"I'm fine."

"It's fine."

"That's fine."

It's all fine. Isn't it? 

I remember when I was on TV in that splash of incredible good luck, and I remember what someone tweeted: That I was ridiculously happy. The implication being, who is that happy? The follow-up: Surely, she's not really that happy. 

And no, I'm not. All those people who saw twenty some minutes of my life have missed the lie of "fine." 

How many times do I say I'm fine when really, I'm just a mess? 

I've been a mess this week. And it's only Tuesday.

The physical mess always starts first. Something is almost always breaking in me, and I don't share that, because really, who wants to hear that every day? Who wants to hear about my lack of energy, my long sleep that rivals Aurora's, the way I wake up every morning and look at the clock and wonder how in the world I slept so long. The day's to-do list running away from me before I've even properly opened my eyes, the groan of wasted time. The should haves start. 

How taking the ornaments off the tree and putting them away makes my heart pound faster than it should. Putting away laundry? Seems like running a sprint. 

How I can't shake this feeling that something is wrong, deep in the marrow of me, but there's nothing that's really jumping out and saying "pay attention to me!"

When friends ask how I am, I say "fine." Because who really wants to hear that I'm not? And they have their own burdens--children, houses, finances, pregnancies, unexpected things that burden the back in a way it wasn't burdened, five minutes ago, before the letter was opened or the email addressed. 

"I'm fine."

The uninvited guest, that voice that says "You are broken. You are unlovable. You are worthless." It always rears its head at times like these, and I know it's not true--I know that Christ loves me, that God is always good and I am always loved, that the value of a person isn't in personal perfection, but in the sheer existence of said person. That God made us at all. It doesn't matter how broken I am. Not to God. Not to the people who love me.

But the voice echoes, that voice that started back in the Garden, the voice of, "Who could love such a burden? Who would want such a burden?" Who wants the late-night phone calls with ER rushes and the medical bills that never end and an email that says hearing comes at a cost of $10,000? Who wants to be that constant burden to someone else? No one, right. Because we just want to be "fine." 

The yoke is easy and the burden light. Really? Is it? 

He says it is. And I know that I can trust Him, if I can trust anyone in this world, it's Him. But that Trust, that joy, it's so hard wrung. Why is it so much easier to believe the lie, than the truth? Why is hard to believe that we're loved---that I am loved--but so easy to believe the thoughts that I'm worthless, broken, not worthy. 

Why is it so hard to believe that Christ, that one who doesn't lie to us, and never will--the one who suffered so much to prove His love for us, the one that gives me everything I need--really loves me? Us? 

The battle for joy, for assurance, for love--it hides behind "I'm fine." Or behind those tweets or Facebook messages that people leave that are calling out for attention and affirmation. 

Ann Voskamp, in her latest bible study, says that we all just want to be loved. That's what everything comes down to. She also says that love is being inconvenienced. 

How do you feel loved when the Enemy says that all you are is one big inconvenience? 

Why is truth so much harder to believe than a lie--especially when we know it's a lie? 

I don't know. 

For all the ridiculously happy moments, there are an equal amount of moments in the dark where the only prayers are the ones from the Psalms that cry of desolation. The words from the Cross. The "Lord, Lord...."....wordless prayers. Help me see that I am not worthless. Help me. Bring me up from this pit. You've got to carry this, Lord, because I can't. I just don't know what to do with this. 

The desire is there to not burden other people with all of us. All the human messiness, all the problems, all the emotions. But God made us for community. He didn't make us to hide behind the "fine." 

It's not always fine. But in a sense, it is, because God's got this. God is always good and I am always loved. No matter what the Enemy whispers in the dark places at night, in the moments when sleep is elusive and the heart pounds fast and worst case scenarios play out against the shadowed walls. 

We don't have to hide behind fine. It's not always happy. It's not always joy. Sometimes it's the hard, the twisted battles, the darkness. It's the feeling of total emptiness. 

But letting people in--that can break the darkness. It can bring the light. That doesn't happen when "fine" is all that happens. 

It's not always fine. It's not always happy. 

But there is always something good under all of that dark. There is something good that will emerge. The cross brought the resurrection. 

We are meant to shoulder one another's burdens. We are meant to be community. 

And sometimes, that means letting others bring the light, and opening the darkness to them. Inviting them in to see the true, and the messy--but maybe, also, the beautiful. The beauty in the mess and darkness and shadows.