I’m seven months since the last baby was born and still fighting with my jeans.
She’s wearing hers like a perfect fit and I can’t help but say what I’m really thinking, “Man, you look great. You just look so good. How’d you do that? How’d you get back to the pre-baby shape so quick?”
And I don’t know what I’m expecting. But I’m not expecting her to say what she’s really thinking. I’m not expecting that at all.
“Stress. A lot of stress. I was running and then I got too busy and now I eat once a day and grab a chocolate bar. It’s not good. But it is what it is.”
I’m floored right there in the back of church before we head out to Fudruckers together. I’m so used to hearing the polite answer I think I’ve forgotten how comforting the real one is.
It’s powerful when a friend steps out from behind fine and looks you in the eyes.
Christy gives me friendship instead of fine.
She gives me freedom to share my washer-packed-up, toilet-backed-up, kids-all-been-sick-all-week, sometimes-I-think-I’m-losing-my-mind, opposite-of-fine answers too.
It’s like remembering how to exhale. When you’re reminded that it actually doesn’t come easy all the time to everyone.
That fine is usually an awkward diminishing of the truth.
Grown up camouflage.
Karine emails me encouragement and I’m getting ready to email her back when I pick up the phone instead. It takes me a while to find it. I’m always losing it under books and Kindergarten reading assignments that somehow get left to the last moment.
But when I do, it’s worth it.
Because her voice is laced with warmth and understanding when I tell her how my “study” is fighting the onslaught of miniature 18-wheelers, stuffed dogs and legos. I sit in an island of sunshine adrift in a Tuesday afternoon of upheaval and she doesn’t flinch when I tell her I don’t feel fine.
Instead she tells me about her own day of doctor’s tests and home schooling and undone dishes.
We come out of hiding together.
The baby sleeps while I listen to Karine’s stories and laugh so hard that I start to feel normal again. And when we’re done talking. When I’ve started dinner and fought with Jackson over whether he will eat brats or not and told Micah to take off his shoes, I open my inbox and find she’s sent me a post script to our conversation.
She’s sent pictures of her every day chaos. Kitchen, living room and hall way. I’m smiling or maybe I’m crying.
Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
~ John 8:31-32.
I go back to the brats and the son who insists on trying to feed Zoe and my chest isn’t quite so tight.
And when we go out to dinner on Sunday night. When we re-arrange schedules and ask good men to watch many kids. When we plan times and which mall we’ll meet at.
When me and her and Connie and Dana sit down for two hours over Chinese food and conversation – no one wastes time being fine.
::
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I couldn’t love this post more. And when you write, “no one wastes time being fine,” I think that. right. there! sums up the beauty of real life friendships {and why we all need them}.
I love you to pieces, on line and in real life! xoxo
i love this post, and i love this community in which women write the real.
so true! i wasted many years thinking i had to pretend to always be “fine.” i am now blessed beyond belief to have girlfriends to walk the “real” paths with.
I’d be happy to send you pictures of “things are so not fine”. :-)
I could not like it more either. My sister always yells at me when I say “fine”, which I do. I hide all the other stuff. Why??? I have no answer. Every single woman needs to read this and listen. And then go out to dinner with friends, and practice leaving the “fine” to the fairy tale books, and live the real life. Superb, Lisa Jo!
Tears … lots of tears. There is freedom in being {not} fine, isn’t there? In calling someone just because the knot in your throat is fighting for control and if you don’t speak the words, well, you wonder if you’ll ever be able to speak them … ever. We hide behind ourselves and our illusions {delusions?} of what life ought to look like. And somewhere there is a snake, a deceiver, a liar, who is laughing with delight for when we do hide, he wins a small battle. But when we step out, drop the masks … when we stop hiding, he’s lost and Truth wins. Because Truth is beauty and grace and love and wholeness … and Truth sees all of those in us and our mess.
Oh Lisa-Jo, time and again you point me back to truth, to Truth … and to the freedom found there. What a gift you are.
Sweet Teri Lynne – you’re one of those gifts of a friend where I know I never need to hide behind fine. You are a wonder.
yes, what Teri Lynne said!
Thanks Lisa-Jo!
I am thankful for you Lisa-Jo! You are a gift and so are your words! Thanks for letting me be real :)
Love you!
I, too, enjoy and relax in friendships like these. Isn’t it wonderful to have been blessed with “real” friends … the ones who blast through the fine, don’t allow the space of time between calls to be a hinderance and simply picks up where we left off last call; weather a day or a month ago.
Real, adult friendships are such a blessings. Now off to my mountain of laundry and bible college studies!
Blessings.
Absolutely. You are so right. I want others to be real with me. I take risks to be real with others all the time. And its such a gift when someone you expect to say “fine” actually lets you in and takes their guard down. It causes you to want to reciprocate and the fear lessens in being real. This is a lovely post, thank you so much for hitting publish!
I love it. I hate fine. It is the killer of corporate feeling and community experience. Well done.
This is my mantra. I tell people the truth. We can all be “good girls” who dance around in our masks (thanks Emily Freeman) or we can foster healthy relationships and dare to not be fine sometimes.
I love this. Especially because I’m not really feeling very ‘fine’ right now. I love my friend(s) who just let me…be. Just as I am. (sigh…great post)
Love this post! Isn’t it amazing how some friends can just see through “fine” and linger long enough to draw us out of this pretence. It’s the hug or knowing look offered when “fine” is the answer given, then suddenly we know they know we’re not so fine, and the truth can come tumbling out and we can breathe again. Thanks for sharing these truths!
That was so lovely Lisa-Jo. It was refreshingly real.
I have tears in my eyes. As my health further declines, so do most of my friends. You are very blessed indeed.
After my pregnancy I lost 30 pounds UNDER MY PRE-PREGNANCY WEIGHT. I looked like a heroin chic model. I had just started a new job and people couldn’t believe how amazing I looked. Meanwhile I was baffling doctors who were testing me for cancer. They never found out what caused it but I believe it was the start of my Lupus.
Very thin or very heavy, you never really know what’s behind a person’s story.
“no one wastes time being fine…” Yes! This is real friendship–to meet each other in our messes. You are the real deal kind, and I love that about you!
Oh, Lisa-Jo, you have no idea how much I needed to not be “fine” today! Thank you so much for sharing your heart, and for making it ok for me to sit, and cry, and reach out today! Tears and hugs.
What a brilliant post! It’s so important to be able to move past “fine” with a good friend or two.
Yes, Yes, Yes! This is just what I needed, wanted, craved to hear today. I need to know that I’m not the only one that thinks hidin’ behind fine isn’t a fine way to live- even when I’m cowering behind fine myself. Thanks Lisa-Jo!
Love these words of yours today! “No one wastes time being fine” – oh there is sweet freedom there for sure!
Friendships like that where you can just be honest are such a precious gift.
Yes! Let’s hold hands and jump right out of hiding together. Love this. All of it.
Thank you for this . . .
Fine hurts so much.
I have been yearning for friends to be real with . . .
and I have found them.
Even though they are not geographically connected to me, in my hearts, they are helping me to “just be.
Fine doesn’t let me receive the support from HIM, and from the angel friends that He sens my way…
Thank you so much for this,
tears in my eyes.
Oh, this was wonderful. And I couldn’t help smiling and getting teary all at the same time as I read this since I’ve spent my morning dealing with a whole plumbing backup of not fine over here in the basement. There is such a relief in having those friendships where we can tell the real truth and not put on the smiling, happy mask all the time. Thanks for posting this!
“We come out of hiding together.”
What an amazing post, Lisa-Jo. It’s incredible, isn’t it, how often we hide behind “fine” but your post reminds me that not only is it okay to NOT be fine, but it’s also okay to share that truth with a good friend. We don’t always have to put on a brave face, and it’s so good to know that.
Thanks for sharing today! :)
Oh, amen, Lisa-Jo! Fine is conFINE-ing (and weak). Truth is freeing and strong. Thank you for this reminder. You bless so many.
And it’s even harder to admit the un-fineness of everything people not close to us, or the people that look perfect. It’s really hard not to try looking better than I really am! But you’re right about that freedom, because as soon as a friend and I start swapping the nitty-gritty dirty details, our hearts bind in a way that would never happen with “Fine, thank you!”
That line of “no one wastes time being fine” just changed my world & I thank you for that. What are we if not true to ourselves? To our thoughts? Thank you for the perspective & the lesson is lowering the camouflage. ‘Fine’ is not the answer.
Cheers!
Heather @ Find That Warm Fuzzy Feeling
YES! I’m right there with you! Freedom in Truth-Telling!
Lisa-Jo,
This could not have been written any better! I am hushed in my spirit right now. I don’t have many real-life friends,,, and wish that all the camouflage would disappear. I am with you sweet sister.. right in the trenches of diapers, sickies, ill-fitting jeans, and the fun of one clean room at a time.
Thank you for refreshing my soul. You are so real. So real.
September
I want to be fine, I really do… but my reality just sits there, staring me square in the face, and it’s a hard reality, and I’m tired, and oftentimes scared, and frequently on the verge of tears, and yet if you ask me how I’m doing this week, I’ll probably tell you I’m fine, or I may even say I’m good, as I struggle to find the balance between admitting that this season of our life (oldest son battling brain cancer and devastating brain injury effects from the surgery) is so stinking hard and the fact that in the midst of it all I have to say (with Dave Ramsey) that I’m really “better than I deserve”…
I find myself trying to figure out this paradox that I’m living, the one where life is hard and I get overwhelmed and yet I really am fine because I’ve come to know that peace that passes understanding in a way that I never really understood before. There is a storm, and yet, there is such peace, and here I am somewhere between storm and peace, yet not between, for I am truly in the storm and truly in the peace at the same time… and so I’ll say fine… and at the same time, I’ll laugh and/or cry as I tell you about the apple core under the armchair, the lack of spelling lessons completed, and yet another kitchen appliance going on some sort of appliance-strike (did they form a union when while we were away?!)…
Pass the coffee, because, yes, I do need another cup!
{love the heart in your writing!}
Oh Ali, yes the hard in between places – I’ve lived there too. And in those moments when I wasn’t fine, it was at least well with my soul. Blessings on you, sister.
These words speak encouragement to me! Thanks for sharing.
It’s so nice to know – be reaffirmed? – that our lives, crazy as they are at times, are not all that unique – that others go through the same difficulties and craziness as we do!
“It’s powerful when a friend steps out from behind fine and looks you in the eyes.”
Oh you nailed it! This is so beautiful and perfect. It’s how friendship should be. Dear true friends.
Thank you for putting voice to this.
A fellow homeschooling mama posted the link to this on facebook. What a beautiful post so full of truth. Thank you! I needed that this morning.
You inspired me to pick up the phone and call my bff who moved hundreds of miles away to connect with the “Real, beyond the fine.” Great blog post. Thanks so much for sharing!
Oh my word. This is so truth and so beautiful. Thanks for the reminder!!!
“The truth will set you free”
Thank you, a good reminder for me to be honest with myself and especially those close to me and learn to allow and even encourage others to be truthful.
Love this post! You’ve given a great account of what makes a true friendship. Thank you for sharing :)
Right to my “un-fine” heart this went! This awakening of just being who I am and living right where I am at and knowing it is okay… it is all so new to me and I am thanking God for all of it!! Thank you, too, for these truth-injecting, soul-freeing words!
Oh! I love this!!!
I miss my friends I wasn’t FINE with! I moved 45 minutes away…and it seems like 1,000 sometimes.
There is something so life-giving about truth-telling. Why don’t we do it more easily? Getting out from behind the ‘fine’ and looking one another right in the eye – yes, yes, exactly right!
Oh, and I LOVE the pictures of your boy ‘hiding’ in the grass – and the wonderful angle of the light in these fall photos. Beautifully done from start to finish…
The joys of beautiful friendships! Have enjoyed your writings. What a wonderful job you must have with Dayspring! Many blessings!
I LOVE when people are real and blurt out truth instead trite, rehearsed answers! I can usually tell those who are authentic even by my own blurted out responses; those who recoil just “can’t handle the truth” :) and those who nod knowingly are those with whom I will find kindred friendship!
Oh, this entry REALLY spoke to me. I was just telling a friend that I have the hardest time answering, “How are you?” I want to be optimistic and focus on the positives, but part of me wants to be real so people will understand why I’m not doing some of the things I used to or how they could pray for me. I guess it’s just hard to know which people really care and which ones are just making polite conversation or just want to hear what they want to hear.
This post just made me so thankful for having friends who really want to know the truth and love me as I am, even when I’m a mess.