Lesson 10: Confession

Send us a text

Have you ever been haunted by something you never said — something that lingered, waited, pressed into your chest until it could no longer be ignored? This episode is about that moment. It's about confession — not to shame, but to heal.

In this tenth lesson, The Time Smith walks you back into the forge — down the stairs, past memory, into the core of darkness — and reveals the moment he told his mother the truth about what had happened in his childhood. A secret kept for years, shaped by trauma, guilt, and fear, finally spoken aloud.

This isn’t a story about blame. It’s a story about courage, timing, and reclaiming your voice. The hardest part wasn’t what happened — it was watching someone you love carry pain that wasn’t theirs.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• How unspoken trauma quietly shapes our lives
• Why confession is a key to healing, even if it’s years later
• The emotional weight of protecting others from your pain
• How to speak hard truths with love, and strength
• A reminder that telling the truth doesn’t make you weak — it makes you whole

“I confessed it to God. I confessed it to my wife. But most importantly — I confessed it to myself. And that’s where the healing began.”

If you’ve held back because you didn’t want to hurt someone... If your silence has protected others but punished you... If you’re afraid to speak because you think it’s too late...

This episode is for you.

And if no one’s told you today:
 You are loved. You can be found.

I am The Time Smith.

Support the show

🎙️Thanks for listening to The Time Smith

✉️Join the Mission: https://linktr.ee/TheTimeSmith

🔔Subscribe and leave a review to help more people find this message.

Forged in thought. Built in Truth. Spoken from experience.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:10):
Have you ever been lost in your thoughts?
Randomness?
A thought pops into your headand you don't know where it came
from.
Many times it's your past.
Things that have happened thathave not let you go.

(00:32):
Why have they hung on?
Let's talk about that.
Hi, I'm the Time Smith andwelcome back.

(00:53):
I hope you had time to listen tothe last lesson, Foundation.
It's about how I built my life,the stones, the insults.
Well, you'll have to listen toit for it to make sense.
Please take the time to check itout.
Well, today's a big day.

(01:14):
Today is the 10th lesson.
When I started this, I didn'tthink I would be able to get
through even one.
And little by little, I'mlogging a library of this
experience.
And it's been my pleasure to beable to share my life with you.
I hope that it's doing somethingfor you, possibly where even you

(01:34):
want to share parts of yourself.
And I do have an idea for thefuture, but I'll save it.
Today, I want to talk aboutsomething that wasn't easy and
it's confession.
It's about the things that wetell others, the things that we
might even tell God, but a wayto clear the air.

(01:56):
I've talked about the fourthfloor, the core, the situation,
S-A, a situation thatdrastically changed my life.
Just yesterday, well, wheneveryou listen to this, it's
yesterday for me.
I thought about how difficult itis to open up about any

(02:20):
situation.
But when something is hidden andyou want to reveal it, there's a
certain fear around that.
I mean, when we're children, ifwe break something in the house,
maybe playing ball or throwingsomething across the room and
our parents come in and ask, orif my parent came in and asked,

(02:44):
who did that?
Maybe I'd be able to say, it wasme, mom.
But I know that on one occasionthat did happen and I ran.
I went to my room and I actedlike it wasn't me who threw the
ball.
I'm not sure who got in troublefor it.
But having to come back and tellmy mom it was me who threw the
ball, there was a certain fearbecause I knew I had lied and I

(03:08):
knew I had done something Ishouldn't have, which wasn't
just lying.
It was actually playing ball inthe house.
now i had to confess and that'sembarrassing well i was asked
when did you tell your parentsand what did that look like so
as we stand in the forge rightnow and we look around how does

(03:29):
it feel does it still feel coldor are you beginning to feel the
warmth in this place very fewtimes it feels warm in here for
me i think i like the cold but ido want to go down the fourth
floor back to where thesituation happened because this
is actually really close to thatsituation what did i have to

(03:52):
confess if it was done to me butthat's what i want to talk about
today so i look and i see thestaircase hmm maybe we could
just walk down and take it slowYou know, as we walk down the
first floor and we look down thehalls and we continue, we see

(04:17):
the second floor, just moredoors, nothing in the hallway,
dimly lit.
But let's keep going down.
This staircase continues to winddown.
I know how long it took to buildthis spiral staircase.
The third floor, we'll be heresoon.

(04:38):
Let's keep going.
Well, the fourth floor.
Yeah.
The core of this darkness.
But there's a door here and it'sa few moments in one.
You'd have to go back and listento Lesson 3, The Lens of
Suffering, to understand thisone better.

(05:01):
But let's walk up to the door.
Let's open it.
In this room, I was 19.
Many years have gone by and Istill hadn't told my parents.
The only person I had told tothis moment was my wife.
We were married really young.
At this point, we were alreadymarried.

(05:22):
And I had told her thatsomething happened to me when I
was younger, except that Ididn't tell her the full extent
of it.
But we were watching TV and wewere sitting on the couch at my
parents' house.
My parents' house had a largeisland connected to the wall and

(05:44):
the kitchen connected to aliving room with the dining room
on the other side of this wall.
And we had one couch in there.
We didn't always watch TVtogether, so it was plenty.
But there was a show.
It was called Intervention.
And there was a lady on thisshow who had racked up a bill so

(06:04):
high.
And as I watched, I thought,wow.
How could she have so muchcredit?
Well, the other thing thatjumped out to me is that they
began to talk to her why she wasspending all that money.
Well, it came back down that shehad experienced SSA and it was
her father who had done it.

(06:27):
I kind of tuned out and I dialedinto what was happening on the
show.
And even though I was watchingher, I couldn't help but place
myself in the show.
Something about what washappening to her began to affect
me.
Well, it stayed on my mind for afew days and I told my wife, I

(06:48):
think I should tell my mom.
And she said, really?
I replied simply, yes, I thinkit's time.
Well, she advised that I work itout and not just hit her with it
since it had been so long.
Well, I worked at it.
I would buy books.
I would study what kind ofexercises are good to overcome

(07:10):
this grief and trauma.
I went to therapy and I talkedto a doctor.
I went to church.
And sooner than I knew it, I was24 years old.
Five years had gone by and I wasready to tell my mother.
For five years, I preparedmyself.
I studied and I wanted to learnto just be okay with it.

(07:32):
Again, I'm not condoning it.
It's one of the worst thingsthat could happen to a person,
to a child, to anyone who'salive.
But I wanted to show her that Ihad beat it, that it didn't beat
me.
And in those five years, thingshappened to me that caused me to
lash out, caused me to be angry,caused me to go into depression.

(07:55):
As I worked through this, andmany times I would come back and
I would pray and ask God to helpme.
Even to the point that the guiltof the situation was so heavy on
me that I asked for forgivenessfor something that had been done
to me, not really understandingthat it wasn't my fault.
But that's what this evil thingdoes.

(08:16):
It makes you believe that youdeserve the worst.
So a part of that confession wasalso me understanding that I was
willing to accept that somethinggood can happen to me in my
life.
And I couldn't do that.
because I didn't believe it.
I didn't believe that anythinggood can come to me.

(08:37):
Well, before I can go talk to mymother, I had to confess.
And many times I had confessedthat to God and I still had to
go back and talk to my wife.
Many times I would tell her Iwould buy her a house and buy
her the car and do these thingsthat would make her happy as a
young bride.

(08:58):
But how could I achieve any ofthat if I didn't believe that
something good can happen to me.
Well, I decided that I had toconfess that.
I finally began to speak thatand write that.
And when I started seeing thosewords on paper, I didn't like
how that felt.
It felt like there was a promisethat I had that would never be

(09:19):
fulfilled.
And I confessed that.
Who did I confess it to?
Yes, you guessed it.
I confessed it to God.
I confessed it to my wife.
And lastly, I confessed it tomyself.
And I accepted that somethingbad happened to me, but that it
wasn't happening to me anymore.
And I confess that I believethat something good can happen

(09:44):
to me.
And that's where the healingbegan.
Now, how did I tell my mom?
Well, I went up to my mom as shesat at the kitchen table,
actually on the island.
And she was by herself.
And I said, Mom, yes, she said.
Can I talk to you aboutsomething?

(10:06):
Yeah, what's going on?
And I said, I've been holdingsomething from you.
And in somewhat of a griefpanic, she said, what?
And she put down her fork.
Tell me.
And I said, do you rememberso-and-so?
And she said, yes, why?
And she had a concerned look onher face, almost like she knew

(10:29):
something.
And I said, do you rememberso-and-so's kids?
Yes.
Why?
And I said, well, somethinghappened with them.
And she said, when?
You saw them?
I said, no.
Something happened with themwhen I was young.
Really?
What are you telling me?

(10:49):
Well, mom, I'm telling you that,well, that they did something to
me.
What did they do to you?
Well, mom, before I tell you, Ijust want you to know that I'm
okay now.
I'm fine.
Nothing's happening to me today.
But when we were little, we wentto their house and they took me

(11:13):
up to their room and, well, Iexplained to her what had
happened.
And the look of anger andconfusion and sadness rushed
over her.
And Yes, when I was a littleboy, you could feel the hugs of
your mother on your back whenyou wrap your arms around their

(11:35):
legs, which is probably aroundthe time and the height that I
was at when it happened.
But now I'm heading shouldersabove my mother and my mother
wanted to hug me as if I wasstill that little boy, but I
wasn't.
And I grabbed her by hershoulders and kind of just
nudged her back a little bit.
And I looked at her and I said,mom, I'm okay.

(11:57):
I'm fine now.
And I've been working on it.
Working on what?
Well, I've been hurting for along time.
And I feel a little bit better.
And she couldn't get any wordsout of her mouth.
But I just told her, Mom, I loveyou.
And it's not your fault.

(12:18):
It's done.
Why don't we step out?
We don't have to say much, butWhy don't we just take the
elevator and walk out?
This moment was harder than allthe suffering I experienced.

(12:42):
To see my mom hurt, to see mymom take on all the suffering,
it was challenging.
Let me close that door.
You can wait in the elevator.
Just give me a minute.

(13:04):
Yeah, it's our mom.
I think maybe the question wouldbe, how would you feel if you
had to break news to her thatsomething happened in the midst
of a parent trying so hard toprotect, not knowing that
something happened?

(13:24):
But it did.
And I did my best not to hurt mymom.
Let's go up.
Let's just get off and maybejust take a minute here in the
Forge.
Why is it important to tellanybody about what happens?

(13:44):
Involvement?
People want to know who they arein your life.
People want to know that they'reimportant.
And this didn't happen to mymother.
But when I look back and see thetype of mother she was, she was
one of those that would try tokeep me laughing.
And she'd always tell me that Iwas a happy child.

(14:05):
But as I've explained in thepast, I always had those
questions of what happened toyou?
But my mom told me that evenbefore all this, when I was a
toddler, she would tell me thatI was strong, that I was like a
lion, that I had the strength ofa Buffalo.
That I had eyes of an eagle.

(14:26):
That I had wisdom.
As a toddler, she spoke thosewords into me.
Does life prepare us for whatwe're going to face?
Could be.
There's no mistake.
We don't design ourselves.
We are created with a purpose.
Part of that purpose isconfessing every step of the

(14:48):
way.
The good and the bad stuff.
One of the things my mom wouldtell me, and I think this is why
it hurt her.
She would tell me, yourvictories are my victories and
your defeats are my defeats.
We are one in the same.

(15:09):
What hurt me hurt her.
That's confession.
There's times of things that arehappening to us that we must
confess because it's hurting us.
And when it hurts us, it hurtsothers.
I mean, the Bible even says,cast your cares upon me for I

(15:31):
care for you.
And that's the thing.
I also care for you.
So you don't have to confess itto me, but you might have to
confess it to someone.
Do you still care?
Is there something in you thatneeds to be said?
Well, do it.

(15:51):
before it's too late.
Anyway, that's confession.
Please remember, if you feelunloved, you are loved.
And if you feel lost, you can befound.
I am the Timesmith.