Truth

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Well, hey my babies, and welcome to another Gentle Hours. Before we get into anything today, I want you to give yourself a moment to settle into wherever you are. You may be getting ready for work, sitting in the car, before you walk into a building, lying in bed, trying to convince yourself that it is actually time to get up. Or maybe you have already been moving for a while, and this is the first opportunity that you had to be still for a minute. Wherever you are, I just want you to breathe. Take a slow breath in. And when you release it, I want you to release the need to have everything figured out before the day even gets started. Because today, I want to talk to you about one word, truth. And I think truth is very interesting because we usually talk about it in relation to other people. We want people to tell us the truth. We want honesty in our relationships. We want people to be upfront about their intentions, their feelings, what they did, what they meant, and what they want from us. And we become deeply frustrated when we discover that someone has been dishonest with us. But there is another relationship with truth that I think that we deserve just as much as attention. And that is the relationship we have with the truth we already know. There are things you know without anybody needing to explain them to you. There are things your heart has been trying to tell you for a long time, and you keep asking for another sign because the first five signs required you to do something you weren't ready to do. And baby, I understand. Sometimes we are not confused about the truth at all. Sometimes we are just comfortable with what the truth is going to require from us once we admit that we know it. Because once you admit that something isn't working anymore, you have to decide what you're going to do about it. Once you admit that you are tired, you may have to stop volunteering yourself for things you don't have the capacity to carry. Once you admit that somebody has changed, you may have to change how you deal with them. Once you admit that you have changed, you may have to stop forcing yourself into spaces and relationships and friendships that only make sense for a version of you that doesn't exist anymore. And sometimes it feels easier to just say that it's all confusing. You don't know. You're still trying to figure it out. You're gonna pray about it, you're gonna wait about it. And there are absolutely times when you genuinely do not know. There are times when we need to pray, wait, you know, gather the information and allow things to unfold before we make a decision. But there are also times when I don't know becomes a place we hide because I know would make us responsible for what happens next. So, for this week, I want you to be very, very gentle with yourself to tell yourself the truth. I don't need you to be dramatic with it, not the version, you know, that is influenced by some kind of fear that you are holding, not the version somebody else gave you because they think they know what is best for your life. I just want you to tell yourself the truth. And maybe the truth is you don't want something anymore that you spent years praying for. And that can be, you know, very, very difficult to admit because we sometimes believe that gratitude means we are never allowed to change our minds. We believe that because something was once an answered prayer, we have to continue wanting it forever. But sometimes, sometimes you can be grateful for what something gave you and still recognize that you have reached the end of what it can give. Maybe your truth is that you're disappointed. You kept trying to make yourself look at the positive because you didn't want to seem ungrateful or negative or difficult, but something hurt you. And you would never allowed yourself to acknowledge how deeply it hurt. You know, maybe the truth is that you miss somebody you know you shouldn't return to. And both of those things can exist at the very same time. You know, missing somebody does not always mean they belong back in your life. Sometimes your heart remembers the good without forgetting what the good cost you. You know, maybe the truth is that you have been saying yes because you are afraid of what will happen when you finally say no. Maybe you are afraid that people will stop calling, you know, that people will misunderstand you. You're afraid somebody will tell a version of a story that makes you look like the problem because you finally decided you couldn't keep participating in something that was hurting you. But but if saying no changes somebody's relationship with you, there will there may be some truth to that too. Maybe your truth has nothing to do with another person. Maybe you're just tired, baby. Maybe you have been operating on responsibility for so long that you don't even recognize exhaustion until your body forces you to pay attention. Baby, maybe you just need rest. Maybe you just need help. Maybe you need to stop pretending that you can handle everything simply because you have handled everything before. Being capable of carrying something does not mean you should always be the one carrying it. And this week I don't want the truth to feel like any kind of punishment. I don't want you sitting around searching through every part of your life trying to find something wrong. Truth can sound like, you know, I am doing much better than I thought I was. I handled that situation differently this time. I'm so proud of myself. I have grown. I don't respond the way I used to. I don't need anybody to understand me anymore. I actually like the person that I am becoming. I think sometimes we become so committed to finding what needs healing that we forget to acknowledge what was already healed. These are things that would have completely disrupted you a few years ago that you can now recognize, process, and move through without losing yourself in them. There are conversations you no longer need to have. There are explanations you no longer feel obligated to give. There are things you used to chase that you can now, you know, watch leave without running behind them. That is true too. And I want you to honor that. Sometimes it's the way your body relaxes when somebody leaves. Sometimes it's the peace you feel when you imagine yourself making a different decision. Sometimes it is realizing that every time you talk yourself into something, you spend the next several days trying to recover from it. I need you to pay attention to yourself, my baby. You have lived with you long enough to recognize when something doesn't sit right. And see, I know we are encouraged to give grace, and you know, I deeply believe in grace. I believe people can grow. I also believe that people can change. I believe we should leave room for people to become better than the worst thing that they have ever done. But grace does not require you to lie to yourself, and forgiveness does not require you to pretend that something did not happen. Love does not require you to keep changing the truth so somebody else can remain comfortable with the version of the story that they prefer. You can love people and tell yourself the truth about them, and you can forgive people and tell yourself the truth about what happened. You can wish somebody well and tell yourself the truth about why. You cannot continue walking beside them. Truth isn't only about recognizing what other people did to us. Sometimes truth turns the mirror around. And when it does, don't run from yourself. You're allowed to see something about yourself that needs change without deciding that everything about you is wrong. You can just simply say, I'm working on that. I could have handled that better. I was wrong. You know what? I need to apologize. And none of these statements remove your goodness, they just simply, you know, make room for your growth. So as we move into this week, my babies, I want you to stop arguing with what you already know. You don't have to make every decision today. You don't have to confront anybody today. You don't have to send a message, end a relationship, quit a job, make an announcement, or simply rearrange your life. Sometimes the first thing truth asks of us is just simply acknowledgement. Just admit it to yourself. That's it. Sit with what you know without immediately trying to change it, justify it, explain it away, or figure out what everybody else is going to think about it. And maybe, you know, you can tell yourself, I don't know what I'm going to do about it yet, but I'm no longer going to lie to myself while I figure it out. Take another breath for me. Slowly. And as you breathe out, I want you to remember that you do not have to be afraid of knowing yourself. You do not have to be afraid of recognizing that something has changed. You don't have to keep negotiating with what your spirit has already made very clear because accepting it may change the direction you thought your life was going. These are truths, and they will disappoint you. And there are truths that will also relieve you. There are truths that will require, you know, an apology truths that will require a boundary, truths that will require some kind of peace. And there are also truths that require you to just sit there and just sit on it. It requires nothing from you, just the courage to finally admit it. Before we close, I'd like to pray with you. God, I thank you for another week, another morning, and another opportunity to become more honest about who we are, where we are, and what we need. Give us the wisdom to recognize truth without allowing fear to distort it. Give us discernment when we genuinely do not know, courage when we do not know, and patience when the next step has not yet been revealed. Help us tell ourselves the truth with grace. Help us recognize the places where we have grown, the places where we still need work, and the places where we have remained longer than you intended because familiarity felt safer than change. Lord, give us peace with what is being revealed. Give us wisdom about what requires action and what simply requires acceptance. We only need enough light for where our feet are right now. Cover every person in listening to this as they move through this week, protect their minds, their homes, their families, their decisions, and their peace. Let truth become something that bridges them closer to you and closer to themselves rather than something they are afraid to face. And whenever truth leads us this week, give us the courage to follow it without abandoning ourselves along the way. In Jesus' name, amen. My babies, take your time this week. Listen to yourself, pay attention to what keeps returning, and when the truth finally becomes clear, don't punish yourself because you didn't see it sooner. And don't rush yourself because you didn't know what to do next. And when tomorrow comes, you'll deal with it as tomorrow requires. Alright. Have a gentle week. See you next week.