A Different Kind of Love StorySample

Secrets Don’t Make Friends 

Let’s talk about secrets for a minute. Secrets are the things we actively try to hide to protect ourselves or someone else. When a secret is a secret—when it’s in the dark—it’s mysterious. It’s alluring. But when a secret is brought into the light, you can see it for what it really is. An illusion. A trick. Secrets often hurt us and those around us.

The thing is, when the secrets are our secrets, it doesn’t always feel like they’re hurting anyone. Maybe we’re aware that the things we harbor are potentially harmful to ourselves, but we will also use any excuse possible to justify our hidden actions. Or in my case, the lie I told myself about my eating disorder: I am only hurting myself, so it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.

Secrets, by nature, demand to be dealt with. The Bible tells us as much: “What is hidden will be seen. And what is out of sight will be brought into the open and made known” (Luke 8:17).  At seventeen years old, I had a raging eating disorder. I had an illness that touched each and every day, each and every person in my family. And I was hanging on to it for dear life. The thing was, my addiction to my eating disorder was a symptom of the actual issue, which was my absolute inability to grasp my God-given self-worth. My inner dialogue ranged from you’re not pretty enough, good enough, or smart enough to something is wrong with you.

My Bible hero Paul has a few things to say about self-talk: “If anything is excellent or worthy, think about those things” (Philippians 4:18). In other words, think about what you’re thinking about.

Yes—thoughts will pop into our heads. Ones that we don’t intentionally create. But we have a choice in how we handle those thoughts. We can choose to hang on to them, rehearse them, and cling to them like a lifeline. Or we can choose to redirect them.

You can think about what is . . .

True. What does God say about you?

Pure. What are God’s motives toward you?

Worthy of praise. What has God done for you to prove His faithfulness?

When we move our thoughts in a new direction—one framed by God’s words about us—we begin to hear a different voice in our head.

What secret self-talk do you use? Challenge yourself from Philippians 4 to instead think about what is true, pure, and worthy of praise. If that is hard for you, why?