Families are built through generations and generations, but a family can be destroyed in a single day. By a single act, that turns into an avalanche and buries everyone. The truth is not always what you see or hear or get, but somewhere hidden between, and when broken people hide themselves from their own truth those cracks find a way out.

There we are, in our tiny boxes on a hilliside, putting ourselves into other little boxes. Segmenting our lives. Boxes. Dividers. Shields. Protection. We take what we know of the world, our pasts, our pain, and turn it into the truth. The truth of love. The truth of family. The truth of God. And if we're broken enough, we put that truth into a dark place and hide it.

I feel it would be unfair to reveal too much of what is happening, but equally unfair to hide (from so many people that are praying and concerned) the heart of the matter. Afterall we don't live our lives in isolation. There is a mountain of hurt and pain and secrets that have been revealed that can be devastating to a family. Truly no family is perfect, and the degrees to which are as extreme and night and day. The cracks have spread. It goes beyond the sad clichés of marriage issues into the realm of unbelievable. I wish I was ignorant of it all — pass me the blue pill, I'll happily take it (that's a Matrix reference, not a Viagra reference, so shut it). But it's out there, the truth in all its gory, harsh, disheartening, shameful detail, and it can either destroy us or bring about change and healing. Ultimately its about the truth and hiding. There are truths about our beliefs privately and truths about our beliefs publically. There are truths about what we believe about ourselves privately, and what we portray to others publically. The further those truths are from each other, the greater the tension, until it pulls so strongly that it opens a chasm. A tug-of-war between what is real and what is perceived. Eventually everyone falls in.

Please keep praying for our family. We need truth. We need wisdom. We need redemption and healing. Pray that this will not destroy us, and that hope for change will works its way through. Pray for support and accountability. Pray for the pain to not swallow us whole. 37 years of trust have been shattered, and it will take a long time for that to mend, but I have to believe that there is hope, that God can change anything, because only He can pull us up.