I find myself back on road I have been on but with no personal ties other than the relationship I have with the woman with whom I have known for many years. I would like to say she is a friend but like the word “love” I find that the word “friend” is over used and loses it’s value. We have now come up with new acronyms for friends like BF and BFF and yes they may actually be a person’s best friend but where does that leave all the other people we know. Are they simply people we know or do we call them “friends” for the sake of defining who they are. And for whose sake do we define, ours or theirs?

Sorry that was an unexpected bunny trail.

The road I’m back on is the road I travelled with my mom in her last month. I had to work through loving her enough to pray the prayers she wanted me to pray and the prayers that I wanted to pray for her. They were vastly different and it threw my prayer life into a tail spin. Do I pray her heart’s desire to go home now or do I pray my heart’s desire for more time? Wendy is right now where I was. Her mom has decided that she is tired, she has lived a good life and she just wants it to end. She has not been well and she loses ground almost on a daily basis. For the past month or so I have been following along the road with Wendy, listening when she wanted an ear, adding my experience to hers when she asked for it and offering to always keep her mom in my prayers.

Here is where it gets sticky. I have been praying for her mom but it has not been the prayer that Wendy asked me to pray. It’s been the exact opposite as she has asked for more time and I have been asking for His Mercy. It doesn’t get sticky because the perception that my prayers have not been answered because I believe they have been. His Mercy is His and looks different to everyone and for all I know this IS His Mercy at work. For all I know Wendy’s mom’s heart may truly be for more time and in there is His Mercy. Maybe He has something else in the works and He needs to stretch out time, I just don’t know.

I got an email from Wendy this morning telling me to “keep praying girl, your prayers are being answered, mom is doing so much better and knowing that you are praying for her brings her peace”

Gulp. Now what? Do I tell Wendy that I have not been praying for what she asked me to pray or do I keep my prayers to myself? How far do I open this door to her? If I open it all the way will she walk through it with me? Will she want to know more about my prayer life and Jesus or will this kill a friendship in the making?

The only thing I can think to do is to take it to His feet and ask for Him to walk me through this. Prayer is after all, an act of listening to His heart, agreeing with what He has asked for and pouring yourself into His will.

From here I hope to fully restore what I have lost.

Truth be told I am a liar. I have lied and most likely will continue to lie with the full knowledge that what is about to come out of my mouth IS in fact a lie. Am I powerless to stop it?  The answer is no. Are there circumstances where a lie is acceptable? Again, no. Why do I do it you ask? Is lying really much easier than being honest? No I don’t think so. Lying is less confrontational, it is easier to lie than it is to be honest but trying to keep track of the lies is near impossible and eventually the truth will come out.

There have been times when the phone has rung and rather than simply answer it I check the caller ID. No I don’t call this “screening my calls” I call it “am I really in the mood to talk to X”. If it’s someone that I have to be mentally ready to talk to there’s a good chance that the call will go unanswered at least 50% of the time. Then 40% of the time I’ll either “just be on my way out the door” or “just getting in”. The remaining 10% will be the calls that I actually take. Basically 90% of the time I’ll lie to those folks that I need to be ready to talk  listen to not because it’s easier for me but because it’s easier for them, or so I thought.

I recently put someone’s calls on ignore for a few days and when they asked me where in Sam Hill I had been for so long I caved. I told them the bare truth, that I have been really busy lately with precious time to myself and have not been in the mood to take their calls. Needless to say the next 5 minutes were quite tense as they insisted that what I had just said was mean spirited. When I asked them to pick between a lie and the truth they oddly enough, chose the truth but suggested that the next time they call and I’m not “up” to talking listening to them I should just say so and they’ll call me another time. Ya, right, like that will work!

Folks would call those types of lies “little white lies” and say they are harmless really but do they not harm someone. Are we not harming ourselves by not setting up barriers for the folks who call and suck the brains out of our heads. Are we not enabling their boundary free behavior by simply “being out” when they call rather than telling them that they can be draining to talk to?

Currently I am walking a road with someone who is seeing their own life unraveling as the lies are catching up to them. These are not the little white lies that hurt no one but rather the type of lies that leave everyone wondering just what is real and what is a lie. These lies will destroy not only the person’s life but also the lives of those who they hold near and dear. I am losing a friend and they are losing credibility because for them, it’s just easier to lie than to be honest. What a waste of a life, a love and a marriage.

I wonder….did they start with the line “ya, sorry I missed your call I must have been out”?

I was always under the impression that integrity could neither be bought nor sold but this week has been an eye opener for me. I have met and have known some people who seem a little short on integrity but I have never actually met someone who is completely devoid of it.

There was an incident at work this week between my co-worker (I used the term “worker” very loosely) and a customer that has had a ripple effect that I had not imagined. Rather than help me to serve the long line of customers my co-worker chose her favorite endeavour, talking. Or as I refer to it “yapping without end and without an informed opinion, just an opinion”.

One of our regular customers who had been standing in line waiting to be served informed my co-worker that she had heard quite enough of this little conversation and would really appreciate some service. Well didn’t that just put my co-worker into a pissie fit, I mean really, what was she getting paid to do anyway, certainly not work. It would seem that although our work descriptions are exactly the same my co-worker has an entirely different reason for being at work and right at this moment I’m not sure the girl with gills can even spell work.

As she (my co-worker) approached my side she said something very vile and derogatory about the customer in what she thought was a hushed tone. Needless to say it was said non too quietly and the customer over heard her comment. This prompted a letter of complaint that was delivered to my boss and has made it up the payroll chain to one of the 2 owners of our store.

When my co-worker was confronted with the customer’s letter of complaint she claimed to have not said what she said but did admit to saying something perhaps “close” to what the customer had heard. By the time the letter reached the owner her story has changed into something that even the world’s best fiction writer would not recognize. 

When I left work yesterday I had decided that this is not a place where I can continue to work given the lack of action at a supervisory, or higher level to such a bucket of lies. I left work yesterday enraged by what I heard my co-worker tell the owner had really happened in her opinion but probably I was even further enraged by my own lack of responsibility in telling the owner that that was NOT how this incident went.

I spent most of last night in a battle between cursing at myself for not “setting the record straight” and self protection because I want nothing to do with this whole mess. The right thing to do would be to step up to the plate but how does that show Grace to my co-worker. By giving my account of the incident my co-worker would most certainly be fired and then I would no longer have opportunities to be a Christian influence in her life. By keeping quiet I am hiding the truth from everyone and I’m enabling my co-worker in her lie. See the struggle.

Today life has a new perspective, turns out I’m not the only one on planet Earth who can recognize a lie when they hear one, who knew! No matter what the owners decide to do regarding my co-worker I will struggle to figure out if the cost of integrity is a mere $8.00 an hour or if the cost is much, much higher.

Wow, I have not been here much lately, not because I’m still ranting but because I have no time. There is tons of stuff that I could, should, blog about but I seem to be trying to spread myself too thin. Like everyone else on planet Earth I have 24 hours, no more and no less, at least not today. And yet I can’t seem to get caught up much less ahead. Maybe if I sleep less I could cram more into a day. I did after all sleep in today right up until 7:30 when the garbage truck squealed up to my house. Man did that feel good.

So where has my time gone? I took the job I currently have partially for the money but mostly because I believe in a much larger plan that involves me making a difference in someone else’s life, namely my boss. The money comes in handy when the car payments for my brand spankin’ new car come due, I treated myself to a rather extravagant birthday present whom, by the way TJ, is NOT called “my will”. But I seem to be putting in way more than the hours I was led to believe I would be getting.

I was told during my interview that I would probably only get 2 or 3 eight hour shifts a week which pretty much lined up with my concept of a part time job. To date I’m lucky if I get 2 or 3 days off in a two week pay period. Not a complaint just a fact that suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks.

Is it possible to lose yourself during your quest to make a difference in someone else’s life? Can you get so wrapped up in being a blessing that you forget to be blessed? Or does your own blessing come from being a blessing?

I never really thought much about being blessed myself until someone asked me yesterday what blessings I had received recently.  I could have written a book starting with “well, I woke up this morning, I’m still here and now you’re here too”. Life is not, should not, be about what you can get out of it but rather it should be about what you can put into it then give away from it. 

I wonder what would the world look like if people did for others without the notion of payback for themselves? Is that the key to selfless living? Can you truly lose yourself by living selflessly? Are the parts that you do lose parts you can live without?

So many questions, so many answers and yet there are only 24 hours in a day, all of them I am squeezing until the excess squirts out through my tightly balled up hand.

One of the conversations I had while I was away started with the question, “if I ask you a question will you give me an honest answer ?” Hmmm, does this person not know me or has the 5th beer made their brain a wee bit too mushy. Part of my charm, yes I prefer to call it a charm rather than a flaw, is my inability to give anything BUT an honest answer. I will admit that sometimes my delivery of said honest answer lacks sweetness but in the end the person got what they wanted, the truth.

There is absolutely no reason that I can fathom why a person can’t give an honest answer. “Do these jeans make me look fat” is not trick question, it’s someones quest for an honest answer. On occasion that question comes loaded because the person who asks it is really wondering if you’ve noticed that they have added to their emergency caloric reserve. Sometimes the question gets asked for validation either that they are a little heavier or that their extra weight doesn’t matter to you. Just the same, a question was asked and an answer is expected.

The litmus test of honest answers is not in how much truth you divulge but rather in the way you package your answer. If you’re out shopping with someone and they happen to find an outfit that they think they would look amazing in don’t just agree with them for the sake of agreeing. If they ask for your opinion, have one. If the outfit that they have tried on makes them look like Barney on crack find a way to dissuade them from buying the outfit. Depending on the relationship you have with the person you may be able to bluntly say “nope, you’d look better running around naked” or “how sad that the manufacturer miscut the fabric”.

I think part of the problem that people have with being completely honest has nothing to do with wanting to spare someones feelings but rather with our own inability to take responsibility for our opinions, as different as they may be. Lying to someone is easier than standing your ground all under the guise of keeping the water calm. It’s easier to agree with someone and keep the peace than it is to have a differing opinion that will muddy up the water. Sadly I spend a lot of my time in muddy water and I’m completely OK with that.