Your pants are clearly on fire!

Liar liar, pants on fire.

Little white lies.

Honesty is something I am huge on. It is so incredibly hard to trust people, and I am a perfect example why. I am sinful, and wretched and do bad things. I cannot trust myself most days and the bible clearly says why: The heart's deceitful above all things ( Jeremiah 17:9 but pointed out to me today via the Flame/Shai Linne song "To My Heart").

But how honest am I?

Until very recently, I was not honest with someone I am super super close to: ME. I often try to lie to myself by telling myself I can deal with certain situations and relationships, situations or that I am over things people said or did when in fact it is banging around in the pit of my stomach where I pushed all those feelings and emotions. Its not like I can hide my emotions from anyone who is not blind, deaf or breathing. I am not smooth or slick or gifted in any surreptious fashion. The Lord sought out to force me to be honest by making me completely transparent 98% of the time. But apparently since I cant see myself often, I believe my own lies.

This has been a season of honesty for myself. Not a fun season exactly but more of a brutal open hunting season.

Anyway... I was inclined to write this post as my mother, grandmother and I were discussing lies the other day. The situation is that a few weeks ago I stopped at a gas station in South Holland (the town not the country) due to some car problems, specifically my car was saying it was very very hot. A very nice man happened over as I was looking bewildered under my hood and offered to help. He added some fluids and checked others and when I went around the remove my gas pump he closed the hood and told me I was all set and no more problems for my car, Have a safe trip home. As I guided my car back onto the expressway, I remarked to my car full of friends that you just dont find people like that anymore. That man was so very nice and thoughtful and went out of his way to help me with only hitting on me the bare minimum and asking for my phone number once. No seriously, he did all that for no reason! And after I turned down his request, he still filled my fluids and smiled and shook my hand. As I went on and on about how impressed I was at how caring he was, I hit about 60 on the expressway and suddenly WHAM! the hood detached from the car and plastered itself onto the windshield, smashing it. That nice young man forgot to close the hood and I didnt think to check it.

Long story short, I am fine,we are all fine and I just got my car back yesterday. About two hundred dollars later, my white toyota camry now sports a shiny black hood (it was cheaper).
But unfortunately, I could not fix the windshield yet. It will cpst another 150$ and I dont have that right now. The smash mark is on the drivers side and while its not humongous, it is like someone punched the windshield trying to get at my face or something.

SO THE HONESTY PART (you were wondering how I was going to pull this all together werent you?) I will be driving all over the Chicagoland area as I usually do, with a cracked windshield. My mom and grandma were creating elaborate sorrow filled stories (lies) for me to be prepared with in case I get pulled over since it is illegal and costly to drive with a smashed windshield. I told them that those were lies and wrong per the ten commandments. They were shocked and after a long heated debate my grandma usurped my declaration that all lying is wrong by saying, "NO all lying is not wrong. If you tell a lie and no one gets hurt or nothing bad happens then its not a sin. White lies are NOT a sin."

I told her she made that up and if we could do that and it be true then dogs would fly and I would never have to clean. She and my mother definitively agreed that white lies are not harmful or bad.

YOU?