Telling Secrets

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“…we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.” – 1 Thessalonians 2:8b

Dear Friends,

A moment of personal privilege to wish Bridgette a very Happy BIRTH-day today!  We’ve shared 24.5 years of marriage (our anniversary is 6mo to the day of her birthday) and it’s been God’s greatest gift to me!

This past weekend we had the chance to visit with Brennan at Eckerd College for their Family Weekend and meet his friends and some of their parents, along with get some updates on the college, in light of their ongoing recovery from Hurricanes Helene & Milton.  We also were able to deliver Bridgette’s mother’s remains to her sister and review and receive many photographs and share memories together.

At one point over the weekend, I had a conversation about one couple’s relationship and how they shared their hopes and dreams as well as their struggles and frustrations with each other and I was struck by the grace, humility and love that was evident there.  I was also inspired.  We might call that #RelationshipGoals.

And then just today, I read an extended quote from the late author and Presbyterian Minister Frederick Buechner from his book Telling Secrets that seemed to connect many of these dots.  It talks about our shared humanity, our frailty, our need to share and be known and the healing that takes place as we do this very work.  So I want to offer it to you as an encouragement today.

I have come to believe that by and large the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition – that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else.

It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are even if we tell it only to ourselves – because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real things.

It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier that way to see where we have been in our lives and where we are going. It also makes it easier for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own, and exchanges like that have a lot to do with what being a family is all about and what being human is all about.

Finally, I suspect that it is by entering that deep place inside us where our secrets are kept that we come perhaps closer than we do anywhere else to the One who, whether we realize it or not, is of all our secrets the most telling and the most precious we have to tell.

That secret that Buechner alludes to, of course, is Jesus.  May you continue to encounter and share Jesus, in the depths of your own heart, in those special relationships in your life, and throughout our wider community.

Welcoming You to Grow in Jesus,

Pastor Don