When I Almost Believed a Lie

I remember sitting in my counseling office. The lamp on my desk was the only light in the room.

It was a little after lunch, and I was starting my afternoon to-do list.

That list had been growing by the hour, and I knew I had to get started so I could leave work on time.

The last few evenings, I had been at the office well past 3:30 and 4:00 pm. My girls were tired of staying late at school.

My marriage was falling apart, and no one at work knew. 

Home wasn’t my happy place anymore, so I had been throwing myself into my work–Elementary School Counselor.

This looked like 

• Researching new ways to help struggling students

• Small groups during lunch

• Accommodation plans for overwhelmed learners

• Testing schedules… entered one by one, checked to the nth degree

• Classroom guidance sessions to speak to the social and emotional needs of every child 

• Managing the School Clothing Closet & assisting every student who needed an item throughout the day

• Filling in for the School Nurse

• Add in any other administrative task that wasn’t already specifically assigned to someone else

I wore many, many hats, and most weren’t even realized. That was the job. Honestly, I loved it. 

I had been awarded the Northeast Arkansas School Counselor of the Year not too long before this, and the one thing I really took pride in was my work.

I had allowed my career to define me.  

When I was introduced to anyone new, I immediately told them what I did for a living as opposed to characteristics about myself. 

I heard a light knock at the door.

A colleague walked into my office with a strange look on her face.  

One I didn’t recognize, and I had known her for a decade. 

We were friends, or I thought so anyway.

Normally, we would have shared a laugh about our day while bumping into each other in the front office. 

But not today.

I felt the atmosphere in the room shift. 

She took a seat in the chair across from my desk, and I could feel my mouth drop slowly open in shock as I listened to the words she spoke. 

She stated with confidence that she didn’t think I was invested enough. 

She didn’t think I was doing the same amount of work as everyone else. 

She proceeded to tell me all that she had been doing–how late she had stayed and all she had done to prepare for a recent event.

Then, she said I wasn’t doing any of those things.

She said it so matter-of-fact, like she had rehearsed this a million times.

Maybe out loud…

in the break room…

with my other friends?

I felt the hot tears swell in my eyes, but I refused to cry.

I swallowed hard and pushed the emotion down to that place it hides until the conflict leaves the room.

I refused to tell her that this job had been mostly all I had cared about lately because home wasn’t peaceful. 

I refused to tell her that it broke my heart to believe that someone thought I didn’t care enough to try.

All I felt like I had been doing was trying as hard as I could. 

I honestly cannot remember how the conversation ended. After the first sentence, I couldn’t have focused on the ending even if I had really wanted to. 

My brain spun in disbelief.

I remember vaguely trying to defend myself, but knowing if I kept talking, everything was going to come dumping out–and that wasn’t professional. My colleague didn’t seem like she was open to any explanation, anyway. Everything from that point forward would be interpreted as an excuse. I just stopped the chase and got quiet.  

She quietly exited the room and shut the door.  The door was usually silent, but today it felt so loud. So final. 

When she left, I literally felt the crushing weight of her words, and the person I believed I had always been lay in broken pieces on the floor. I was replaying the statements–over and over again– as I picked up each piece to try and collect myself. 

I was still arguing with myself- did she actually say the words I thought I just heard?

Did she actually mean them? She couldn’t have. About me?

I thought she was my friend. Friends ask each other what’s going on…friends act like they care about the real you. 

I couldn’t speak or move for a solid 10 minutes. 

I was trying to process. 

How could she be my friend and so hugely misunderstand me?

The same friend who sat across the table from me during all of our Friend Friday Nights and shared meals and laughs and tears. 

Same friend. 

Different conversation. 

The next morning, it was hard to go to work. 

I started internalizing those words she said. 

As I internalized them, I repeated them until my brain became confused. 

Am I really the things she said? 

Do I really not care enough? 

Should I work harder? 

I need to prove myself to people. 

What if others believe the same things about me– and they’ve all been talking behind my back? 

Thoughts ––swirling and whirling…all day. 

I isolated myself. 

I didn’t go to the office for my coffee. 

I used the separate bathroom. 

I stayed to myself because it felt more comfortable like that. 

Until I realized that I had started believing a lie. 

And somewhere in the middle of that spiral… I caught it.

Not all at once—but enough to recognize it for what it was.

A lie I had started rehearsing as truth.

I spoke the truth over myself—God’s truth:

“For am I now trying to persuade people, or God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

— Galatians 1:10 (CSB)

I was none of those things she said about me. 

I DID work hard. 

I DID stay late. 

I DID love my job. 

I WAS enough. 

I knew how hard I had been working—harder than I had in a long time—even while my marriage was slowly curling up to die right in front of me.

So, I stopped the train wreck of a spiral. I told myself the truth again. 

She was a colleague. 

She was grossly mistaken and misinformed. 

I was terribly misunderstood. 

Time has passed. I see her across the stands at football games instead of in the seat across the table.

We share a glance where a bread bowl once passed between us.

And I’ve learned to be okay with that. 

Today, I can thank her. 

She taught me the power and weight of words and how sometimes they are carelessly spoken. 

If she had truly known me, she likely would have hugged me and asked how she could help. 

But she didn’t ask–because she didn’t see. She didn’t look. 

She assumed. She formed an opinion, and she spoke freely. 

I learned something from her– words spoken without complete understanding can wound deeper than we realize.

I internalized that conversation for a lot longer than I wish to admit. 

But I’m thankful for that one day when I woke up to the sunlight. 

I saw myself again for who I truly was…what God said about me.

Not my career. 

Not the way people perceived me. 

Not the marriage that was falling apart. 

But ME.

The woman carrying all of that weight in a very heavy backpack. 

One that was too heavy and wasn’t meant for me to carry.

I slowly unpacked every word. 

I slowly replaced each lie with truth. 

I slowly returned. 

The old me didn’t come back in all of her glory…no. 

Instead, I was a newer version. 

A quieter, steadier version–wiser. 

I knew my own name. 

And this time…

I wasn’t anchoring to what was spoken over me.

I was anchoring to what was true.

And words that weren’t rooted in truth no longer had the authority to define me.