Living a Less Than Life

I recently viewed a movie about a man who traveled the country holding seminars on grief and the grief process. He helped other people navigate through their grief positively and successfully. His seminars developed on the heels of a book he'd written based on the subject. It was a national best seller. He was a popular author and much in demand. He wrote the book from his own experiences as a result of losing his wife in a fatal car accident.
I bought this movie for $9.99 plus tax. I thought it was going to be a romantic comedy. After all Jennifer Aniston starred in it. She doesn't do anything but comedy and the television show Friends right? I was expecting witty dialogue that made you laugh out loud, comedic tension between the two main characters (hereafter, Burke and Eloise), and the effect on others their relationship impacted. I was expecting to see myself in the movie....mostly due to the fact that some of my romances from the past played like comedies....or rather I should say, played like tragic comedies. Initially I simply thought my better half would enjoy it....I'm more an action movie guy myself....so I got the movie.
The plot was much more dramatic than comedic, much to my surprise and initial disappointment. I immediately apologized to my significant other and offered an optional viewing of Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween. She declined that option....still trying to figure out why.
The subject I thought was handled with gentleness and dignity. I mean it was about grieving the loss of a loved one. Not exactly a topic to make a romantic comedy of. The twist came when we realized that Burke, doing all these grief recovery seminars, was also still grieving his loss because he lied about one small detail of the incident. In his book and testimony in the seminars he shares that his wife was alone in the car and lost control when she tried to avoid hitting a dog standing in the middle of the road. The car slammed into a tree on the drivers' side killing her instantly. In actuality, he was driving the car, and it slammed into the tree on the passenger side. For years he blamed himself for her death. The irony was, while he was helping others heal, he hadn't experienced any healing for himself....he hadn't moved one step beyond the battered car and the broken body of his wife....due to the denial of this one specific fact. From that point forward he covered it up, lied about it, wrote a book about grief, went on a book tour, then a seminar tour and still carried that spec of denial with him. It haunted him like a spectre. And all his success couldn't fix him.
Denial is debilitating, it paralyzes....keeps us from moving forward, keeps us from coming clean. It keeps us stuck....in a rut.....of living a life we were never intended to live. It sticks us with a "less than life". Denial tells us what we want to hear and shields us from reality. I drank alcohol; denial told me I didn't have an alcohol problem....that I was fine, that I could hold my licquor, that nobody could even tell I was drinking when I did. Even when I lost jobs, relationships, respect, and driving privileges.... denial kept telling me I didn't have a drinking problem. I believed that. It was easier to believe I didn't have a drinking problem than it was to face it and fight it. Facing and fighting just seemed too strenuous and exhausting. I was stuck in a "less than life" and even denied that!
When my world shattered it was everyone's fault but my own. Denial, you see, will lull you into thinking your problems are because of someone else or something else. Denial is an expert at conning you into placing the responsibility for your issues, addictions, and faults on circumstances or people. "If it weren't for the promotion I didn't get...", "if my wife hadn't left me....".......these are the kinds of things denial teaches us to say. And we stay stuck in that "less than life".
I didn't want to live a "less than life". I hated living at that address. In the deepest part of me I knew the truth, I just didn't want anyone else to. My problem was a shameful one. I was ashamed every time I drank to drunkeness. I buried that shame and kept on drinking. I was afraid of coming clean, of confessing my problem. I just wanted to keep it to myself. I did this mostly because I feared what everyone else would think of me. It was like I was living two separate lives or something. The fact is everyone around me already knew. Isn't that a pip? They already knew! My children knew, my parents knew, my siblings knew, my co-workers knew, my friends knew, and even people I went to church with knew. I was the only one who didn't think anyone else knew. Denial is a very strong deceiver.
Denial went out of its way to keep me from coming clean...convinced me that coming clean would be much harder than drinking. Denial also lies. After a horrible incident with one of my children, happened when I was drunk of course, and with strong encouragement from my best friend, I came clean. I admitted my problem, that I needed help. In that confession the weight of the world fell from my shoulders. We make confession out to be the bad guy. You know, like when we confess something we've done that isn't positive; we think everyone is gonna walk out of our lives and we will be alone to face the music of our mistakes. I am finding most people walk away from us when we deny our problem and continue to live at the address of a "less than life." They walk away because they are exhausted from trying to show us and help us through the problem we swear we don't have. When I confessed my problem and started getting help, God surrounded me with a host of people, angels, that brought encouragement and friendship. They drove the U-Haul to my address of a "less than life" and helped me pack up and move to the right side of the tracks.....to the address of "the life God intended me to live". I like living there. The sky is bluer, the air is fresher, and the lawn is greener. It isn't always utopia, but it is living in the Land of Oz compared to that "less than life".
"What about Burke in the movie?", you ask. "What happened to him?" Well, he met a girl, Eloise. She had a way of making him look at his reality of denial, of seeing into the parts of him he made unavailable and that were dark.....and she stayed, like true friends do, as he struggled to come clean. He did, publicly, at one of his seminars. It was his beginning in freedom. He kisses the girl at the end...... coming clean you see, sets you free to move forward with your life...and you get to kiss the girl. Happy endings always make me cry!
We have choices, we always have choices in life. If you are in denial and deep inside you know it, as I did....come clean....it will free you to see your tomorrows differently and you'll be amazed to find that many in your world are praying to come alongside you and help you move to the right side of the tracks to "the life God intended you to live."