I have been re-reading the Two Roads/Two Rooms booklet over the last couple of days.  This is a resource that we put together based on comments from our readers, asking for a short treatment of this content.  Seems like a lot of you are looking for a resource that you can put into the hands of friends and family!  So, we made the booklet for just that purpose. Anyhow, I was reading and came to this passage that takes place when our traveler enters the Room of Grace and is asked, “How are you?”  He is cautious because answering truthfully in the Room of Good Intentions has burned him. But finally he just lets it fly! He says:

Well, I’ve been before and so, not to be duped twice, I answer, “I’m fine.  Pretty fine…who wants to know?”  And the room stays quiet.  Gun-shy from the first room, I interpret their silence as judgment, and so I yell out, “All right, listen!  I’m not fine. I haven’t been for a long time.  I’m tired. I feel guilty, lonely and depressed.  I’m sad most of the time and I can’t make my life work.  And if you knew half of my daily thoughts you’d want me out of your little club.  So there, I’m doing not fine!  Thanks for asking!”

I love this passage because I had wanted to do that.  I had wanted to be open and honest about how not OK I really was.  So over the last couple of years I have started to be open and honest about letting people know what’s really going on.  Most of you know from reading other posts that I am bi-polar and wrestle regularly with my disease.  And you also know about my struggles with alcohol.  For a time I was so embarrassed about both these things, so afraid that I would be judged, so I told people that I was “fine.”  But a couple years ago it clicked for me that if I was going to live in the Room of Grace I needed to start telling the truth.  It felt risky, but it also felt better than covering up all the time.

And here’s what happened.  Being honest about who/how I really am has opened the doors to ministry as Joanne and I both have had the opportunity to talk to couples dealing with mental illness or addiction.  The response has been incredible.  We blog about all this stuff as a way to share with couples that they can survive these things.  And the comment we hear more than any other is this: you guys are so honest!  That is the best compliment we could get, because it’s what we strive for.  Couples are getting help and hope simply because we are honest with our struggles.

Here in the Room of Grace honesty is the only way to go!  Is it risky?  Sure it is.  There are a ton of people out there living in the Room of Good Intentions, and this honesty seems shocking.  But at the same time, it is attractive to so many and may in some little way whisper to them, “Wouldn’t it feel good to be honest, to be out with it? Come to the Room of Grace.  You can tell the truth about you and be loved more for doing so, not less.  There is no judgment here in the Room of Grace.”

So my ah-ha moment this week is that the Room of Grace leads to a ministry of grace.  It’s not that we all sit in the Room of Grace and share honestly with one another and leave it at that.  When we enter that Room of Grace, when we participate in that life, we open the door to ministry to others, no matter where they may find themselves in the journey.  I love that!

Feel free to check out the Two Roads/Two Rooms booklet  https://app.etapestry.com/cart/LeadershipCatalyst/default/item.php?ref=2737.0.824491 to get the rest of the story, or buy copies to give away. It may be the first step in encouraging someone you know and care about to enter into the wide-open life.

Filed under: GRACE by toben