The truth is that many people cannot handle the truth. When I was around 15, I went on a missions trip to a Navajo reservation in Arizona. One of the team members was a few years older and we bonded. Eventually she told me how she drank heavily – hard liquor and all that. I was stunned and didn’t know what to say for a few days. We eventually talked again and corresponded for a while. It took me a while to process.

Over the course of the past several years, I’ve started to tell people my truth. Not in some post-modelen way, but what actually happened. While I am genuinely grateful for the ones who truly listen, empathize, and try to understand the best they can, I also often received deflection, gaslighting, minimizing, lecturing, and even attacking. I’ve mentioned this before, I was still only 24 when I was exposed to brutal cases. I tried to talk to people at church, including pastors, but pretty much got nowhere. This scenario has played out for other truths.

I think all I wanted and needed to hear was “Ok. That’s ok.”

The realization here is that many people are selfish and insecure. This sounds so cynical until one realizes how true it is.

But the flip side is that there are the few who can not only absorb but focus on the good, even though it can be hard to detect. My former colleagues said he focused on the courageous witnesses who came forward to report homicides to balance out the very real carnage.

At the end of the day, I need someone who can listen to my story and still love me, and the key, love me enough to listen to the whole story.

This hasn’t happened and who knows if it will.

My truth, the truth is in my writing.

And I have quite a bit left to say.

Some pretty, others not so much.

What is the hidden gift in all of this?

I think it’s realizations and understanding. The more people didn’t understand or tried not to, my own understanding increased. And that’s where a significant part of the future hope and grace lie.