Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.
—Romans 12:9–10 (NASB / NIV)
Dearest Daughters,
There’s an old story about the word “sincere.” It is said that it comes from the Latin sine cera, meaning “without wax,” and this word was used to describe a marble sculpture. A piece was considered sincere if it had no cracks filled in with wax to disguise its flaws. Sculptors sometimes used wax to cover broken places or fill in tiny fissures, but when those statues were brought into the light of the sun, the wax became visible, and the cracks were exposed. The sculpture was not really whole, since it lacked integrity.
And so it is with our lives, and especially with our marriages.
Sincerity means purity, clearness, and truth. It is honesty and transparency wound together like strands of a single cord, or like facets of the same precious gem. And that stone, truth, is what we must build our marriages upon.
If you can’t be transparent with your husband, then you’re not truly being honest. And if you’re not honest, your relationship will always have hidden cracks.
I want to tell you a story that I’m not particularly proud of. It was just before I married your dad. One night, I was thinking about my old journals. I had filled them for years with stories, prayers, questions, confessions, and my raw teenage longings and failures, my weaknesses and fears. And suddenly, I panicked. What if he ever read them? What if he saw all that brokenness and loved me less?
So, I got out of bed, found a black Sharpie marker, and went through my journals, striking out every line that made me look immature, foolish, or weak.
Then I forgot about that night . . . until a few years into our marriage. I was telling your dad a story and couldn’t recall all the details, so I went and found one of those journals. We lay in bed flipping through its pages when he stopped.
“What’s this?” he laughed, pointing to the thick black lines.
It felt so silly in that moment, because by then, I had already let him see all of me. The reality was, that my weaknesses had never made me less in his eyes. They only became shameful when I tried to cover them.
Over time, I realized something amazing: the places where I am cracked and broken are the very places where God pours Himself in. In marriage, that often happens through the one He’s given to walk beside you. Your dad became the one who filled the broken places, not with the week wax of dishonesty to cover, but with love, strength, and grace. And somehow, in those joints, those places of fusion, we became stronger. We became one.
So don’t ever hide from your husband, but be honest. Be transparent, and say what you mean; show who you are. Let him see your weaknesses, and trust God to meet you both there—where His strength is made perfect.
And if you stumble, if you hold something back, or let something small grow into something false, step into the light and make it right.
I remember a situation that had something to do with ice cream (though I forget the details now). Your dad asked me a question, and I answered in a way that wasn’t originally dishonest . . . but I could tell by his response that he had misunderstood me. The version he’d understood made me look better. And, conveniently, I said nothing, but that night, I couldn’t sleep.
I realized I’d let a sort of dark shadow fall between us, so I woke him with tears and told him the truth. It originally felt small, and yet it was so big, because I knew I couldn’t bear anything standing between us.
As humbling as the moment was, it strengthened us and set a precedent. That precedent shaped our future which has been good. So allow the blaze of God’s love and truth to expose any flaws in the sculpture He’s shaping of your life. Let Him make your love sincere.
With all my love,
Mom