Quit Pretending It's All Okay

Are you in a dark place right now?

Are you going through a bad breakup? A divorce? A custody battle? A lost job?

It’s tempting to put on a brave face during hard times. Nobody wants others to think they are weak or faulty. But the fact is, we all are.

If you’re going though a hard time, here’s my advice, from experience: Stop pretending.

Don’t pretend everything is okay, because it’s not.

Let yourself be sad. Let yourself be angry, confused, and embarrassed. Allow yourself to rail against your unpleasant situation. That’s not the same thing as feeling sorry for yourself or asking others to feel sorry for you. It’s just being honest. It’s being real. 

We can try for a while to hide our true feelings from other people. But we can’t hide them from God. “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8).

Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (Mathew 11:28). He would not have said that if we were never going to be burdened and need rest. 

Jesus also said, “Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). He would not have said that if we were never going to mourn and need comfort. 

So stop being strong.

Several years ago, a severe clinical depression hit me. I didn’t know what was happening. Outwardly, everything seemed fine in my life, but I felt like crying at the drop of a hat. I figured it was some emotional problem I could resolve with a little talk therapy. That helped a little, but it didn’t lift the depression.

Someone suggested taking medication. I balked. I was too strong for that. I didn’t need medicine to make me feel better. But eventually, the depression got so bad that I finally talked to a doctor. 

After trying several medications, we finally found a combination of pills that worked. One morning, I woke up and felt… normal. Not super-happy, just not super-sad. I was well again. I had to admit I had a chemical condition and I needed help. Today, I still take medication and I still feel well.

Pretending does nobody any good. As human beings, we are heirs to all the ills that plague our race: sickness, failed relationships, emotional struggles.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a good Catholic or a heathen. Nobody escapes the human condition. 

God calls us not to hide. Adam and Eve knew the feeling. They covered their nakedness in fig leaves when they felt the shame of disobeying God. Ever since the Garden, we have been trying to hide. But God calls us into the light, brokenness and all. 

“If we say, ‘We have fellowship with him,’ while we continue to walk in darkness, we lie and do not act in truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:6-7).

We have to expose ourselves to the light of truth if we are to be cleansed from our sins and freed from our weakness and pain.

There is no other way. Saint Paul knew it too. In 2 Corinthians 12:10, he said: 

“Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

And being honest helps not just you, but others.

When the smoke clears and you regain your strength, you will be able to help other hurting people, not in spite of your pain but because of it. 

The poet Thornton Wilder wrote:

“Without your wounds where would your power be? It is your melancholy that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men and women. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living.”

At some point, the wheels of living break us all. We can choose to pretend we are stronger than our pain. We can “man up” and project an image of strength to the world. Or… we can be honest and admit our weakness. 

Only then can God make us strong.