You got a minute?  Can I offer some unsolicited advice?  I mean, waaaaaaaaaay unsolicited.  Like, the kind of advice you really don’t want to hear, but I’m gonna eventually say anyway because I love you.

You gotta deal with this matter.  You have to.  Hear me?  It’s going to ruin your health (even more than it already has), your marriage and your family.  This thing is bigger than you, and you need help to get through it.

I’m here.

WE are here.

I’m going to say things you won’t like, and that you may even hate me for.  I have already thought of all the outcomes, and I have concluded that you cannot hate me more than I love you.  So, I’m starting out like this, to give you a heads up that I know what’s up, and I am going to force it into the light so that you can be free of the burden.

It will hurt.  I’m not going to lie and say this is going to be easy.  There will be tears and screams, and possibly even some threats.  Not from me, but from you.  I anticipate it and I am already forgiving it.  But we are still going to deal with it.

A lie is a lie is a lie.  Did you know that the human is the only creature capable of lying to itself?  We can do whatever we think is “justified” and we can say that “it doesn’t hurt anyone,” but the truth is that one lie causes you to make another.  And another, and another…until the lie is bigger than you and it’s spinning out of control, and then you have to lie to yourself and say, “It’s all going to be okay.  Life is temporary.  We should live and have fun!”

Only, you’re not really living.  You’re lying.

Lying is cheating, and cheating is infidelity.  Whether it is committed against your spouse, your friends, or your God. None of us are perfect, but I believe we are put here to learn to love, and we cannot love a lie.  We cannot knowingly support a lie and be truly happy and at peace.

Do you know why we Catholics go to Confession?  Because it forces us to say out loud what we have tried so hard to hide.  Confession often is misunderstood as being punishment itself, until we get in there and participate in the Sacrament.  There is such immense freedom in letting it out – really letting it out.  Once you say it, it’s outside of you, and there’s someone right there beside you to tell you that God loves you and heals you and wants you to experience this freedom.

I want you to experience freedom too.  I know you feel like you will lose freedom if you come clean.  Realize that as part of the healing process, YES, your habits will have to change.  Changing your habits will change your mindset.  Changing your mindset will enrich your life.  Enriching your life will enable you to live and grow to who you are supposed to be.

I am not judging you.  I am not perfect.  We all make mistakes.  But I hope you love me enough to be this honest when you see me heading down the wrong road.

I hope you will force me to deal with it.

I have been vague on purpose, for the privacy of my friend.  This advice could be given to anyone for any situation.  If you got an email from me with a direct link to this post, then I’m talking to you.  And I love you.

[5 minutes later] Oops… this does NOT apply to those of you who are subscribed to receive automatic emails to my posts.  Yikes.  Sorry about that!!