful, I have totally been there too. " Friend One sighs. "I am so glad you were honest about that, because I have felt so alone sometimes as if I was the only one who dealt with it."
----Friend One and Friend Two spend the next 20 minutes sharing life with each other and helping one another get through the heartache together-----
If I had to choose between conversation one and conversation two, I would always choose the later.
So much of our lives we hide, we cover. We are still stuck back in the garden in shame and fear. We are so terrified that other women will think we are less than, sub-par, beneath where we should be, as if the hardships of life are something that we should be ashamed of.
Some of us even go so far as to end our conversations with a "Jesus is in control.", "It'll all be alright.", "I know He has a plan.", "I trust him." These quick and short blanket sentences make us feel better, like it helps us that the other person heard it, as if saying it suddenly makes us alright in their eyes or moves us back up to normal, fine, okay, good, and smooth sailing in life.
If those statements are genuinely true and you, like Job, are praising God in the storm than by all means shout them during a season of suffering! However, I find that more and more times it isn't these circumstances, it is us as women wanting to put back on the masks we wear 98% of the time.
The real truth I have found is this, we can't be honest and authentic with others because we can't be honest and authentic with ourselves first. So I challenge you this week to GO BARE... first within your own heart!
GO BARE by confessing to yourself all the things that have been pushed down and down within you.
GO BARE by admitting the mask you wear.
GO BARE by recognizing when you put that mask on....what makes you hide within yourself?
And then GO BARE with another trusted friend....
GO BARE by confessing how you really feel when they ask, "How are you?".
GO BARE by letting them see the real, authentic you.
-Authentically ME
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