When the hard word are the best words

Every time I watch the movie 'Taken', there's one scene that really gets me. After proudly telling everyone within earshot that Liam Neeson is from Northern Ireland too, the same thought always strikes me during the kidnapping scene.

Brief summary of the storyline: Liam Neeson is a

former CIA agent whose daughter goes to France

for the holidays. There, she is kidnapped by a group of

Albanian human traffickers. Liam goes to Paris to find her and,

using his very particular set of skills, tracks down the kidnappers and...

I won't spoil it all.

Liam's daughter is on the phone to him when the kidnapping happens. She runs into a bedroom and hides under the bed, terrified. When she tells him what is going on and that her friend has been kidnapped, he tells her simply, "you are going to be taken". When he says those words, I stop for a second and think...woah, woah, woah, um, don't you mean, "it's all going to be ok"? Or "don't worry"? Or even "stay strong, you'll be fine"?

I want him to reassure her!

I want him to take away her fear!

I want him to make her feel better!

And isn't that what we usually all want? Or at least, think we want...for someone to tell us that it's all going to be ok, that our choices are the right ones, that what we're doing is fine.

But what if those words are not the ones that take us where we need to be?

What if the ones we need to hear are the hard ones?

If you are about to enter a relationship

and all around you can see is going to end in hurt,

what if everyone tells you they're happy for you

when they can clearly see that you're headed for disaster?

If you're making choices that make you happy

in the short term but are ultimately going to lead to pain,

do you want your friends to smile with you in

your short term happiness or make you confront your long term prospect?

If you're on the other end, in the middle of disaster,

do you want your friends to give you a token, "don't worry, it'll be fine",

or would you prefer them to say, "actually, it's going to be hideous,

it's not going to easy to get out of this,

but here's what we're going to do about it"?

While Liam's daughter is still on the phone, after telling her that she is going to be taken, he tells her that, as they take her, she needs to yell out all the details about them that she can. These details are the keys in Liam's hunt for the kidnappers, so ultimately, the things that save her.

It's difficult on both sides:

It's difficult to hear the hard words...

...and it's difficult to say the hard words.

But I'm becoming more and more convinced that sometimes

love means being honest even when it hurts.

I can recall particular instances when friends have told me to snap out of self-pity, or told me that it's actually not going to be ok and I need to deal with that, or warned me against something that I'm happily falling head over heels into. And in those times, I've been angry, I've looked for reasons not to believe them, I've wondered if they are really friends. But I can tell you, the people in those instances are people whose friendships I now have no doubt of, the ones I want to keep around.

Truth hurts... but surely there can't be love without truth.