or was it really just my subconscious reading something into what was already there?

It is very easy to hear a song on the radio, see a quote on someone’s FB wall, read a book or an article, and find a way to make it apply to your life, or believe it was written about/for you. That is how we relate to the world, by finding the similarities and holding tight to them, or finding differences and standing up against them.

I am currently or rather now have just finished reading You Don’t Know Me, a book in Susan May Warren’s Deep Haven series. This one had me churning from the beginning and my husband upset that I was reading it due to the response I was having to it. At its base it is a book about the ties of a family, and how secrets and lies can tear each individual, and the family as a whole to shreds.

Anyone close to us knows we have family issues, not in our home, but in our extended families. I am not what most would call a “God fearing, praying woman”, but I have morals and a clear moral compass of right and wrong. My “claim to fame” so to speak is that I speak my mind, tell the truth, and don’t hide from unpopular opinions that I may have. My life has been in great turmoil over the secrets and lies of people near and dear to me. The false pretenses, pretending, flat out lies, sins of omission, etc. and those that have stood by and allowed themselves to be carried along by the current of them, have put a real strain on my relationships with those people. I have struggled with giving in and going with the flow as some might have/want me to do, but deep inside standing up and speaking the truth and holding fast to that has reigned most true and right in my heart.

You Don’t Know Me sank very deep to the root of this for me. The circumstances are totally different, but the premise is the same; the secrets and lies the characters kept were not only eating at them, and distorting their view of the world around them, but destroying their relationships with the people around them. If I were a “God fearing woman”, I would say that he spoke to me today, through this book, but I am not. So I will say this instead, this book dug at the very core of where I am at right now. The message of how damaging secrets and lies are to a family and the need for truth and honesty above all is rattling through my inner core.

This is part of what Susan May Warren wrote in her Note From the Author at the end of this book:

“As I wrote, I discovered that You Don’t Know Me was also a story of how secrets can burrow in and destroy our lives even when we believe we are protecting the ones we love. Big secrets and small ones. Like the kind a mother and daughter might keep or the kind a son might keep from his father (these are references to the story line). While we think that secrets protect our loved ones, secrets are a cancer, and instead of bringing peace, they eat away at our security. Instead of being able to forget the secrets, the longer we keep them, the more they invade our everyday thinking. We wake up with our secrets haunting us, and just when we think we’ve put them behind us, they creep up and remind us of our deceit. They keep us from believing that we deserve a happy ending. They keep us from accepting the grace that God longs to give us…….Live in truth, my friends.” ~ Susan May Warren