Honesty

“Some may regard the quality of character known as honesty to be a most ordinary subject. But I believe it to be the very essence of the gospel. Without honesty, our lives . . . will degenerate into ugliness and chaos”

(Gordon B. Hinckley, “We Believe in Being Honest,” Ensign, Oct. 1990, 2).

Being honest with myself is so challenging for me. I know that sounds harsh, and kinda strange, but let me explain. I grew my life, based on one lie after another. My mind naturally created, stories to keep my lies together, thus keeping my life from falling apart. 

When I started working on the ARP program, I didn't even realize my life was such a lie. As I started to take the first couple of steps, and begun to realize the lies. I also, realized that not only had my life become unmanageable, the lies were falling apart. The Lord was offering me two choices. To begin, a healing journey back to Him, in which I gave up the lies willingly. Or, He was going to allow my life of lies to continue to fall apart, and I would get to suffer the consequences of my life crumbling in front of me.

At this moment all I knew was lies. In fact, I didn't even know the depth of the lies. There wasn't any truth in my life, not that I could even recognize it anyway. The darkness of knowing my life was built on lies was deeper, and darker than you could have ever imagined.

There was no way for me to escape it, not on my own anyway. It was like being lost in the forest, and not even being able to see the forest for the trees. If I was going to make it out of this, the Lord was going to have to do it. My life wasn't just unmanageable, it was unlivable.