I am a Recovering Liar

But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluter, the murderers,

the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars,

their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur,

which is the second death.

Revelation 21:8

Two years later, I married my second husband.  Pregnancy came immediately, and one little girl was quickly followed by two more.  It didn’t take near as long this time to realize that I had again chosen poorly.  This man was both controlling and abusive, with an uncontrolled temper and a vicious mean streak.  Before long I was fully embracing deceit – only this time I was lying to protect my girls, as well as me.  I knew there had to be a better way, but I frankly could not think of one.  I absolutely hate confrontation, and if it took a lie to get out of one, then so be it.  To allow a confrontation with him was unthinkable:  no one could predict what he might do.

Eventually it dawned on me that he lied even more than I did.  I realize that this is like the pot calling the kettle black, but it also takes one to know one.  This went on for twenty-two long years, until his measure of deceit went way beyond lies, and the marriage was finally over.  My anguish at the time was not over the breakup, which came as a relief, but for my three girls, now young women, who had grown up in a house where they had learned to lie to their father in order to escape the wrath to come, and to me, lest I inadvertently let something slip to him and they would pay the price..  Not exactly the legacy I had hoped to pass on to my children.

I have been on my own again for six years now, and the Lord and I have had endless talks about my deceitful past and my (with His help) truthful future.  I am very careful now about what I say and how I answer. I have asked the Lord for His help in nudging me when I am about to say anything that is outside the absolute truth, and He is faithful. When an exaggeration pops out, a little bell rings in my head, and I immediately correct myself.  When a situation arises where I would be tempted to tell a lie, I have learned to say, “I don’t know how to answer that,” or “I’m not sure.”  Occasionally I have been heard to ask, “Would you like the blunt truth or an easy lie?”  I am finally meeting the problem head-on, constantly leaning on the Lord for strength and victory.

I don’t much like the title of today’s blog, but it is the truth.  Just as the recovering alcoholic says, “I am an alcoholic,” I must truthfully say, “I am a liar.”  I have been fully on the “nothing-but-the-truth” recovery wagon for six years, and I have no intention of falling off again, but I know my weakness.  The joy is that God also knows my weak points, and I have placed them in His hands. The book of Jude tells me that He is able to “…keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy…” [Jude 1:24].  He who has promised is faithful.

Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess…

~Josh Billings