Left my “Life With God” Bible study once, not sharing on a share day. My walls went up. And I sat there knowing sharing is for everyone else, not for me.

 

And it made me sad.

 

I had gone thinking maybe. Maybe this time I would. Cuz I wanted to be a participant. Bible studies past, I would slink out. Wishing to be a wisp of smoke that could slip under the door unnoticed instead of having to reach for the door handle and make some apology. I would hole up in a bathroom stall for awhile or sit in an empty stairwell, privately process, and breathe; breathe like I’d been underwater too long, my heart racing, my head dizzy.

 

But that wasn’t who I wanted to be anymore. I wanted to be a part. I thought maybe I would take a small step and share a bit. But before any sharing had even begun my skittish insides were already backing out and away.

 

No, there’ll be no sharing, was the consensus inside me.

 

A few women in our group shared. Their voices hitched, their eyes brimmed, and I listened. Their stories were compelling. One or two, I could tell, ended up being more honest than they’d set out to be, and I sat there feeling nothing but empathy for them. I wanted them to say more and more and more, say all they would want or need to say. My whole being was shaking with the wishing that everyone could feel free to do that, that some part of me could do that without some other part of me condemning every utterance.

 

And then time ran out, as it always did. Time to close in prayer and say goodbye until next week. And again I left feeling unworthy of participating, of sharing. Believing it’s for everyone else, not me.

 

“Remember, you don’t have to share if you don’t want to or don’t feel comfortable,” our group leader always encouraged.

 

Trouble is, inside of me, one part may want to, but the rest of me clasps hands over my mouth and bolts. And it’s not precisely a matter of wanting to share or not wanting to. It’s more like an urge meeting an opportunity. Like feeling nauseous but somehow being able to hold down dinner until you see the toilet bowl. When opportunity beams porcelain white before you, you can barely contain it. Your mouth opens and what was down comes up.

 

“You don’t have to share if you don’t want to.”

 

Even if you could manage the gushing, reduce it maybe to a dribble, a small urp, with more left on the inside than in the basin, still, no matter how politely and cleanly you try to manage it, you’ve still knowingly and willingly urped in front of everybody. And who would ever want to do that?

 

But sharing some secrets is like that. Your eating disorder. Your alcoholism. Your childhood rape. It can feel like throwing up something messy and smelly and unwelcome. Something everyone, including yourself, will then look around the room and wonder just who is going to clean this up?

 

And some may be gagging.

 

Some people are okay with the seeing, the hearing, the smelling of others urping. They’ll maybe even hold your hand and your hair and pat your back till the waves pass. But some are not. Some see their own secrets and others’ secrets as something that should stay between them, God, and the bathroom basin.

 

And so I’ve worried before and wondered… In a mixed crowd, if I knowingly and willingly choose to subject others to my story is that selfish? Would it be selfish of me to share in front of the two precious elderly ladies who seem to only want to talk about sweet-smelling Jesus? With them I was worried, afraid even the barest of bones in the basin would be too much.

 

But this time I had wanted to.

 

I wanted to share about my struggle these past few years to face my abusive past and fix the broken bits that have accompanied me well into my present. I wanted to share about the bouts of depression that were getting better and the thoughts of suicide that were getting better too. I wanted to share about how God was helping me through all of it, even the cutting, my most secret shame. I wanted to share how I was learning through the study that my autonomous responses — my most used defense mechanisms — kept me depending on me and kept me from dependence on Him; a big and life-changing revelation for me.

 

My fear, though, was that this stuff, even the bare bones, condensed to under ten minutes, without any details at all, would still be too scary to share, too shocking, too smelly, too uncomfortable-making for everyone.

 

So I didn’t.

 

It felt like such a catch-22 inside.  Ashamed if I do and ashamed if I don’t.  Heck, I felt ashamed for even wanting, needing to share. Catches like these always made me wanna give up and go home, bolt up the box and bury it, be a silent wall forever. Even if that wasn’t who I wanted to be anymore.

 

I didn’t share that time. But I did learn something about myself in group that day. I felt my insides cheering for others as they shared about their hard places, the secret shames and secret struggles in their lives, and I realized I would want someone else to share if my shoe was on their foot.

 

Even if the sharing was smelly. And required a bucket.

 

And even if I couldn’t cheer for myself yet — the why of that its own nest of knots to unravel – I thought maybe these other secret-sharers and wannabe-secret-sharers would cheer for me.

 

Maybe.

 

 

Photo Credit: dirtyboxface