Marilyn Meberg - Tell Me Everything: How You Can Heal from the Secrets You Thought Youd Never Share

Id Rather Be Laughing
Choosing the Amusing
The Zippered Heart
The Decision of a Lifetime
Assurance for a Lifetime
Since You Asked
God at Your Wits End
Free Inside and Out(with Luci Swindoll)
Love Me Never Leave Me
What to Do When the Roof Caves In

2010 by Marilyn Meberg

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Page design by Mandi Cofer.

Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com
Unless otherwise noted, all scripture references are taken from Holy Bible, New Living Translation. 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from the english standard version. 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

Scripture references marked KJV are taken from King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture references marked MSG are taken from The Messageby Eugene H. Peterson. 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

Scripture references marked NIV are taken from HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture references marked NASB are taken from NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.

Scripture references marked NKJV are taken from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION.
1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Some chapters of this book are reprinted, with editing, from the following Marilyn Meberg volumes published by W Publishing Group, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, Tennessee 37214: The Zippered Heart, 2001; Since You Asked, 2006. Used with permission. Other chapters are reprinted, with editing, from the following Marilyn Meberg volumes published by Thomas Nelson, Inc., P.O. Box 14100, Nashville, Tennessee 37214: Assurance for a Lifetime, 2004; God at Your Wits End, 2005; Love Me Never Leave Me, 2008; What todo When the Roof Caves In, 2009. Used with permission.

Library-of-Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Meberg, Marilyn.

Meberg, Marilyn.
Tell me everything : how you can heal from the secrets you thought
youd never share / Marilyn Meberg.
p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-4002-0274-4
1. Christian womenReligious life. I. Title.

BV4527.M4365 2010
248.86082dc22

2009047268

10 11 12 13 14 WCF 6 5 4 3 2 1

Information about External Hyperlinks in this ebook

Please note that footnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.

L ast year a woman in the Midwest was troubled by recurring bouts of illness that she couldnt quite understand. The acute attacks of nausea, pain, and lethargy seemed to come out of nowhere without any obvious cause. She hadnt been around others who were ill; she hadnt eaten anything that would have caused physical upset. Yet again and again, the horde of mystery ailments struck, knocking her out of commission for a day or two, occasionally causing her to miss work or some family activity.

She probably should have gone to the doctor, but money was tight and the symptoms passed relatively quickly. Her physician was constantly booked, so it was hard to get an appointment. By the time she could get in to see him, she would be fine again, she reasoned. It also seemed silly to tie up the doctors time with such short-lived problemsand doubtlessly cause herself to endure far more medical tests than she wanted to even contemplate.

And there was one more thing: she was afraid of what those tests might find.

This situation continued for several months. Then came the day, one morning last fall, when the sun rose but the woman couldnt. Shed spent a long night tossing and turning in her bed, unable to find relief from the achiness that filled her body and was so hot with fever she felt completely consumed by it. A widow, she lived alone. She phoned her office to say she wasnt coming in, and the perceptive co-worker who took her call was shocked at the womans weak voice and what sounded like a strenuous effort to produce any words at all.

Im calling 911, she said. And she did.

The paramedics responded and, while taking the womans vital signs, were alarmed to see that her temperature was 104 degrees. They carefully delivered her to the hospital, where the emergency personnel performed that battery of tests she had been avoiding. It didnt take long to discover the problem.

You have a massive infection, the doctor told her. It seems to have started in your kidneys or bladder but now has spread throughout your body and is affecting every system.

It was a slow-growing but vicious infection, the physician said, one that had probably been growing within her for more than a year.

Havent you been sick? the doctor asked her.

Yes, she said, sometimes Ive been sick. But then the symptoms would go away. I guess I knew something was wrong, but I just didnt want to think about it. I didnt want to go through all the tests I thought would be needed to diagnose such a strange problem.

The womans reluctance to seek help almost caused her death. As it is, shes now coping with irreversible kidney damage that could have been prevented if only she had sought help sooner.

Like that dear woman, many people today are living with an unknown and undiagnosed infection thats silently growing inside them, causing them pain and suffering. Theyre afraid to think about it, talk about it, or let someone help them diagnose and treat it because theyre afraid of the processand afraid of what might be revealed. As a result, their happiness, their productivity, and sometimes even their lives are threatened.

The infection that was attacking the dear woman described here was caused by physical bacteria, but other types of infection can cause equally devastating pain and torment. Some of those infections are emotional rather than physical. One of the most destructive emotional infections can be a dark, venomous secret hidden within ones heart.

Maybe its an addiction. As I write, the news is telling (and retelling) the horrifying story of a car crash in which eight people, including several children, were tragically killed. The crash was blamed on a normal suburban mother, also killed in the crash, whose blood tests revealed a shocking secret: the woman was not only drunk but also high on marijuana as she drove her minivan full of kids the wrong way on a New York freeway.