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Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On opens soft, like a prayer hanging in the air:
“Mother, mother, there’s too many of you crying. Brother, brother, brother, there’s far too many of you dying.”
He didn’t dress it up.
Didn’t wrap it in a bow.
He just told the truth.
And because he told the truth, we feel it.
That’s why What’s Going On still hits like a hammer all these years later. Marvin wasn’t just making music. He was pulling the mask off—his mask, our mask. He sang about war, about loneliness, about the pain that eats you alive.
And here’s the thing: that kind of honesty is where healing lives. Where it breathes.
Naming the pain changes the weight of it.
We all know how to walk into church with our faces fixed like everything’s fine.
We’ve learned how to smile through it.
How to nod like life isn’t falling apart behind closed doors.
And then false piety steps in and whispers, “Fake it till you make it. Smile harder. Shout louder. Don’t let them see you bleed.”
But all that pretending?
It’s heavy.
It’s exhausting.
The Bible says it straight: “Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed” (James 5:16).
There’s healing in saying it out loud.
There’s hope in naming the wound.
There’s freedom in not carrying it alone.
Healing and hope can only grow out of the soil of pain when watered with truth.
That’s the power of the blues.
Once you put it in a song, once you tell the truth about it, the weight shifts.
Sometimes you just have to cry out.
Marvin’s What’s Going On didn’t end war.
It didn’t end poverty.
But it gave people room to grieve out loud.
Marvin didn’t edit himself on that record.
Sure, there’s a time for Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.
There’s a time for Pride and Joy.
There’s even a time to dance and not think about the hard stuff.
But there are also days when you have to cry out, “What’s going on?”
That’s what lament does.
It’s not rushing for an answer.
It’s not putting a fake smile over real pain.
It’s telling the truth.
And the Bible backs it up:
“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).
The mask is too heavy to wear forever.
We spend so much energy trying to fit into an image we think will be accepted.
We’re trying to match a perfect lie that church culture often holds up as “what good Christians look like.”
But Jesus said it himself: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).
Freedom doesn’t come from pretending.
It doesn’t come from appearances.
It begins with truth.
Tell the whole story.
Marvin gave us What’s Going On exactly as it was.
And the world leaned in.
Your story can do the same.
Stop trying to squeeze yourself into a perfect picture that doesn’t even exist.
Stop skipping over the chapters you wish weren’t there.
Stop silencing the parts of your life that are messy or complicated.
Because the “cleaned-up” version of your story doesn’t help anyone.
But the real story—the raw, unedited story—gives other people permission to breathe.
And there’s healing in that.
Take off the mask.
This week, ask yourself:
What am I hiding?
What pain have I pushed down so deep I can’t even name it?
What hurt am I pretending doesn’t hurt anymore?
Write it down.
Say it to God.
Tell it to somebody safe.
Marvin’s voice is still ringing:
“We’ve got to find a way to bring some lovin’ here today.”
And maybe that way starts with honesty.
Maybe the first act of love for yourself is to finally tell the truth—to God, to yourself, to someone who won’t flinch.
Because healing and hope can only emerge from the soil of pain when watered with truth.
And the truth—in all its shades—shall set you free.
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