"...and the truth will set your free." John 8:32

Truth. What an easy concept. And yet, it’s a hard characteristic to have 100% of the time. Somebody asks, “How ya doing?” You don’t go into a diatribe about how you’ve had pains in your joints for months, your mother-in-law drives you nuts and the people at work are testing your patience. For the most part, you say, “Fine” or “Good” and move about your day. And if you’re the asker, you probably aren’t asking because you really want an answer anyway. So both sides aren’t being truthful. Aside from those “little” lies, truth be told, now-a-days, it’s pretty hard to tell and keep “big” lies. With technology the way it is, everything can be checked and verified. If you lie about where you’re at, I can check the GPS in your phone or get a gadget to put in the car. Anything you do on the computer is saved for infinity in the cookies, the cupcakes and the popcorn. It doesn’t matter how many times you think you delete it. Even with this, there are many of us that are still trying to lie about something.


Funny thing about lies, at least in my experience, is they never last. And as technology advances, it’s going to get even worse, eh, better.

Let me give you an example. I recently – and by recently, I mean less than a week ago – got braces. Now, I’m sure you’re wondering what getting braces has to do with lies, or rather, truth. Well, let explain. When you start the process of getting braces, especially at my age, there’s a whole, well, process you have to go through: x-rays in an around-the-world machine that circles your head like you’re part of the solar system. The ortho spending visit after visit (okay, just two) just examining your bite, your teeth individually and collectively. He and his assistant speak in a language that you can’t understand but know is about you (kind of like when you go to a nail salon where everyone is Asian and you KNOW they’re talking about you). He studies your profile, the bones, muscles and tissue of your face. He considers things that would seem to have nothing at all to do with my teeth, like my neck, nose, chin and forehead. And at the end of it all, he could tell two significant things: that I needed braces and that I had been an abused child.

Scary, isn’t it, that the truth of my childhood can be revealed in an ortho’s office? That God gave this man the ability and technology to know a truth about me that maybe I didn’t know, that my abusers certainly don’t admit or even acknowledge; and yet, the truth is there. The evidence is clear.

John 8:32 says, “Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Luckily for me, I already knew I had been abused. It took many years to come to that realization, to deal with that absolute truth. But I had done it. I wonder though if this man could tell me specifics about the abuse that I didn’t know, the force, the frequency, the age that would have had to have happened in order for the damage that was done physically to have been done. My gut tells me he probably could. So that means that he knows more about the truth in my life than I do. How sad that a stranger knows so much more than I do. I wonder how many times he’s known this and the abused either didn’t know or didn’t acknowledge.

You know, it’s so common to hear people say “live your truth.” I know I’ve said that. I’ve even believed that. But the truth is, there’s not your truth or my truth. There’s only God’s truth. There’s only THE truth. If you sleep around, it doesn’t matter that you’re truth may be that there’s nothing wrong with that, but what does God say? That there is. Just because you don’t want it to be true doesn’t make it true. If your truth is different from God’s, then you’re truth is a lie. Period.

My abusers live their truth, that I wasn’t abused. But that is not God’s truth. That’s not THE truth. The truth is I was abused. My face suffered for it. My ears suffered for it. I have the physical and emotional scars to prove it. It would be easy, and cliché, to say ”I know the truth and the truth has set me free”; but I don’t think this time around this scripture is for me, per se. I think it’s for my abusers. You see, they’re living their truth. But freedom only comes from knowing the truth. There is a freedom that comes in being able to be who you are, who you were, the good, the bad and the ugly and still find love. It only comes through Jesus. I truly hope that someday those who have done this to me will know that freedom. THEIR truth isn’t going to get them to heaven, THE truth will.

This realization may not bring me any closer to a gentle, quiet spirit, but it does get me that much closer to forgiveness, real forgiveness, and real freedom that only God’s truth can bring.

Till next time.