Sometimes the truth is just a big fat lie. I was thinking about this the other day because one of my little clients was telling me that she is stupid.
"It's twue, it's the twuth," she kept saying. "I am so dumb. Evewybody says so."
She's trying to convince me, because she knows I believe otherwise.
She's told me before that her brain is messed up. And I have told her what I think about learning differences.
I told her that different is good. That we need people who have different ideas, other ways of seeing things.
I told her that Albert Einstein's teachers said he was an idiot.
But she failed some classes and the other students have told her she's dumb. She's heard this so much, and experienced it to be true, and this truth, this big fat lie, forms the core of her extremely unhappy existence.
I'm the anomaly in her system. And she's trying to get me to fit, to change my silly way of thinking to what is clearly the truth.
Meanwhile, I'm hoping to bring her around to my way of thinking. I've had 37 more years of practice in stubborn than she has. I think the odds are in my favor.
I was thinking about her this morning, because some of my truths are big fat lies, too.
I am so different. Nobody could understand me.
My pain doesn't matter as much as other people's. I should be able to suck it up and get through this.
I'm not important. What I think doesn't matter.
I hold these truths to be self-evident. I've experienced them over and over. And I feel it, so it must be true.
Except it's a big fat lie.
And I sink so easily into it, this quicksand from hell. And find myself saying to God, "I'm bad. I don't matter. It's true. It's the truth."
These days, I can sort of picture God in the playroom with me, saying, "Honey, could you just look at me for a minute? I want to tell you something really important. I love you. I made you different on purpose. Different is good. We need your way of seeing things. You matter to us. Let me in. Let me care. Let me cry with you."
I'm counting on that Love that never lets me go, to beat out all the stupid big fat lies that sound so much like gospel truth some days.
And I figure God has about an eternity more practice in stubborn than I do. I think the odds are in His favor.