"If You'll Lie, You'll Steal"
The truth I was afraid to tell and what happened when I finally did.
Last week I shared with you why I tell the truth. I told you about the moment I heard God speak to me about truth during my mother’s illness. But that was not the beginning of my relationship with truth.
My mother instilled in me what was foundational for her mother before her: “If you’ll lie, you’ll steal.”
Being a literal person since childhood, I took that to heart. So even if my mother asked me to tell someone on the phone that she wasn’t home, it was not happening. What I could do was say she’s not available right now. Can I take a message? Something in that direction was the compromise I could make. But I was not going to lie.
Telling the truth became one of my core values. Now as a human being and as a developing child, I’m not saying I never told a lie. I’m not saying I never misled someone. What I am saying is that truth has always been foundational. My ability to trust another person’s word has been vital in every relationship I’ve had. Once I lose trust in your honesty, our relationship is fractured. It may never be repaired to what once existed.
To be clear, telling the truth and sharing the truth are different in the context of my work. What once focused on “not” lying now means forward action. Truth has moved from a value to a calling. It is about standing in the power of your own best interest. It is about setting yourself free from the story you were never meant to carry alone. It is about being open and vulnerable and refusing to let fear keep you in bondage. It is about helping someone who is walking the path you have already traveled. It is about being human. It is about responsibility. It is about giving back. It is about being a light in a dark world. Your truth matters. What you have experienced is a lesson someone else needs to learn. Your willingness to tell it can significantly change another person’s life.
That is my calling.
“I did the best I could with who I was and what I had available to me at the time.”
Now let me tell you one of the truths I was most afraid to tell.
For a long time I was afraid to tell people that I had experienced infidelity. Several times in my marriage. Because I felt embarrassed. Me. A strong Black woman. Intelligent, highly capable, gifted, beautiful inside and out. And I accepted infidelity in my marriage.
I didn’t lie down and take it quietly. I didn’t shrink and decide I wasn’t worthy. I valued my family. I had seen infidelity in my community growing up. I knew it was wrong. But it wasn’t a clear standard I had set for myself. It wasn’t a dealbreaker, apparently. It wasn’t something I had decided was intolerable. And he wasn’t the first person who had cheated on me in a relationship. Because I had been desensitized to it early, I didn’t know how to battle it. How to walk away.
Somewhere in my life, I forgot my value. I missed the message that I deserved better or that better was possible. And deep within me, fear ruled. Fear of abandonment. Fear of rejection. Fear of not being the one chosen.
And I didn’t want people to know any of it. Because “I should have known better. I should have done better. I should have chosen better.”
But I didn’t. I know that I did the best I could with who I was and what I had available to me at the time. But a day came when things got better. I remembered me. I got to see me. Got to appreciate me. And I began telling myself the truth. Until you can own your truth, you will be in bondage to it.
So one day I felt this strong urge to create a post on Facebook. Not what I wanted to do. Sharing my story publicly carried a lot of weight and fear. But I did it. Not every detail but I did tell the truth. And my body trembled. I was afraid of the judgment. The retaliation. The repercussions of revealing someone else’s behavior in my story. But I recognized that it was my story. I owned it. I was telling my story, not someone else’s. And I recognized that I was not responsible for protecting someone else from the consequences of their own choices. They chose what they chose. And it is not my life’s mission, responsibility, or obligation to shield them from it with my silence.
What I did not expect was what came after I posted it.
Relief. Freedom. After the first 15 minutes of my nervous system screaming “what are you doing?” and me shaking, trembling, and crying, the clouds parted. The sun shined through. The wind blew away the debris and life began again. A new version of me, because I had told my truth.
Now what about yours?
What is the story you are withholding? What experience are you too embarrassed to revisit? What dream are you keeping quiet because if you speak it out loud you will be held accountable for it?
What relationship are you in where you are not telling the truth about how you feel, what you think, or what you need?
What is actually happening in your career? Are you doing what you want to do? Are you fulfilled?
What is holding you back from telling the truth? And what is the worst that could actually happen if you did? Drop me a note if you’re ready to share.