Lying

I recently heard a story reminding me of the evils with lying (a number of you know this story and I have permission to share this).

A mother of three found herself pregnant by a man other than her husband.  It was during a time when divorce, immorality, and abortion were all deeply frowned upon.   The wife and mother, pregnant by another, did not have the option of abortion used by many today so she carried the child to birth.

An 11 year old son had not covered the burn barrel after lighting it and left for school.  The fire got out of the barrel and the very pregnant mother had to go out to address the fire and fell on the steps when returning to the house. The story told was that the accident initiated the delivery so the mom went to a hospital and gave birth.  She did not come home with the baby reporting that something was wrong with the child and needed to be left at the hospital.  About a year later the parents told their three children that the baby had died.

On a few occasions over the years the Dad had told his three children that one of his children was not his.  They thought he was kidding for they all looked very much alike.

After Dad died, in a box of papers, a certificate was found announcing the birth of the girl so the one telling the story decided to seek a more detailed certificate and possibly a death certificate to put with the family papers.  At the county courthouse, the record of the birth was found but revelation of more information was forbidden because the baby had been adopted – the baby did NOT die!

The man, in an effort to find this adopted sister, put his DNA on a search site. A few years later, a woman in IL, in an attempt to discover her medical history as her son had brain cancer, put her DNA out.  And there was a maternal match.  A contact with the IL woman revealed that her mother was indeed adopted and had the exact birthday as the baby once thought dead.

The woman (once thought dead, but actually adopted) told of being raised as a single child and lonely for there was no extended family.  Furthermore, the adopted parents had split when she was about ten and she stayed with the father who molested her.  Later she moved to be with her mother who basically treated her as property and the last five years of life would not even talk to her. Not surprisingly, today she struggles with depression, poverty, and fears.

The lie by the parents caused a lifetime of heartache for the woman.  Also, nearly a lifetime of guilt was bore by the son who thought it was his fault that the baby had died.  One sister was greatly angered by being lied to for all those years.  What a terrible thing for all the children because the parents opted to lie to “save face”.  [If a “sin” is addressed in repentance before God and those affected, it does not need to be spilled to all the rest of one’s days.]

In the movie, Chernobyl, this statement is made:  “When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there.  But it is still there.  Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later that debt is paid.”