Truth Part I

Gram often talks about her childhood. Through the years, she has brought a smile to my face as she fondly remembers different things that helped shape her into the woman she is today. It had seemed to me that Gram must have had an idyllic childhood from the way she talked, so I was surprised in my early twenties to learn that my Gram had come from a broken home. She had even been separated from the rest of the family for a while as a great-aunt offered to help by taking her in. Those were especially trying times, but, even as a child, Gram has spoken of a relationship with Jesus, which saw her through her loneliness. She matter-of-factly told me that He became her friend and confidant. She never felt that she was alone because He was always there. Even tonight, she quoted Matthew 28:20b Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. To have that certainty and knowledge deep down inside, especially as a young child, is something that is rare. In the past I have also heard Gram say, God said it, I believe it, that settles it. We could all learn from that simplistic, yet profound motto.

Gram often thought of her four sisters and one brother when she lived away from home, and waited for the day when she would be reunited with them. She also loved and missed her mother very much. She told me that her mother once sat all six of her children down and said, "Our relationships will be built on truth. Everything I say to you will be the truth, and if I ever learn that something I tell you was in error, I will come back to you and correct it. I will also apologize to you, so you know that you will always be able to trust me."

Truth and trust go hand in hand. Some of the least trusting people in the world today are the ones who have learned that they can not depend on receiving the truth from others. There is another motto - Fool me once, it's your fault. Fool me twice, it's my fault. We are programmed to be suspicious.

What a different world it would be if we could trust the "truth" of others. Truth is not relative, it is absolute. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me".

Even though we may come from broken homes, or have learned that people here on earth can disappoint us with broken promises, untruths, half-truths or white lies, we can trust the Only One who is truth. And by the way, if it isn't all truth, it isn't the truth at all, so a "white lie" is just a "lie of a different color".

I wonder what an amazing difference we would make to the next generation and the future in general if each one of us sat our children down to tell them the words that Gram's mother said to her as a child. I believe in my heart that we would not only be nurturing an honest future generation, but we would also be bringing up our children to be trusting individuals. How much easier would it be for our children to trust HIM when they know they can trust us?