Receive confessions gracefully

So often faith communities do a poor job of receiving the confession of others. Mutual aid societies like AA and NA and the like have often done a better job of it. But the roots of confession run deep. In the scriptures there are several exhortations to confess, here are two that you may find helpful.

Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed.
~James 5:16, The Message

If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. If we claim that we’ve never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God.
~1 John 1:8-9, The Message

There is something so sacred and beautiful about receiving the gift of love and compassion from a person who knows us through and through. If scripture is not particularly inspiring for you, the Big Book says, “Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem [or our substance use disorder or our compulsivity problem] has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel that we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe.”

We cannot do this alone. Together, we can do hard things.