postsecret

Joyce really enjoys going to postsecret every week to read secrets. It's an interesting concept. This guy collects secrets and he asks people to send in their secrets on a postcard. This guy then posts 20 of them on the website every Sunday.

Anyways, Joyce told me that the guy who receives these postcards, Frank Warren, was speaking at one of the bookstores here in Philly, and that I should go check it out. So I did, and I really did enjoy his talk.

He had many stories to share - about how he was affected by reading the secrets, to how others responded to reading the secrets, and to how the people that wrote the secrets responded. He said that people can relate to the secrets because the postcards don't always tell you the whole story. The postcards are big enough to tell you the secret, but we have to fill in the blanks so that the secret would make sense to us.

Freeing
One story that I liked was of this lady from Texas. She sent Frank Warren an email saying that she had wrote her secret on a postcard perfectly, but when she read it, she didn't like the secret so she ripped it up and decided to stop living a lie and to get rid of the secret. He said that that story reminded him that sometimes we think that we are holding onto a secret but in reality, the secret is holding onto us.

Relating and Encouraging
He shared a story about a teenage girl who sent in a card that said something like: "I have great parents, great friends, amazing grades in school, etc., but I'd trade it all away to be beautiful." And after he posted it on the site, a reader saw it and emailed him saying how she related to that secret. She said she was like that once. Now she's 40 and the secret made her look back in her old yearbooks and she said that she looked pretty cute back then. So she decided then that she would stop wanting to be more beautiful because she was beautiful the way she was. And so Frank Warren posted that story underneath the secret and he said how it was amazing how people can be touched and changed by the secrets and how others that go through the same thing can encourage each other.

Loving
One last story that I liked was of this girl who wrote to Frank Warren saying that she had written up a bunch of secrets that she had never told anyone, including her boyfriend. But instead of sending them to him, he left them by her boyfriend's head while he was sleeping and went to work. That afternoon, the boyfriend came by and proposed to her. It was really touching and encouraging to see that regardless of our secrets, the people who love us will still ultimately love us.

Community
Some of the most memorable moments in my life were in a couple of winter retreats I went to while I was in Toronto. We had "deep deep sharing". We would essentially share our "secrets" - what we were struggling with. I remember one where I shared my secret and I just couldn't stop crying. Everyone was crying, but man.. I just couldn't stop crying the whole night. It was liberating to share my struggles, to be transparent. I remember a few people coming up to me to encourage me as well. I think what these experiences and what the talk yesterday by Frank Warren taught me is that we are definitely not alone. We may feel that our secrets are too shameful for others, but in reality it is something that we all probably struggle with. God asks us to be transparent because it frees us from our chains - frees us from our bondage to sin. It is through community that we can relate to one another, to encourage one another, and to unconditionally love one another.

Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
~Gal 6:2

Bonus!
Some of the secrets that I found funny last night were:

Frank Warren's neighbour, who is an author, wrote: I hate that my neighbour thought of a better idea than me

The most popular secret sent was:I pee in the shower

This one is from Frank Warren's wife:I want to sleep with Richard Gere (a little awkward wouldn't you think? hehe)

And my favorite:
...so be careful how you treat others ;)