Find and Replace

On writing the truth and honoring the others in it.

This week I let a friend read my manuscript to see if she wanted me to change her name. I only gave a select few that option. When she reached back out, she didn’t give feedback on the part I expected her to. The part I thought would make her cringe. She gave feedback on a scene where she observed something happening to me. Where I made a small comment on my perception of what she was thinking about me. She texted me to tell me what she was really thinking.

Then she asked me to change her name.

As I did the find and replace, my heart fell into my gut.

It was sobering.

I’ve spent so much time thinking, worrying about scenes and how the others in them would feel about me telling the story. And, yet here was this relatively benign scene being taken apart by the other. How much more will those scenes I worry about be scrutinized? How much more will that other person rush to correct me?

I’m not surprised. Of course. Memory is tricky. We are the main character in our own minds, filtering interactions through past wounds and triumphs.

In any given situation you have your perception of the story, and they have theirs, and they are usually not the same.

I woke up this morning with the thought: how can I be more responsible in telling my story? The story as I’ve seen it.

I don’t take this lightly.

I’ve been in sales and marketing my whole corporate career. I know the importance of letting people know what you offer to the world. I also feel a tremendous calling to share my stories with other people. Ever since I can remember, a small voice in my head told me I would. It was that voice that got me through some of the hardest, most traumatic things.

And yet, I hold back on telling people about my writing. Tempted to only lightly promote the book or even this Substack. This level of authenticity is hard. Not just because it’s vulnerable for me but for them, the others.

I know that staying small and writing on the down low isn’t fully pursuing my calling.

And privacy, while publicly posting, is an illusion.

So how do I reconcile the two: speaking my truth and honoring the truth of others?

I’ve tried to land on God told me to write this and I trust Him. He will care for me and for them. But like all things with God, I’ve learned that doesn’t always mean the process will be free of pain and suffering. No. In my experience, it has been quite the opposite.

And yet, in my experience, even with the pain, He turns all things into gifts.

If you let Him.