Two Are Better Than One - You Can't Have Trust Without Telling the Truth

Every Christian knows that lying is wrong, but how many times have you been upset about something, and, when your friend asks what’s wrong, said nothings wrong?

This, I think, is the stupidest lie ever. If your friend asked obviously they already know that something is wrong. You’re not fooling anybody by saying nothing is wrong.

Now, I understand that sometimes you just don’t want to talk about what ever is wrong. There are times that even I don’t want to talk about what’s wrong I just want to forget it - but I think a better way of saying it “I don’t want to talk about it.” I know that, for me at least, when a friend says nothing is wrong it always makes me fell like they don’t trust me, or aren’t close enough to me to confide in me. Where as, when they say that they just don’t want to talk about it I always feel better because I know that it has nothing to do with not being able to confide in me - they just don’t want to talk about it - that, however, is beside the point.

If a friend does or says something that hurts you it’s your duty to tell them, so they have the chance to apologize, or explain what they really meant.

I remember one time when Heather told me that she was rather upset by the fact that, after several weeks of saying I would, I still hadn’t read the Sherlock Holmes short story I agreed to read. I hadn’t realized that my not reading it had upset her, but as soon as she told my apologized, and immediately printed if off. By the time I went to bed that night I had finished it.
If Heather hadn’t told me that is was bothering her, I never could have fixed it.

Not talking to friends is like putting up a wall around you - it blocks others out. How can you expect to be close with friends if you will not tell them how you’re feeling? How can you expect them to know that you don’t appreciate it when they tease you about your writing, or the fact that you talk so much if you don’t tell them? How would you feel if you accidentally said something that hurt your friend and they didn’t tell you - didn’t give you a chance to apologize for it?

I’ve always been very talkative, but when it came to things that people said that hurt me, I wouldn’t say anything. I would just clamp shut and expect the other person to know that it hurt me.

Growing up my best friend was my cousin, Molly. We understood each other without even trying and we always agreed, so we never had any arguments. I wasn’t used to having to tell people when they hurt me - so I didn’t. I just kept quiet and when they didn’t stop, I pulled away. I nearly lost one of my best friends because of this.

But when I was feeling left out, and worried that Heather would leave me, I couldn’t keep it in. I did as long as I could, but it got to be too much, and I had to talk to her.

ne night, when I was feeling my worst I told Heather everything - everything I had been feeling the past few months. It felt liberating to have everything out in the open, and it allowed Heather to help me then - to make sure I knew that I she was not going to leave me.

Since then we’ve tried to be completely honest with each other, and it’s gotten much easier. It’s not so hard to come to her when something she has said has hurt me. I try to talk about it before bed time whenever it does happen, and it’s not something I dread anymore. I always know that she didn’t mean anything by it, and I know that talking about it will bring us closer than we were before. By talking to each other we’ve been able to help each other get over a lot of our friendship struggles (most of which involved fears of not being friends anymore) and if we weren’t so honest with each other I don’t know if we would still be friends. We’ve never had much in common, and, besides the fact that we love each other dearly, our strongest friendship tie is that we both know we can tell the other anything and not be judged, and not have to worry about the other not loving us because we have struggles.

As Taylor Swift so wisely said once,

"I don't think you should ever be afraid of honesty and of being honest that you're not perfect."