{Being OK} The F Word

{I'm linking up with fellow Launch Team members, and anyone else that wants to join in, over here today.}

When I started reading Being OK With Where You Are by Stacey Thacker, I knew it was going to be one that I would reread.  Sometimes God just brings you back to the same issue over and over again. For me it's "fine."

Chapter 3 of Stacey's book is all about the veil of fine.

As many times as I've said it to friends and as many times as I've written about it here, I still find myself wanting to hold up that veil. It's so much easier to just use that little F word when a friend asks how you're doing. Not that F word! It's another 4 letter word that starts with F and can quickly change the tone of a conversation.

Fine.
I'm fine.
Everything is fine.

Sometimes everything is fine and it's the perfect word to use when someone asks how things are going. When I'm in line at Walmart and the cashier that I've seen once a week for the last 5 years says "Hi! How are you?" The right answer there - "I'm fine, thanks." No need to expand.

But when a friend that loves you sits down in your living room and says "So. How are you?" the real answer needs to come out. Sometimes, it's a fun and encouraging conversation about the amazing things God is doing in your life. But other times, it's a messy conversation with tears and snot running down your face as you spill all the details of what's going on behind the veil. It's real and it's honest and it's fellowship and it's one of the most effective ways of building bonds within the Church.

Galatians 6:2 says Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
How can we bear one another's burdens if we don't even know what they are?

Today I realized what it is that keeps my veil of fine firmly in place. It's pride. Rotten, self-serving pride. I don't want to let anyone know that sometimes things are hard because that would let them know that I'm not perfect. And isn't the whole point of life to show others how perfect I am?!

No. No, it's not.

Stacey writes:

 

Plenty of people have told me that I'm crazy but it has never come after I drop the veil of fine and let others know what's really going on. Usually, the person I'm talking to just encourages me to seek the Lord or says something like 'Really? Me, too!' Or the best of all, the friend will pray for me, bearing my burden as their own and reminding me that Jesus didn't ask us to live on a deserted island. He asked us to band together with believers, to encourage one another in our belief that He is more than we could ask or imagine.

As women who love Jesus, let's encourage one another to drop the veil of fine. Let's cast off our proud faces and be honest with each other.  It's in our moments of weakness that He is strong, right? Honestly, I hate being weak. My pride rebels against it. I want to be strong and in control. But the truth is I am weak, I do need others and He needs to be in control. Not me.

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Galatians 2:20