The Habit That Saved My Life

People ask me from time to time what habit has improved my life the most.

They expect me to say walking every day. Or prayer. Or reading. Or writing. They expect something practical, something they can add to tomorrow morning’s routine.

Those habits have all helped me.

But the habit that changed everything was far simpler—and infinitely more difficult.

Every day, I choose to tell myself the truth.

That may not sound revolutionary. In fact, it sounds almost obvious. Of course we should tell ourselves the truth.

Yet I spent more than fifty years doing precisely the opposite.

I wasn’t a dishonest person. I valued integrity. As an investment banker, then later as a Presbyterian pastor, my reputation mattered. People trusted me. I worked hard to deserve that trust. I tried to be truthful in my relationships, faithful in my ministry, and honest in my preaching.

The one person I consistently deceived was myself.

For decades, I convinced myself that I could outrun the truth.

I told myself that if I prayed harder, worked longer hours, became a better husband, a better father, a better pastor, eventually the quiet voice inside me would disappear. Surely God would reward my faithfulness by taking away what I believed was the worst part of me.

Instead, the voice became louder.

Not because it was accusing me.

Because it was introducing me to myself.

There is a profound difference between hiding from sin and hiding from who God created you to be. For years, I couldn’t distinguish the two. I believed authenticity was selfish. I believed sacrifice meant erasing myself for the comfort of everyone around me.

Many of us are taught that holiness looks like disappearing.

I don’t believe that anymore.

I think holiness looks much more like becoming.

Looking back now, I can see how exhausting my life had become. Every sermon I preached carried an unspoken question: If they knew everything about me, would they still listen? Every session meeting, every funeral, every hospital visit, every presbytery meeting required enormous emotional energy because I was constantly editing myself before anyone else could.

I wasn’t simply carrying the responsibilities of ministry.

I was carrying a secret.

Secrets are heavy.

They demand your attention every waking moment. They whisper before every conversation, Don’t say too much. Don’t reveal yourself. Be careful. Stay safe.

The tragedy isn’t only that secrets isolate us from other people.

They isolate us from ourselves.

When you spend years pretending, eventually you stop knowing where the performance ends and the real person begins.

The habit that saved my life began with one question I started asking every morning.

What is true today?

Not what would make everyone else comfortable.

Not what would protect my career.

Not what would preserve my image.

What is true?

Some mornings the answer terrified me.

“I’m exhausted.”

“I’m lonely.”

“I’m grieving.”

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep pretending.”

Eventually another truth emerged, one I had spent decades trying to silence.

“I am a transgender woman.”

Even writing those words felt impossible the first time.

They carried the power to unravel my entire life.

And they did.

Coming out cost me relationships I treasured. Some family members withdrew. Friendships changed. Ministry became more complicated. Doors quietly closed. Invitations stopped arriving. Conversations became awkward or disappeared altogether.

People often ask whether it was worth it.

That question always surprises me.

Because they are asking whether honesty was worth the cost.

I would ask a different question.

How expensive is a lifetime of pretending?

I know that answer.

It costs your joy.

It costs your peace.

Eventually, it costs your soul.

The remarkable thing is that telling myself the truth didn’t instantly solve my problems.

It didn’t erase depression.

It didn’t remove grief.

It didn’t magically repair broken relationships.

But it accomplished something even more important.

For the first time in my life, I was fighting life’s battles as the person I actually was.

There is extraordinary freedom in that.

Authenticity doesn’t make suffering disappear.

It makes suffering honest.

That honesty transformed my faith as well.

There was a time when my prayers sounded polished and respectable. They were the kinds of prayers pastors are expected to pray.

Now my prayers sound more like conversations.

Sometimes they begin with gratitude.

Sometimes they begin with tears.

Sometimes they begin with anger.

More than once they have begun with words I never imagined I would direct toward God.

“Dear God, fuck you.”

I don’t say that because I no longer believe.

I say it because I finally believe that God can bear the full weight of my truth.

The Psalms certainly thought so.

Job certainly thought so.

Even Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Faith isn’t pretending everything is fine.

Faith is refusing to stop talking to God when nothing is fine.

That realization changed the way I preach.

It changed the way I write.

It changed the way I love people.

I no longer feel responsible for appearing certain all the time. Instead, I feel responsible for being truthful.

When someone sits across from me carrying shame, I no longer rush to fix them.

I know what shame feels like.

When someone wonders whether God still loves them, I don’t answer with abstract theology.

I answer as someone who has stood in that same darkness asking the same question.

That kind of ministry is impossible without honesty.

Writing changed too.

For years I wrote what I thought readers wanted.

Now I write what I cannot remain silent about.

Ironically, the more personal my stories become, the more letters I receive from strangers saying, “I thought I was the only one.”

Authenticity is strangely contagious.

When one person tells the truth, it gives someone else permission to stop pretending.

That may be the greatest gift we can offer each other.

These days, my life is far from perfect.

There are mornings when grief greets me before the coffee finishes brewing. There are days when I miss relationships that may never be restored. There are moments when I wonder what my future holds, both as a pastor and as a writer.

But there is one burden I no longer carry.

I no longer wake up wondering who I have to pretend to be today.

That burden is gone.

Every morning, before I open my email, before I write a single sentence, before I begin preparing a sermon or answering another phone call, I ask myself the same question.

What is true today?

Sometimes the answer is joyful.

Sometimes it is heartbreaking.

Sometimes it is simply, “Keep going.”

Whatever the answer, I have learned that truth is never my enemy.

The truth led me home.

Not home to a place.

Home to myself.

I have spent much of my life preaching Jesus’ words: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

For years I thought Jesus was talking only about doctrine.

Now I think He was talking about something even more intimate.

Freedom begins the moment we stop hiding—from God, from one another, and from ourselves.

That is the habit that has improved my life the most.

Not because it made my life easier.

Because it finally made my life mine.