Sugar-coated

The other night I had an awful headache. It was my own fault as I, being the talented person that I am, ran into a glass window with my head, but that is beside the point. Anyways,  as he always does,  out of care and provision for me, my sweet husband encouraged me to take some ibuprofen to help manage the pain.  As a stubborn person who has always hated swallowing tablets, I tried to refuse the pain for as long as I could, denying it the right to stay. However, my attempt to trick my own mind failed miserably. Eventually, it was so painful that I knew I had to give in to these two little, round sugar-coated tablets. As I tried my best to overcome my mental hatred for medicine, the tablets refused to go down; they floated around in my mouth as I threw back my head and made funny faces, cringing at the taste of the sugar-coated tablets. This got me thinking.

Why sugar-coat something that is naturally disgusting? Why try to disguise something as something it is not? After all, we all know that tablets are not going to taste good, no one takes them because they enjoy the flavour—they enjoy the affect that comes after taking the tablet. Yet, it is as though health manufacturers are trying to trick us into believing that just because they have coated something horrible in something (supposably) nice or better tasting that all will be right with the world.

As I continued to fight my own mind—one side of my brain begging the tablets to slide down my throat whilst the other side of my brain discouraged them to do so,  I wanted it to all be finished. Of course, at the end of the day it was just a headache and ibuprofen and it didn’t really matter, yet the moral of the story did matter to me.

Why? Because we do this with so many different things in our lives; we sugar-coat things to convince ourselves that some things aren’t as bad as they might seem. Whether it’s a sin we are struggling with, a temptation or addiction--we sugar-coat it as though it’s “not that bad” or "we've got it under control". Yet inside, we continue to fight the war that is waging within our souls. Or maybe it’s a wound that we keep bandaging in the hope that if we put a plaster on it, it won’t actually affect us because we won't be able to see it. It happens in families, it happens with parents. Sugar-coated marriages and homes portraying everything is fine when actually, nothing is fine and divorce is just a few days away. We sugar-coat because we are afraid to taste that which is horrible and disgusting at its core—bitterness, pain, grief, anger, and more. We don’t want to feel it, so we, like the healthcare partners, try to trick our consciences.

Sadly, things are even sugar-coated in church. The gospel is sugar-coated. We want people to know Jesus and find hope for their lives, yet out of fear of what they might think or our own reputation, we back down, become quiet and reserved, and miss massive opportunities to change the world.

Personally, I don’t want to be a sugar-coated anything. Christian, wife, daughter, youth worker, sister, or friend. I want to be real. What you see is what you will get. Yes, it will be painful but isn’t it worth it? Isn’t it worth not adding all the extra hassle to our already hectic and somewhat chaotic realities? Life is already a struggle as it is.

Let’s be human—admitting our weaknesses, not being afraid to fail and learn from those mistakes, broken people who simply want to be healed and find community in all of the destruction. Let’s be human again, forsaking our sugar-coated ways. They are deceiving no-one. We’re all in this together, Christians, Atheists—everyone. We are all living, so it’s time we were real. Let’s talk about what matters, but also what hurts, and together, let’s find hope in the One who can save us from the headaches, wounds, addictions, and more. Let's find Jesus in the midst of it all, together.