For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light - for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."

"There are no secrets in our house." That's a rule in our home. My children know it by heart. Sometimes the rule is welcome; sometimes not. It can be difficult to own up to feelings, to actions, especially if they are not what they should be. "Please, Mom, don't tell Dad that I did that!" They and we would much prefer to hide our questionable actions, because then perhaps, people wouldn't think any less of us. We'd also like to hope our actions wouldn't have negative consequences.

Yet we fail to realize that the acknowledgement of our brokenness is the beginning step on the path to wholeness, to healing. In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation process was based on the belief that, unless the ugly secrets of the system of apartheid were revealed, the nation could never be healed. The secrets would be a festering wound, spreading its infection through the society, eating away at hope for a new beginning.

Thanks be to God we are children of the light, exposed, yet loved in the midst of our brokenness. In our confession we acknowledge what God has known all along, trusting in the forgiveness and new life we are promised through Jesus Christ.