January 2: What Silence Costs You
How much energy goes into keeping the secret?
“For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.”
David knew what it was to hide something. He had done real wrong, and for a while he said nothing about it. He kept up appearances. He went about his business. And inside, he says, his bones wasted away. His strength dried up like summer heat.
That is what hiding does. It doesn’t just protect the secret. It slowly eats the person keeping it.
If you drink more than you let on, you know this feeling. You count the empties before the recycling goes out. You rehearse what you’ll say if someone asks. You keep two sets of numbers in your head: what you really drank, and what you’d admit to. It is exhausting, and it is lonely.
Then look at what changes in verse 5. David stops covering. He says it out loud to God. And the very next line is forgiveness. Not a lecture. Not a probation period. Forgiveness.
Step One is built on the same move. It asks for an admission. Not a confession to the whole world, and not a speech at church. Just an honest statement of what is true, made first to yourself and to God. The relief David describes is real. People feel lighter after they stop pretending, even before anything else in their life has changed.
You may worry that telling the truth will make things worse. Sometimes the truth does bring consequences. But the secret has consequences too, and they are already happening. Your body and your heart are paying them now.
God already knows. Saying it to Him doesn’t inform Him of anything. It moves you from hiding to being held.
You don’t have to tell everyone today. Start with God, and with the face in the mirror. Later, when you are ready, there will be one safe person to tell, and then another. Honesty grows a little at a time. The secret only ever grows heavier.
One thing today
Sit somewhere quiet for two minutes. Tell God out loud, in plain words, how much you have really been drinking. Use real numbers if you can.
A prayer
Lord, You already know everything I have been hiding. I am tired of carrying it. Here it is. Thank You that You answer honesty with mercy.
Keep reading about Step One.
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