Say What You Need to Say

This is going to be one of those posts that comes from a place where a few hundred words won’t suffice.  Still, I will try to squeeze it all in.  I will try to convey something so near to me, that I risk the feeling, if you were to read between the lines too much, you would look straight into my soul.  Mostly, I hope, you will find something here that might cause you to say “Me too.  I feel that way, too.”

There is a favorite John Mayer song that says, “Say what you need to say…” Over and over, the chorus draws the images and faces of people in your life with whom your heart longs to connect.  If only just one time, you might like to sit and tie up a few loose ends.  

Maybe these people have left this life.  Maybe you never had that “one last chance” to say something that you knew you should have, and now there is no way to say it.  Regret is such a heavy burden that we carry with us from season to season until we find a place to lay it down.

Other people, that old friend you no longer talk to, a partner, an ex, a sibling you have grown apart from, a parent, a child… Our mind conjures up scenarios of what we would say if we could, and they jumble around in our heads on a non-stop loop.  They usually come with subtitles that run across the screen: How could you?  Why didn’t you apologize?  Why won’t you forgive me?  How could you just walk away?  You know I didn’t mean that…. I wish you knew I love you.

Some things are indeed better left unsaid.  Some people are just better out of your life.  And yet, we still can’t help but play out the scenes of what we would say if we could.  Is this not a sign that our spirits are restless?  

Our hearts long to finish things.  Sentences. Songs.  Stories… Words fill in the blanks so that we can turn the page.  So we can start new chapters.

Some would argue that it’s not necessary to “stir up old wounds,” yet we know that pain buried alive never dies.  Some of us were just taught to sweep things under rugs.  To not air out our grievances, to not let our emotions show.  We are taught to let bygones be bygones.  What does this even mean, anyway?  

Instead, we learn to put on happy faces and pretend that white elephants do not live in our homes and crowd our spaces, growing older right along side us. 

I’m not suggesting that we perpetuate anger, blame, resentment…  These are not the sentiments we need to give life to, but do need to deal with.  We want to write a better ending.  We want to be validated.  We want our hearts free from the chains that keep us bound to people who used to have a place within them. 

What am I trying to say?  I guess it is this — Words are powerful.  With words, God spoke this world into existence.  How we use them matters, of course.  But not allowing them to leave our mouths, causes them to turn inward.  They eat away at our spirits because they were not intended to stay unspoken.  They were intended to give life. 

Words build bridges.  Words transform us and transport us, moving us forward.  They heal us. When we empty them in the right way, they free up space within us so that we don’t have to carry them anymore.  

We all know how words, spoken in haste or ill will, can deeply wound us.  There are people who will never understand this, who will perpetually sling them like arrows to hurt us. They fear truth or accountability or making amends because they don’t have the capacity to be honest with themselves, so they run.  Let them be.  

The right words, healing words, words of love, words of forgiveness, words of Grace… they convey what our hearts feel so that they can go on beating unencumbered. They are meant to be shared.

And what if we can’t?  What if there are boundaries and fences they cannot cross? Then we speak them to God in prayer.  We write them in journals.  We put them in letters that we can choose to never send.  We put them in blogs. But we let them out so that they can be said somehow, someway.  We release them so they no longer rattle around inside of us, and so that God will do with them what He will.

Peace comes with letting these words go free.  Even when they aren’t received in the way that we would have hoped, we will know.  God will know.  Our hearts will know. 

As John Mayer says, “It’s better to say too much, than to not say what you need to say.” 

I pray these words speak to your heart.  I pray that whatever you are carrying that needs to be said, might find a way to leave the place they are buried and give them wings to fly.

They may not land how we would want.  They may not, on the surface, be welcomed. But they have the power of life and death.  Pray that God will give you the right words, and then ask that, like seeds planted, they will grow within the heart that needs to receive them.

Say them.